Subcommittee Amends and Approves HR 4186

This morning the Research and Technology Subcommittee of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee held a markup hearing on HR 4186, the Frontiers in Innovation, Research, Science, and Technology (FIRST) Act of 2014. The Subcommittee adopted a number of amendments, rejected a few, and adopted the amended version of the bill by a voice vote.

This bill is essentially an authorization bill for a variety of federal science and technology programs, including:

• The National Science Foundation (Title I)

• The Office of Science and Technology Policy (Title III)

• National Institute of Standards and Technology (Title IV)

The only area of this bill that might be of specific interest to the readers of this blog would be §504, Cyber-physical systems. Actually §502 of the bill defined ‘cyber-physical systems’ with a definition added to 15 USC 5503. It defines them as “physical or engineered systems whose networking and information technology functions and physical elements are deeply integrated and are actively connected to the physical world through sensors, actuators, or other means to perform monitoring and control functions” {§502(f)(2)}

Section 504 then goes on to amend 15 USC 5511(a)(1)(I) to modify the current focus of research on cyber-physical systems from ‘improving the security’ to ‘improving the security, reliability, and resilience’ of those systems. It then goes on to add an additional focus {§5511(a)(1)(K)} on increasing the understanding of the ‘scientific principles of cyber-physical systems’ to improve the methods for the design, development and operation of those systems.

So much for any real mention of control system security in this bill. None of the amendments considered (either adopted or rejected) would do anything to further cybersecurity of control systems.

Moving Forward

As I noted in an earlier post about this bill, the Committee leadership certainly wants this bill to move forward. We will see a full committee markup within a couple of weeks. I also suspect that this bill will get to the floor of the House before the summer recess. I expect, though, that that will be as far as it gets. It won’t be because of any specific opposition to this bill, it will just get caught in the election year summer log jam.

HR 4186 Documents Added to Hearing Docket

This morning the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee added a number of documents to the page for the markup hearing on HR 4186 that will be held tomorrow morning. That hearing will be convened by the Subcommittee on Research and Technology.

The documents linked to the hearing web page include:

• A committee draft of HR 4186 (GPO still does not have official version);

• The Staff Markup Memo providing background on the proposed bill; and

• A Section-by-Section review of the proposed bill.

I have not had a chance to do more than skim these documents at this point, but it is clear that there will be at least one section of the bill that will probably be of interest to readers of this blog. Section 504 deals with research on Cyber-Physical Systems.

More information to come in future posts.

Bills Introduced – 03-11-14

With the Senate still in session for the Democrats all-night climate change talk-athon we only have two bills introduced in yesterday’s unofficially proforma House session (it lasted only 2 minutes and 42 seconds). As I mentioned last night one of those may be of specific interest to the readers of this blog:

HR 4186 Latest Title: To provide for investment in innovation through scientific research and development, to improve the competitiveness of the United States, and for other purposes. Sponsor: Rep Bucshon, Larry (R,IN)

BTW: Committee Chair Smith was the only listed co-sponsor of this bill.

Committee Announces Markup Hearing for HR 4186

The Research and Technology Subcommittee of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee announced this evening that it would be holding a markup hearing for HR 4186, the Frontiers in Innovation, Research, Science, and Technology Act of 2014. No I haven’t mentioned this bill because it was apparently introduced today. No copy of the bill is available yet and the hearing is not even listed on the Committee web site.

I hope that the Subcommittee members have had more notice than this, or there won’t be any amendments to mark-up the bill with. I'm assuming that the bill was introduced by the Committee Chair, Lamar Smith (R,TX) or the Subcommittee Chair (R,IN), or maybe both.