I 
114TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. R. 490 
To provide for a strategic plan to reform and improve the security clearance 
and background investigation processes of the Federal Government, and 
for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JANUARY 22, 2015 
Mr. LYNCH (for himself, Mr. CUMMINGS, and Ms. NORTON) introduced the 
following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Oversight and 
Government Reform, and in addition to the Committee on the Judiciary, 
for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case 
for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the 
committee concerned 
A BILL 
To provide for a strategic plan to reform and improve the 
security clearance and background investigation proc-
esses of the Federal Government, and for other purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Security Clearance Re-
form Act of 2015’’. 
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SEC. 2. SECURITY CLEARANCE PROCESS REFORM PLAN. 
(a) PLAN.—Not later than 6 months after the date 
of enactment of this Act, the President shall submit a 
strategic plan to the appropriate congressional committees 
to improve security clearance and background investiga-
tion activities carried out by the Federal Government. 
(b) CONTENTS OF PLAN.—The plan submitted under 
subsection (a) shall— 
(1) develop and establish a continuous evalua-
tion or monitoring system that shall— 
(A) on a continual basis, access Federal, 
State, and local government and commercially 
available information, including financial credit 
history, currency transactions, court records, 
traffic violations, arrest records, terrorist and 
criminal watch lists, foreign travel, and online 
social media; 
(B) provide real-time updates or notifica-
tions with respect to information relevant to ad-
judication guidelines concerning whether a 
cleared individual is eligible for such individ-
ual’s security clearance; and 
(C) reduce or eliminate the schedule of any 
periodic reinvestigation of a cleared individual; 
(2) ensure that— 
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(A) the background of each cleared indi-
vidual is monitored on a continual basis; and 
(B) any covered individual who is not a 
cleared individual is not subject to continuous 
evaluation or monitoring; 
(3) ensure the effective, efficient, and timely 
completion of background investigations relating to a 
covered individual’s eligibility for a security clear-
ance; 
(4) improve procedures to require information 
sharing between agencies concerning— 
(A) potentially derogatory security infor-
mation regarding a covered individual that may 
impact the eligibility of any such individual for 
a security clearance; and 
(B) adjudications with respect to any cov-
ered individual; 
(5) enhance cooperation and information shar-
ing between any State or local law enforcement 
agency and any agency; 
(6) enhance methods for reducing or elimi-
nating manual processes with respect to security 
clearance background investigations, and automating 
and integrating the elements of such investigations 
and adjudication processes, including— 
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(A) the security clearance application proc-
ess; 
(B) field investigator reporting; 
(C) investigation case management; 
(D) the collection, analysis, storage, re-
trieval, and transfer of data and records; 
(E) the submission of any background in-
vestigation report to an agency for adjudication; 
and 
(F) records management for security clear-
ance adjudication determinations; 
(7) reduce or eliminate the use of databases 
and information sources that cannot be accessed and 
processed electronically, or modify such databases 
and information sources to enable electronic access 
and processing; 
(8) increase the use of digitally processed fin-
gerprints as a substitute for ink or paper prints to 
reduce error rates and improve portability of data; 
(9) develop Federal Governmentwide perform-
ance measures, based on the Federal Investigative 
Standards (as promulgated by the Director and the 
Director of National Intelligence), to measure the 
quality of background investigations conducted by 
the Federal Government; 
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(10) require that, with respect to any back-
ground investigation activities, a Federal employee 
conducts— 
(A) any final quality or integrity assurance 
review conducted by an agency of a background 
investigation; 
(B) any interview of a covered individual 
with respect to a background investigation; and 
(C) any background investigation of a cov-
ered individual to determine the person’s eligi-
bility for a security clearance at the Top Secret 
level or higher; 
(11) develop procedures that ensure that any 
information collected pursuant to the plan with re-
spect to a covered individual, including information 
collected from online social media, shall be verified 
for authenticity; and 
(12) provide a detailed description of the esti-
mated costs of implementing the plan. 
(c) DELEGATION.—The President may select at least 
one agency to develop or implement the plan required 
under this section. In the preceding sentence, the term 
‘‘agency’’ means— 
(1) any agency as that term is defined in sec-
tion 6(1), but does not include any military depart-
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ment (as that term is defined in section 102 of title 
5, United States Code); or 
(2) the Suitability and Security Clearance Per-
formance Accountability Council (as established by 
Executive Order No. 13467). 
(d) LEVELS OF SCRUTINY.—The plan required under 
this section may require different levels of continuous eval-
uation scrutiny with respect to Confidential, Secret, or 
Top Secret or higher security clearances. 
