Bills Introduced – 9-27-21

Yesterday, with both the House and Senate in session there were 33 bills introduced. One of those bills may receive additional coverage in this blog:

HR 5376 To provide for reconciliation pursuant to title II of S. Con. Res. 14. Rep. Yarmuth, John A. [D-KY-3]

Knowing that at least one committee (House Science, Space, and Technology Committee) included cybersecurity spending in their portion of the bill, I will be watching this long (2,468 pages) bill for additional cybersecurity coverage.

Odd side note: Speaker Pelosi (D,CA) and the House Democratic Leadership have been calling this the ‘Build Back Better’ bill for weeks; that title is not included in the bill. We are stuck with the awkward “To provide for reconciliation pursuant to title II of S. Con. Res. 14.”. Yeah, everyone (okay, at least the supporters) is still going to call this the 'Build Back Better Bill'. "4B or not 4B, that is the questions". Sorry could not help myself.

Interestingly, the House held an unscheduled pro forma session on Sunday, presumably for the purpose of introducing this bill, but it was not apparently ready for introduction then, as the House Budget Committee held their final markup of the bill on Saturday. There was one bill introduced (HR 5374), but it was not of interest here.

BTW: I do want to mention another bill in passing that was introduced yesterday. I will probably not be following the bill in this blog, but it may have some rather interesting implications. That bill is:

HR 5388 To establish a strategic active pharmaceutical ingredient reserve to maintain a domestic supply of active pharmaceutical ingredients and key starting materials needed for the manufacturing of essential generic medicines, and to build a pipeline for domestic active pharmaceutical ingredient production. Rep. Spanberger, Abigail Davis [D-VA-7]

House Passes HR 239 – Cybersecurity Research

Yesterday the House passed HR 239, the Support for Rapid Innovation Act of 2017 by a voice vote. The bill was considered under the suspension of the rules process with only 9 minutes of debate. It would require the DHS Science and Technology (S&T) directorate to support the conduct of a variety of cybersecurity research; including research on “technologies to reduce vulnerabilities in industrial control systems” {new 6 USC 321(b)(6)}.

This bill is nearly identical to HR 5388 that was passed in the House last June. It was never taken up in the Senate.

HR 239 shares the same shortcoming of the earlier bill, it specifically {§2(c)} does not include additional funding for the new research requirements. This means that the existing grant monies distributed by S&T for research will be diluted by any amount spent on cybersecurity research.

HR 5388 was introduced so late in the 114^th Congress that the failure of the Senate to take up the bill does not signify any specific opposition to the bill. The calendar toward the end of the session was crowded with too many ‘must pass’ pieces of legislation that lower priority bills such as this were easily overlooked. I suspect that HR 239 will be taken up by the Senate under their unanimous consent process sometime in the coming weeks.

House Passes Two Cybersecurity Bills

Yesterday the House took up two cybersecurity bills under the suspension of the rules process and passed both by strongly bipartisan votes. HR 5388, the Support for Rapid Innovation Act of 2016 passed by a vote of 351 – 4. HR 5389, the Leveraging Emerging Technologies Act of 2016 passed by a vote of 347 – 8. In both cases the opposing votes came from Republicans.

HR 5388 includes specific control system security language. That language is in the section dealing with what types of research would be authorized under the new §319 of the Homeland Security Act of 2002. It would authorize research to “assist the development and support of technologies to reduce vulnerabilities in industrial control systems” {§319(b)(6)}. Still, no new funding for this research (or any of the cybersecurity research authorized by the bill) was provided in the bill, so the additional cybersecurity research effectively dilutes the money made available by DHS S&T for research grants.

Both bills now head to the Senate for consideration. If they do make it to the floor they will undoubtedly pass, but whether or not they are considered is an open question. I suspect that the best chance for their consideration is under the unanimous consent provisions, but that requires that no Senator object. With the minor conservative opposition in the House, the prospect of an objection by at least one conservative Senator is a very real possibility.

Congressional Hearing – Week of 6-19-16

Both the House and Senate will be in Washington again this week. There is less than a month left now before the summer recess; we will have to wait and see how successful Congress is in getting the spending bills completed. There will be two markup hearings (including the DHS spending bill) and hearings on military cyber operations.

