HR 2225 Passed in House - the National Science Foundation for the Future Act

Yesterday the House considered HR 2225, the National Science Foundation for the Future Act, under the suspension of the rules process. The bill passed by a bipartisan vote of 345 to 67. Even though 67 Republicans voted against the bill, there was no negative comment uttered on the floor of the House during the debate on the bill.

It is unlikely that the Senate will take up the version of this bill that was passed in the House. The Senate passed S 1260 earlier this month and that bill also provided authorization for the National Science Foundation, and much more. Even where the two bills do the same thing, authorizing funding for the NSF for instance (see HR 2225, §4 and S 1260, §2116) there are significant differences between the two bills.

What the Senate is likely to do (if) when they consider this bill is to substitute the language from S 1260 for the House version and then pass the bill. The House would be unlikely to accept the Senate language. This would lead to a conference committee working out the many differences between the two bills. I expect that we will receive the combined language sometime this fall. It will be interesting to see what cybersecurity language comes out in that bill.

Committee Hearings – Week of 6-27-21

With just the House in session this week (the Senate takes a 2-week 4^th of July recess), there is still a long list of hearings being held. Appropriations bills are being marked up, there is also a DOD cybersecurity hearing and a markup of several cybersecurity bills.

Appropriations Markup Hearings

6-28-21 House – Subcommittee - Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies (IER),

6-30-21 House – Subcommittee – DOD,

6-30-21 House – Subcommittee – DHS,

6-30-21 House – Committee - Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration (ARF)

Cybersecurity Hearing

On Tuesday the Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative Technologies, and Information Systems of the House Armed Services Committee will hold a hearing on “Department of Defense Information Technology, Cybersecurity, and Information Assurance for Fiscal Year 2022”. The sole witness will be John Sherman, CIO, DOD.

Cybersecurity Markup

On Wednesday the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology of the House Energy and Commerce Committee will be holding a hearing on “A safe wireless future: securing our networks and supply chains.” There is no witness list and there is a list of cybersecurity and communications security related bills, so I am kind of assuming that this is a markup hearing, but it is not listed as such on the Committee web site. The following bills are listed:

HR 4029, the Timely Evaluation of Acquistions, Mergers or Transactions with External, Lawful Entities to Clear Owners and Management (TEAM Telecom) Act,

HR 4045, the Future Uses of Technology Upholding Reliable and Enhanced Networks Act" or the "FUTURE Networks Act,

HR 4046, the NTIA Policy and Cybersecurity Coordination Act,

HR 4055, the American Cybersecurity Literacy Act,

HR 4067, the Communications Security Advisory Act of 2021,

HR 2685, the Understanding Cybersecurity of Mobile Networks Act,

HR 3919, the Secure Equipment Act of 2021,

HR 4028, the Information and Communication Technology Strategy Act,

HR 4032, the Open RAN Outreach Act

The GPO has only published one of these bills (HR 2685) and it is not one that I would cover. The links above are to committee prints of the bills. I will be doing a quick review of these bills before Wednesday.

On the Floor

Today the House is scheduled to take up HR 2225, the National Science Foundation for the Future Act, under the suspension of the rules process. The way the Republicans have been playing delaying games with such bills, a vote will be demanded and there will be a mass vote on all 11 suspension bills on Tuesday.

As I mentioned yesterday, sometime later in the week the House will take up HR 3684, the INVEST in America Act. I will have more on what amendments will actually be considered after the two Rules Committee hearings today and tomorrow.

Review - HR 2225 Amended and Adopted in Committee – NSF Authorization

Yesterday the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee held a markup hearing that included consideration of HR 2225, the National Science Foundation for the Future Act. The Committee adopted substitute language for the bill after considering thirteen additional amendments. All amendments and the substitute language were adopted by voice vote. Additional cybersecurity language was included. The Committee ordered the bill favorably reported to the House.

Substitute Language

From a cybersecurity perspective there were three significant changes made to the bill in the substitute language. There was a change in funding for the FY 2022 Cybercorps Scholarship for Service Program. There was new language added addressing cyber workforce development research and protecting research from cyber theft.

