I 
115TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. R. 945 
To codify the objective of Presidential Policy Directive 21 to improve critical 
infrastructure security and resilience, and for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
FEBRUARY 7, 2017 
Ms. JACKSON LEE introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
Committee on Homeland Security 
A BILL 
To codify the objective of Presidential Policy Directive 21 
to improve critical infrastructure security and resilience, 
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 ‘‘Terrorism Prevention 
and Critical Infrastructure Protection Act of 2017’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
The Congress finds the following: 
(1) The Nation’s critical infrastructure provides 
the essential services that underpin American soci-
ety. Proactive and coordinated efforts are necessary 
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to strengthen and maintain secure, functioning, and 
resilient critical infrastructure, including assets, net-
works, and systems, that are vital to public con-
fidence and the Nation’s safety, prosperity, and well- 
being. 
(2) The Nation’s critical infrastructure is di-
verse and complex. It includes distributed networks, 
varied organizational structures and operating mod-
els 
(including 
multinational 
ownership), 
inter-
dependent functions and systems in both the phys-
ical space and cyber space, and governance con-
structs that involve multilevel authorities, respon-
sibilities, and regulations. Critical infrastructure 
owners and operators are uniquely positioned to 
manage risks to their individual operations and as-
sets, and to determine effective strategies to make 
them more secure and resilient. 
(3) Critical infrastructure must be secured 
against terrorist attacks, and must be designed and 
maintained in such a way as to withstand and re-
cover quickly in the event of an attack. Achieving 
this will require integration with the national pre-
paredness system across prevention, protection, miti-
gation, response, and recovery efforts. 
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SEC. 3. POLICY. 
(a) SECURITY AND RESILIENCE.—The Secretary of 
Homeland Security shall work with critical infrastructure 
owners and operators and SLTTs to take proactive steps 
to manage risk and strengthen the security and resilience 
of the Nation’s critical infrastructure against terrorist at-
tacks that could have a debilitating impact on national se-
curity, economic stability, public health and safety, or any 
combination thereof. Such efforts shall seek to reduce 
vulnerabilities, minimize consequences, identify and dis-
rupt terrorism threats, and hasten response and recovery 
efforts related to critical infrastructure. 
(b) INTERNATIONAL
PARTNERS.—The Secretary 
shall, in consultation with appropriate Federal agencies, 
establish terrorism prevention policy to engage with inter-
national partners to strengthen the security and resilience 
of domestic critical infrastructure and critical infrastruc-
ture located outside of the United States on which the Na-
tion depends. 
(c) INTEGRATED, HOLISTIC APPROACH.— 
(1) RESEARCH
TASK
FORCE.—The Secretary 
shall establish a research task force to conduct re-
search into the best means and methods to address 
the security and resilience of critical infrastructure 
in an integrated, holistic manner to reflect critical 
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infrastructure’s interconnectedness and interdepend-
ency. 
(2) DUTIES OF THE RESEARCH TASK FORCE.— 
The research task force shall provide the Secretary 
with— 
(A) a list of critical infrastructure; 
(B) the degree the critical infrastructure is 
reliant upon other infrastructure; 
(C) the cyber preparedness of suppliers, 
contractors, or service providers of critical in-
frastructure; 
(D) programs, projects, or professional de-
velopment for persons responsible for the secu-
rity and operation of critical infrastructure; and 
(E) vulnerabilities and threats that are 
found in software systems, firewalls, applica-
tions, and methods of accessing systems. 
(3) MEMBERSHIP.—The research task force 
shall consist of 19 members appointed by the Sec-
retary. The Secretary shall appoint one member to 
represent each of— 
(A) the National Institutes of Standards 
and Technology; 
(B) the Association of Computing Machin-
ery; 
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(C) IEEE (formerly the Institute of Elec-
trical and Electronic Engineers); 
(D) Carnegie Mellon Cylabs; 
(E) the Edison Electric Institute; 
(F) the National Telecommunication and 
Information Administration; 
(G) the Utilities Telecom Council; 
(H) the US Oil and Gas Association; 
(I) the American Chemistry Council; 
(J) the American Fuel and Petrochemical 
Manufacturers; 
(K) the Pharmaceutical Research Manu-
facturers of America; and 
(L) the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration. 
(4) REPORT.—The research task force shall 
provide a research report to the Secretary on its 
findings and recommendations 180 days after its es-
tablishment. 
