HR 1223 Passed in House – ANCHOR Act

Yesterday the House began consideration of HR 1223, the ANCHOR Act, under the suspension of the rules process. After completing just eight minutes of the scheduled 40 minutes of debate, the House was delayed from voting on the bill due to a lack of quorum, so the vote was postponed until today. This afternoon the House passed the bill by a vote of 412 to 11. The bill now goes to the Senate for consideration.

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 faces the problem of political capital in the Senate. This bill is not politically important enough to be considered under regular order. That means, as a practical matter, that it must either pass under the unanimous consent process, or be ignored in that body. A similar fate befell HR 7630, a near identical bill introduced in the 118^th Congress.