House moves ahead with defense bill that includes AI, cyber provisions

The House on Wednesday passed a $848 billion defense policy bill that features several provisions on cybersecurity and artificial intelligence.

Members voted 231 to 196 to approve the chamber’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which outlines Pentagon policy for the year.

The policy roadmap’s digital security text is tame in comparison to the last two years, when the idea of studying a U.S. Cyber Force dominated the debate.

Here are the highlights:

• The bill requires the National Security Administration (NSA) to provide a briefing on its plans for the Cybersecurity Coordination Center. It also asks that all unified combatant commands submit annual reports to lawmakers on the “sufficiency of support” U.S. Cyber Command provides to them.

• The creation of a “software bill of materials” for AI-enabled technology utilized by the Defense Department.

• The measures authorizes the Pentagon to create “up to 12 generative artificial intelligence lines of effort” for how AI can boost the department’s cybersecurity and intelligence collection and analysis efforts.

• An amendment to the bill that was adopted during the chamber’s floor debate would allow the NSA to share threat intelligence with the private sector to bolster digital security in the U.S. telecommunications sector.

• Another amendment would require DOD to study the National Guard’s role in federal- and state-level cyber incident response, including how the service could improve its own response capabilities.

• Two major amendments that were left on the cutting room floor were proposed by House Homeland Security Chair Andrew Garbarino (R-NY) that would have renewed the 2015 Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act and the State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program. Both efforts, which cleared Garbarino’s panel last week, expire on September 30 without congressional action.

The Senate is currently working on its own NDAA, which it is expected to approve next week.