§474 Homeland Security Critical Domain Research and Development

Summary

The Secretary must do research and development to find United States critical domains for economic security and to judge how much harm would happen to homeland security if those domains were disrupted, corrupted, exploited, or stopped working. The research must include a risk check of each domain that looks at supply chain weaknesses and resilience, foreign production and processing, bad-actor influence, who owns key assets, and how parts of the supply chain connect. For the highest-risk domains, the work must also describe the infrastructure and processes, study current and future industry performance, check if supplies come from few sources or one area, see whether other industries could fill gaps and what stops them, test performance in normal and crisis conditions, name what is needed to make supplies resilient, and look at effects of consolidation or foreign control. The Secretary may work with federal and state agencies and private partners. Starting one year after December 27, 2021, the Secretary must publish a report with findings and recommendations and update it annually through 2026. Within 90 days after each report, the Secretary must send it to the House Committee on Homeland Security and the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, with a description of actions to be taken. Definitions: “United States critical domains for economic security” — key infrastructure, industries, technologies, and intellectual property essential to economic security; “economic security” — having secure, resilient domestic production and reliable access to global resources. Congress authorized $1,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2022 through 2026 to carry out this work.