DHS Spending

On Wednesday the House Appropriations Committee will be holding their markup of the FY 2017 DHS spending bill. This hearing was originally scheduled for last week.

Military Cyber Operations

On Wednesday the House Armed Services Committee will be holding a hearing on Military Cyber Operations. The witness list includes:

• Thomas Atkin, Office of the Secretary of Defense

• LTG Kevin McLaughlin, U.S. Cyber Command

• BG Charles Moore, Joint Staff, J-39

Maritime Security Markup

On Thursday the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure will hold a markup hearing on three bills, including the as of yet unintroduced “Miscellaneous Maritime Transportation Amendments Act of 2016”. I am guessing that there will be some maritime security provisions.

On the Floor

On Tuesday the House will take up two bills of interest to readers of this blog under the suspension of rules provision. This means limited debate, no amendments and a 2/3 vote for passage. This generally means that the leadership considers the bill non-controversial. The two bills of specific interest are:

• HR 5388, the Support for Rapid Innovation Act of 2016 (Sponsored by Rep. John Ratcliffe / Homeland Security Committee); and

• HR 5389, the Leveraging Emerging Technologies Act of 2016.

Bills Introduced – 06-07-16

With both the House and Senate in session there were 27 bills introduced yesterday. Of those five may be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

HR 5388 To amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to provide for innovative research and development, and for other purposes. Rep. Ratcliffe, John [R-TX-4]

HR 5389 To encourage engagement between the Department of Homeland Security and technology innovators, and for other purposes. Rep. Ratcliffe, John [R-TX-4]

HR 5390 To amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to authorize the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection Agency of the Department of Homeland Security, and for other purposes. Rep. McCaul, Michael T. [R-TX-10]

HR 5393 Making appropriations for the Departments of Commerce and Justice, Science, and Related Agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2017, and for other purposes. Rep. Culberson, John Abney [R-TX-7] 

HR 5394 Making appropriations for the Departments of Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2017, and for other purposes. Rep. Diaz-Balart, Mario [R-FL-25]

The first three bills are those that I mentioned yesterday in my post about congressional hearings. The House Homeland Security Committee will be marking up these bills today. The text for the first two of these bills is currently available from the GPO. This means that I’ll be able to give a little more detail in this post on those bills.

HR 5388 would add a new section to the Homeland Security Act of 2002 authorizing the DHS S&T Directorate to support cybersecurity research and development. Unfortunately, the bill uses the limited definition of information system that does not include control systems so no control system specific security research would be supported. And, as is usual, there are no additional funds authorized for this new program so it effectively dilutes S&T research monies.

HR 5389 would authorize DHS to establish local coordination offices in areas of the country where there were concentrations of “innovative and emerging technology developers and firms” {§2(a)(1)} for the purposes of ‘engagement’ with such entities. Such engagement efforts (again without additional funding) would include {§2(b)(2)}:

• Ensure proven innovative and emerging technologies can be included in existing and future acquisition contracts;

• Coordinate with organizations that provide venture capital to businesses, particularly small businesses and startup ventures, as appropriate, to assist the commercialization of innovative and emerging technologies that are expected to be ready for commercialization in the near term and within 36 months; and

• Address barriers to the utilization of innovative and emerging technologies and the engagement of small businesses and startup ventures in the acquisition process.

HR 5390 is the bill authorizing the re-organization and re-naming of the DHS National Protection and Programs Directorate to emphasize its role in cybersecurity.

The last two bills are spending bills. I will be watching both of them for cybersecurity provisions in both the bills and committee reports. I will, of course, also be watching the transportation bill (and report) for chemical transportation safety and security provisions.

Commentary

It would be interesting to have the Congressional Budget Office do an analysis of how much bills like HR 5388 and HR 5389 reduce funding for current programs that will have money taken from them to support the new programs outlined in these bills.

Now, I fully support keeping federal spending under control, but Congress has gotten really stupid in the way that they authorize new programs without providing any additional funding for them. The money is going to have to come from somewhere and their failure to designate where it will come from means that the public will probably never know what tradeoffs are being made to support these new efforts.

I really suspect that these bills are more political theater than actual efforts to accomplish anything.