Cybersecurity Amendments

 

An amendment offered by Rep Waltz (R,FL) would amend the Federal Cyber Scholarship-for-Service Program (15 USC 7442) by adding at the end of §7442(b)(1) “and cybersecurity-related aspects of other related fields as appropriate, including artificial intelligence, quantum computing and aerospace”. This would expand the cybersecurity areas that could be supported by the Program.

The second cybersecurity related amendment was offered by Rep Posey (R,FL). It would add a new subsection (g) to §5 of the bill. That subsection would require NSF to establish a cybersecurity workforce data initiative.

Moving Forward

This bill will almost certainly move forward to the full House. It is likely to be considered under regular order with a rule providing for consideration of at least some amendments from the floor. The bill is likely to receive bipartisan support and will certainly pass in the House.

For more details on the revised language and amendments, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-2225-amended-and-adopted-in-committee (subscription required).

Committee Hearings – Week of 6-13-21

With both the House and Senate in Washington there is a full slate of hearings on the schedule. Budget hearings are going into the final round as the House is expected to start publishing spending bills in the next few weeks. Additionally, we have one markup hearing of note and three cybersecurity hearings.

Budget Hearings

6-15-21 Senate Energy & Natural Resources – DOE,

6-16-21 Senate THUD Subcommittee – DOT,

6-17-21 House Homeland Security Committee – DHS,

6-17-21 Senate Appropriations Committee – DOD,

Normally, I do not comment much on budget hearings. They are typically high-level spending discussions, particularly at the department level like the ones this week. The DHS hearing could end up with some interesting discussions on cybersecurity spending, but I still do not expect any real discussion of program level spending.

Markup Hearing

On Tuesday the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee will be holding a markup hearing on two bills:

HR 2225, National Science Foundation for the Future Act, and

HR 3593, Department of Energy Science for the Future Act

I have not seen the second bill. The GPO is a long way from publishing it and there are problems (not unusual) with the link on the House.gov web site for the Committee Print.

The interesting thing here is that HR 2225 is being touted as the House answer to S 1260, so I expect to see some significant amendments being offered for the bill to help bulk it up some.

Cybersecurity Hearings

On Tuesday two subcommittees of the House Homeland Security Committee will be holding a hearing on “Cyber Threats in the Pipeline: Lessons from the Federal Response to the Colonial Pipeline Ransomware Attack.” The witness list includes:

• Soya Proctor, TSA, and

• Eric Goldstein, CISA

On Wednesday the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will be holding a business meeting to consider three nominations, including:

• Jen Easterly to be Director of CISA, and

• Chris Inglis to be National Cyber Director.

I expect to see bipartisan support for favorably reporting both nominations.

On Thursday the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will be holding a hearing on “Addressing Emerging Cybersecurity Threats to State and Local Government”. A witness list is not currently available.

Review - HR 2225 Introduced – NSF for the Future Act

Back in March Rep Johnson (D,TX) introduced HR 2225, the National Science Foundation for the Future Act. This is the annual authorization bill for the NSF. As introduced there was only one mention of cybersecurity in the bill. A markup hearing by the Subcommittee on Research And Technology of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee conducted last month added two amendments addressing cybersecurity workforce issues.

For a more detailed analysis of the provisions of this bill see my post on CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-2225-introduced  - Subscription required.

Bills Introduced – 3-26-21

Yesterday, with the House meeting in pro forma session, there were 106 bills introduced. Two of those bills may receive additional coverage in this blog:

HR 2225 To authorize appropriations for fiscal years 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, and 2026 for the National Science Foundation, and for other purposes. Rep. Johnson, Eddie Bernice [D-TX-30] 

HR 2236 To establish a voluntary program to identify and promote internet-connected products that meet industry-leading cybersecurity and data security standards, guidelines, best practices, methodologies, procedures, and processes, and for other purposes. Rep. Lieu, Ted [D-CA-33]

I will be watching HR 2225 for cybersecurity research initiatives.

HR 2236 is probably a companion bill to S 965 that was introduced yesterday by Sen. Markey (D,MA).