Last month, Sen Sheehy (R,MT) introduced S 4794, the Precision Agriculture Cybersecurity Act. The bill would require two different reports to Congress on cybersecurity in precision agriculture technologies. No new spending is authorized.
Moving Forward
While Sheehy is not a member of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration, his sole cosponsor, Sen Schiff (D,CA) is a member. This means that there may be sufficient influence to see the bill considered by that Committee. Since this is a ‘report to Congress’ bill, I see nothing that would engender any organized opposition. I suspect that there would be significant bipartisan support for the bill if it were considered by the Committee.
This bill is not politically important enough to be considered by the full Senate under regular order. It could possibly be considered under the unanimous consent process, but that process is fraught with potential opposition for unrelated political issues. The language from this bill could be added to a spending or authorization bill.
For more information on the provisions of this bill, as well as suggestions for vulnerability disclosure language, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/s-4794-introduced-ag-cybersecurity - subscription required.
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