(e) USE
OF PRE-EXISTING SYSTEMS
OR DATA-
BASES.—In carrying out the requirements of this section, 
the President may incorporate or enhance any systems or 
databases operated by the Federal Government, including 
the database established under section 3001(e) of Public 
Law 108–458. 
(f) IMPLEMENTATION.—The President shall fully im-
plement the plan required under this section not later than 
1 year after the date of submission of such plan to the 
appropriate congressional committees. 
SEC. 3. ORGANIZATIONAL CONFLICT OF INTEREST. 
Beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act 
for contracts entered into after such date, the Director 
of the Office of Personnel Management may not award 
a contract for— 
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(1) investigative support services to an entity if 
that entity also has, at the time of award of the con-
tract or at any time during the performance of the 
contract, another contract in effect with the Federal 
Government (or with another contractor of the Gov-
ernment at any tier) to provide background inves-
tigation fieldwork services; or 
(2) background investigation fieldwork services 
to an entity if that entity also has, at the time of 
award of the contract or at any time during the per-
formance of the contract, another contract in effect 
with the Federal Government (or with another con-
tractor of the Government at any tier) to provide in-
vestigative support services. 
SEC. 4. STATE AND LOCAL COOPERATION. 
(a) REPORT.—Not later than 90 days after the date 
of enactment of this Act and each year thereafter, the Di-
rector shall submit a report to the appropriate congres-
sional committees listing any State or local entity covered 
by the definition of ‘‘criminal justice agency’’ in section 
9101(a)(1) of title 5, United States Code, that has failed 
to cooperate with three or more requests of the Director 
issued under section 9101(b)(1) of such title. 
(b) WITHHOLDING OF BYRNE-JAG FUNDS.— 
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(1) IN GENERAL.—For any fiscal year after fis-
cal year 2015, a jurisdiction that fails, as deter-
mined by the Director to substantially comply with 
criminal history record information requests shall 
not receive the percentage specified in paragraph (2) 
of the funds that would otherwise be allocated for 
the subsequent fiscal year to the jurisdiction under 
subpart 1 of part E of title I of the Omnibus Crime 
Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 (42 U.S.C. 
3750 et seq.). The Director shall provide the Attor-
ney General with a list of any jurisdictions that 
failed to substantially comply with the criminal his-
tory record information requests in the prior fiscal 
year and the Attorney General shall make the appro-
priate amount of reductions. 
(2) APPLICABLE PERCENTAGES.—The applica-
ble percentages are as follows: 
(A) FIRST
YEAR
OF
NONCOMPLIANCE.— 
Except as provided in subparagraph (B), for 
each fiscal year that a jurisdiction fails to sub-
stantially comply with criminal history record 
information requests, the percentage specified is 
10 percent. 
(B) SUBSEQUENT
YEAR
OF
NONCOMPLI-
ANCE.—For each succeeding consecutive fiscal 
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year after a fiscal year referred to in subpara-
graph (A) that a jurisdiction fails to substan-
tially comply with criminal history record infor-
mation requests, the percentage specified is 10 
percent multiplied by the number of such con-
secutive fiscal years that the jurisdiction has 
failed to substantially comply with criminal his-
tory record information requests (not to exceed 
100 percent). 
(3) REALLOCATION.—Amounts not allocated 
under a program referred to in this section to a ju-
risdiction for failure to substantially comply with 
criminal history record information requests, shall be 
reallocated under that program to jurisdictions that 
have not failed to substantially comply with criminal 
history record information requests, or may be re-
allocated to a jurisdiction from which they were 
withheld to be used solely for the purpose of com-
plying with section 9101(b)(1) of title 5, United 
States Code. 
(4) NONCOMPLIANCE.—For purposes of this 
subsection, the term ‘‘fails to substantially comply 
with criminal history record information requests’’ 
means failure to comply with 3 or more requests re-
ceived during a fiscal year under section 9101(b)(1) 
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of title 5, United States Code, during that fiscal 
year. 
(5) RULE OF ATTRIBUTION.—In the case of a 
jurisdiction that fails to substantially comply with 
criminal history record information requests, if that 
jurisdiction is subject to the requirements of section 
505(d)(4) of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe 
Streets Act of 1968 (42 U.S.C. 3755(d)(4)), then 
the amount of funds that would be provided to other 
jurisdictions that are party to the joint application 
required under such section 505(d)(4) may not be 
reduced and only the funds for the jurisdiction that 
has failed to substantially comply may be reduced. 
