§474 Homeland Security Critical Domain Research and Development

Summary

The Secretary must carry out research and development to find which U.S. industries, technologies, and related assets are critical to economic and homeland security and to assess how disruption, corruption, exploitation, or dysfunction of those areas could threaten homeland security. The work must include a risk analysis that looks at supply chain weakness and resilience, foreign production and manufacturing, harmful foreign actors, who owns key assets, and relationships inside supply chains. For the highest-risk areas, the Secretary must do deeper research that describes infrastructure and processes, studies current and future industry performance, checks whether supply sources are concentrated, tests whether other industries could meet demand and what stops them from doing so, considers performance in normal and crisis conditions, identifies needs to build supply resiliency, and looks at effects of consolidation, including foreign consolidation. The Secretary may consult federal and state agencies and private stakeholders. Beginning one year after December 27, 2021, the Secretary must publish a report and update it annually through 2026. Not later than 90 days after each report is published, the Secretary must send the report to the Committee on Homeland Security of the House of Representatives and to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs of the Senate, with a description of actions to be taken or already taken. Funding of $1,000,000 is authorized for each of fiscal years 2022 through 2026. Defined terms (one line each): "United States critical domains for economic security" — the key infrastructure, industries, technologies, and intellectual property essential to the Nation’s economic security. "economic security" — having secure, resilient domestic production and reliable access to global resources needed to maintain a standard of living and protect core national values.