§563f Diversified security technology industry marketplace

Summary

Within 120 days after October 5, 2018, the Administrator must create and send a plan to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and the House Committee on Homeland Security. The plan must show how to build a more diverse market for security technology so the Administrator can buy advanced transportation security tools, with more chances for small business innovators. It must explain how current ways of asking for, testing, and buying technology affect getting new products. It must list specific steps the Administrator will take, give timelines for those steps, describe how the Administrator could help small businesses that lack resources to take part, and assess whether a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofit could provide venture capital to help bring technologies to market within 36 months. When making that venture-capital assessment, the Administrator must consider forming a 501(c)(3) venture partnership with private firms and the intelligence community and increasing work through the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate. Nothing here forces changes to Transportation Security Administration technology standards. Definitions: “intelligence community” — meaning in section 3003 of title 50; “small business concern” — meaning in section 632 of title 15; “small business innovator” — a small business concern with an advanced transportation security technology or capability.