(c) REQUESTS FROM CONTRACTORS ACTING ON BE-
HALF OF COVERED AGENCIES; CLARIFICATION OF PO-
LICE RECORDS.—Section 9101 of title 5, United States 
Code, is amended— 
(1) by adding at the end the following new sub-
section: 
‘‘(g) Criminal justice agencies shall accept and com-
ply with requests for criminal history record information 
pursuant to this section regardless of whether a request 
is submitted directly by a covered agency or by a con-
tractor of a covered agency acting on the agency’s be-
half.’’; and 
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(2) in subsection (a)(2)— 
(A) after ‘‘criminal charges’’, by inserting 
the following: ‘‘(including descriptions of the in-
cidents or events leading to or on which the ar-
rests, indictments, informations, or other formal 
charges are based)’’; and 
(B) by adding at the end the following: 
‘‘The term also includes information pertaining 
to arrests that do not result in the arrestee 
being charged with or convicted of a criminal 
offense.’’. 
SEC. 5. REPORTS. 
(a) QUALITY REVIEW.—Not later than 90 days after 
the date of submission of the plan under section 2 and 
each year thereafter, the Director shall submit a report 
to the appropriate congressional committees that— 
(1) evaluates the quality of background inves-
tigations conducted by OPM during the previous 
year based on the performance measures developed 
pursuant to the plan submitted under section 2; and 
(2) includes information on the percentage of 
background investigations conducted by OPM that 
meet Federal Investigative Standards (as promul-
gated by the Director and the Director of National 
Intelligence). 
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(b) REPORTS UNDER THE INTELLIGENCE REFORM 
AND TERRORISM PREVENTION ACT OF 2004.—Section 
3001(h)(1) of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Pre-
vention Act of 2004 (50 U.S.C. 3341(h)(1)) is amended 
by striking ‘‘through 2011’’. 
SEC. 6. DEFINITIONS. 
In this Act: 
(1) AGENCY.—Except as provided otherwise in 
this Act, the term ‘‘agency’’ has the meaning given 
that term in section 3001(a)(1) of Public Law 108– 
458 and includes the United States Postal Service 
and the Postal Regulatory Commission. 
(2) APPROPRIATE
CONGRESSIONAL
COMMIT-
TEES.—The term ‘‘appropriate congressional com-
mittees’’ means— 
(A) the Committee on Oversight and Gov-
ernment Reform of the House of Representa-
tives; 
(B) the Committee on Homeland Security 
and Governmental Affairs of the Senate; 
(C) the Permanent Select Committee on 
Intelligence of the House of Representatives; 
and 
(D) the Select Committee on Intelligence 
of the Senate. 
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(3) BACKGROUND INVESTIGATION.—The term 
‘‘background investigation’’ means any investigation 
or reinvestigation required for the purpose of deter-
mining whether a covered individual may hold a se-
curity clearance issued by an agency. 
(4) BACKGROUND INVESTIGATION FIELDWORK 
SERVICES.—The term ‘‘background investigation 
fieldwork services’’ means the investigatory fieldwork 
conducted to determine a covered individual’s eligi-
bility for a security clearance, including interviews of 
the applicant or friends and family of such appli-
cant, reviews of educational or employment records, 
law checks, or reviews of credit history. 
(5) CLEARED INDIVIDUAL.—The term ‘‘cleared 
individual’’ means an individual, including any em-
ployee of an agency, member of the uniformed serv-
ices, contractor of an agency, or individual employee 
of such a contractor, who holds a valid security 
clearance issued by an agency. 
(6) COVERED INDIVIDUAL.—The term ‘‘covered 
individual’’ means an individual, including any em-
ployee of an agency, member of the uniformed serv-
ices, contractor of an agency, or individual employee 
of such a contractor, who— 
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(A) is being considered by an agency for a 
security clearance; or 
(B) is a cleared individual. 
(7) DIRECTOR.—The term ‘‘Director’’ means 
the Director of the Office of Personnel Management. 
(8) FEDERAL EMPLOYEE.—The term ‘‘Federal 
employee’’ has the meaning given the term ‘‘em-
ployee’’ in section 2105 of title 5, United States 
Code, and includes— 
(A) any member of the uniformed services; 
and 
(B) any officer or employee of the United 
States Postal Service or the Postal Regulatory 
Commission. 
(9) INVESTIGATIVE
SUPPORT
SERVICES.—The 
term ‘‘investigative support services’’ means the cler-
ical, administrative, and technical support services 
provided to various functions critical to the back-
ground investigative process, including initial proc-
essing and scheduling of investigative requests, per-
forming file maintenance, imaging case documents, 
processing mail, performing quality review of back-
ground investigations, and executing case closing 
processes. 
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(10) JURISDICTION.—The term ‘‘jurisdiction’’ 
means a State or unit of local government, as such 
terms are defined in section 901 of the Omnibus 
Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. 
(11) OPM.—The term ‘‘OPM’’ means the Of-
fice of Personnel Management. 
Æ 
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