HR 7630 Passed in House – ANCHOR Act

Today, the House took up HR 7630 [removed from paywall], the Accelerating Networking, Cyberinfrastructure, and Hardware for Oceanic Research (ANCHOR) Act, under the suspension of the rules process. After less than ten minutes of debate, the bill was passed by a voice vote. The bill would require the National Science Foundation (NSF) to submit a plan to improve the cybersecurity and telecommunications of the Academic Research Fleet. No new funding is authorized by the legislation.

The bill now moves to the Senate for consideration. The legislation is not politically important enough to be considered under regular order, but it does appear to be a good candidate for consideration under the Senate’s unanimous consent process. A slightly different version of the bill, S 3943 [removed from paywall], was introduced in the Senate and subsequently was ordered reported favorably (without a written report) on August 1^st by the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee.