Developing a
Strategic Plan
Section 3 of the bill would add §318 to
6
USC Subchapter III (actually the section number would probably end up being
§196 because of the silly way that Congress writes laws and then converts them
to US Code) that would require the Under Secretary of Science and Technology to
develop and transmit to Congress a “a strategic plan to guide the overall direction
of Federal physical security and cybersecurity technology research and development
efforts for protecting critical infrastructure” {§318(a)}.
That plan would include identifying:
• Critical infrastructure security
risks and the associated security technology gaps {§318(b)(1)};
• A set of critical infrastructure
security technology needs {§318(b)(2)};
• Laboratories, facilities, modeling,
and simulation capabilities that will be required to support the research,
development, demonstration, testing, evaluation, and acquisition of the security
technologies {§318(b)(3)}; and
• Current and planned programmatic
initiatives for fostering the rapid advancement and deployment of security
technologies for critical infrastructure protection {§318(b)(4)}.
Public-Private
R&D Consortiums
Section 319 would also be added, requiring a separate study
by the Under Secretary. This one would address the use of “public-private
research and development consortiums for accelerating technology development for
critical infrastructure protection” {§319(a)}. The study would focus on
privately owned critical infrastructure that would most benefit from the rapid
advancement of security technology.
The study would include:
• A summary of the progress and
accomplishments of on-going consortiums for critical infrastructure security
technologies {§319(b)(1)};
• A prioritized list of technology
development focus areas that would most benefit from a public-private research
and development consortium {§319(b)(1)}; and
• A proposal for implementing an
expanded research and development consortium program, including an assessment
of feasibility and an estimate of cost, schedule, and milestones {§319(b)(1)}.
No Funding
As with most pieces of legislation that require the
production of studies and reports to Congress, this bill does not provide any
funding to DHS S&T to carry out any of this work. In fact, this bill goes
the normal bill one better; §4 specifically states that no “additional funds
are authorized to be appropriated to carry out this Act and the amendments made
by this Act, and this Act and such amendments shall be carried out using
amounts otherwise available for such purpose”.
Moving Forward
As with most study bills whether or not this bill moves
through the legislative process will depend almost solely on how much pull the
author can bring to bear to convince the leadership to move the bill along. It
is non-controversial and something that really can’t be argued against since no
money is being spent.
In any markup before the House Homeland Security Committee there
will be bipartisan support for the bill after language is added to ensure that
historically black colleges and universities as well as other minority
institutions are included in any proposed research consortiums. I’m not sure
why Republican authors of these types of bills don’t just automatically add
such language (the Democrats always do) since they will support (or at least acquiesce
to) such amendments when offered.
If this bill gets out of Committee it will be one of those
bills that (if brought to the floor) will be considered under suspension of the
rules and adopted by a bipartisan vote with minimal debate. It would then be
passed in the Senate (if it sufficiently attracts the attention of the
leadership) by unanimous consent with no debate.
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