I 

116TH CONGRESS 

1ST SESSION H. R. 1731 

To amend the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to promote transparency 

in the oversight of cybersecurity risks at publicly traded companies. 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

MARCH 13, 2019 

Mr. HIMES (for himself, Mr. HECK, and Mr. MEEKS) introduced the following 

bill; which was referred to the Committee on Financial Services 

A BILL 

To amend the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to promote 

transparency in the oversight of cybersecurity risks at 

publicly traded companies. 

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 

3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 

4 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Cybersecurity Disclo5 sure Act of 2019’’. 

6 SEC. 2. CYBERSECURITY TRANSPARENCY. 

7 The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (15 U.S.C. 78a 

8 et seq.) is amended by inserting after section 14B (15 

9 U.S.C. 78n–2) the following: 


pamtmann on DSKBFK8HB2PROD with BILLS
2 

•HR 1731 IH

1 ‘‘SEC. 14C. CYBERSECURITY TRANSPARENCY. 

2 ‘‘(a) DEFINITIONS.—In this section— 

3 ‘‘(1) the term ‘cybersecurity’ means any action, 

4 step, or measure to detect, prevent, deter, mitigate, 

5 or address any cybersecurity threat or any potential 

6 cybersecurity threat; 

7 ‘‘(2) the term ‘cybersecurity threat’— 

8 ‘‘(A) means an action, not protected by the 

9 First Amendment to the Constitution of the 

10 United States, on or through an information 

11 system that may result in an unauthorized ef12 fort to adversely impact the security, avail13 ability, confidentiality, or integrity of an infor14 mation system or information that is stored on, 

15 processed by, or transiting an information sys16 tem; and 

17 ‘‘(B) does not include any action that sole18 ly involves a violation of a consumer term of 

19 service or a consumer licensing agreement; 

20 ‘‘(3) the term ‘information system’— 

21 ‘‘(A) has the meaning given the term in 

22 section 3502 of title 44, United States Code; 

23 and 

24 ‘‘(B) includes industrial control systems, 

25 such as supervisory control and data acquisition 


pamtmann on DSKBFK8HB2PROD with BILLS
3 

•HR 1731 IH

1 systems, distributed control systems, and pro2 grammable logic controllers; 

3 ‘‘(4) the term ‘NIST’ means the National Insti4 tute of Standards and Technology; and 

5 ‘‘(5) the term ‘reporting company’ means any 

6 company that is an issuer— 

7 ‘‘(A) the securities of which are registered 

8 under section 12; or 

9 ‘‘(B) that is required to file reports under 

10 section 15(d). 

11 ‘‘(b) REQUIREMENT TO ISSUE RULES.—Not later 

12 than 360 days after the date of enactment of this section, 

13 the Commission shall issue final rules to require each re14 porting company, in the annual report of the reporting 

15 company submitted under section 13 or section 15(d) or 

16 in the annual proxy statement of the reporting company 

17 submitted under section 14(a)— 

18 ‘‘(1) to disclose whether any member of the 

19 governing body, such as the board of directors or 

20 general partner, of the reporting company has exper21 tise or experience in cybersecurity and in such detail 

22 as necessary to fully describe the nature of the ex23 pertise or experience; and 

24 ‘‘(2) if no member of the governing body of the 

25 reporting company has expertise or experience in cyVerDate Sep 11 2014 00:44 Mar 23, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H1731.IH H1731

pamtmann on DSKBFK8HB2PROD with BILLS
4 

•HR 1731 IH

1 bersecurity, to describe what other aspects of the re2 porting company’s cybersecurity were taken into ac3 count by any person, such as an official serving on 

4 a nominating committee, that is responsible for iden5 tifying and evaluating nominees for membership to 

6 the governing body. 

7 ‘‘(c) CYBERSECURITY EXPERTISE OR EXPERI8 ENCE.—For purposes of subsection (b), the Commission, 

9 in consultation with NIST, shall define what constitutes 

10 expertise or experience in cybersecurity using commonly 

11 defined roles, specialties, knowledge, skills, and abilities, 

12 such as those provided in NIST Special Publication 800– 

13 181, entitled ‘National Initiative for Cybersecurity Edu14 cation (NICE) Cybersecurity Workforce Framework’, or 

15 any successor thereto.’’. 

Æ 


pamtmann on DSKBFK8HB2PROD with BILLS