Washington D.C. – In response to an announcement this afternoon that the House will consider four bills next week to address cyber threats to America’s national security, Science, Space, and Technology Committee Chairman Ralph Hall (R-TX) praised the effort and highlighted Committee bills that will be considered.
Chairman Hall:
I am pleased the House will consider important legislation to address the evolving threat of cyber attacks on our nation’s infrastructure. House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor created the Cybersecurity Task Force in order to strategically guide congressional efforts to prevent and address cyber threats. Next week, several bills will be considered by the House that would update and streamline federal efforts in this area. I am pleased two important Science Committee bills that would coordinate research and development efforts at our nation’s science agencies will be considered as part of the initiative.”
The House will consider the following two bills that were passed out of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee:
- H.R. 3834, bipartisan legislation introduced by Chairman Hall, reauthorizes the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) program, which represents the federal government’s central research and development (R&D) investment portfolio for unclassified networking, computing, software, cybersecurity, and related information technology. The NITRD program focuses on R&D to detect, prevent, resist, respond to, and recover from actions that threaten to compromise the availability, integrity, or confidentiality of computer-and network-based systems.
- H.R. 2096, introduced by Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), coordinates R&D activities conducted across the federal agencies to better address evolving cyber threats. H.R. 2096 reauthorizes basic cybersecurity research programs at the National Science Foundation (NSF), and strengthens the efforts of the NSF and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the areas of cybersecurity technical standards and cybersecurity awareness, education, and talent development.
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