(5) CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE DEFINED.—In 
this subsection, the term ‘‘critical infrastructure’’ 
means infrastructure of— 
(A) energy capture, refining, manufac-
turing, and delivery systems; 
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(B) transportation and transportation sys-
tems; 
(C) water and sewer capture, processing, 
and delivery systems; 
(D) healthcare systems, with respect to 
preventing threats to the quality and safety of 
medicines, medical devices, and delivery of life- 
saving health care services; 
(E) food production, processing, and deliv-
ery systems; 
(F) virtual and physical communication 
systems; 
(G) financial systems; and 
(H) the electricity grid. 
(d) STRATEGIC IMPERATIVES.— 
(1) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary shall establish 
the Strategic Research Imperatives Program, which 
shall have the responsibility of leading the Depart-
ment of Homeland Security’s Federal civilian agency 
approach to strengthen critical infrastructure secu-
rity and resilience. 
(2) DUTIES.—The duties of the program are 
the following: 
(A) Collect data, refine and clarify func-
tional relationships across the Federal Govern-
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ment to advance the national unity of effort to 
strengthen critical infrastructure, terrorism pre-
vention, security, and resilience. 
(B) Investigate effective measures that 
support information exchange by identifying 
baseline data and systems requirements for the 
Federal Government. 
(C) Recommend methods to implement an 
integration and analysis function to inform 
planning and operations decisions regarding the 
protection of critical infrastructure from ter-
rorist threats. 
(e) GUIDANCE.—The Secretary of Homeland Secu-
rity shall make available research findings and guidance 
to Federal civilian department and agency heads (or their 
designees) for the identification, prioritization, assess-
ment, remediation, and security of their respective internal 
critical infrastructure to assist in the prevention, medi-
ation, and recovery from terrorism events. 
SEC. 4. ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES. 
(a) UNITY OF EFFORT.— 
(1) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary shall establish 
and appoint a research working group that shall— 
(A) study and make recommendations on 
how best to achieve and implement national 
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unity of effort to protect against terrorism 
threats, through investigation of strategic guid-
ance from existing laws, Presidential policy di-
rectives, and Executive orders; and 
(B) investigate the security and resilience 
of the Nation’s information assurance compo-
nents that provide protection against terrorism 
threats. 
(2) IN-DEPTH APPROACH.—The research work-
ing group shall also consider research by subject- 
matter experts on cyber security in-depth approaches 
that study the following, and make recommendations 
thereon to the Secretary: 
(A) The program of the Department of 
Homeland Security to secure Federal agencies 
and critical infrastructure to create resilient se-
cure computer systems and networks. 
(B) Cyber security preparedness of ven-
dors, contractors, or nongovernment agency en-
tities that provide computer-related support or 
services to critical infrastructure owners and 
operators as well as government agencies 
charged with securing them. 
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(C) Investigation of the feasibility of devel-
oping industry- or sector-specific computer 
emergency rapid response teams. 
(D) The feasibility of the agency devel-
oping a guest visiting security researchers pro-
gram to provide instruction to private sector 
and civilian agency personnel responsible for 
cyber security. 
(3) 
MEMBERSHIP.—The 
research 
working 
group shall be comprised of individuals with exper-
tise and day-to-day engagement from the sector-spe-
cific agency terrorism prevention, remediation, and 
response experts, as well as the specialized or sup-
port terrorism prevention capabilities of other Fed-
eral departments and agencies, as well as experts 
who engage in strong collaboration with critical in-
frastructure owners and operators and SLTTs, and 
academic researchers with in-depth knowledge in 
computing security. 
(b) SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY.— 
(1) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary of Homeland 
Security shall establish a research program to pro-
vide strategic guidance, promote a national unity of 
effort, and coordinate the overall Federal effort to 
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promote the security and resilience of the Nation’s 
critical infrastructure from terrorist threats. 
(2) ADDITIONAL
ROLES
AND
RESPONSIBIL-
ITIES.—Additional roles and responsibilities for the 
Secretary of Homeland Security include the fol-
lowing: 
(A) Identify and prioritize critical infra-
structure, 
considering 
physical 
and 
cyber 
threats, vulnerabilities, and consequences of ter-
rorist attacks, in coordination with SSAs and 
other Federal departments and agencies. 
(B) Maintain national terrorism critical in-
frastructure centers that shall provide a situa-
tional awareness capability that includes inte-
grated, actionable information about potential 
terrorist trends, imminent terrorist threats, and 
the status of terrorist incidents that may im-
pact critical infrastructure. 
(C) In coordination with SSAs and other 
Federal departments and agencies, provide 
analysis, expertise, and other technical assist-
ance to critical infrastructure owners and oper-
ators on terrorism prevention security protocols 
and facilitate access to and exchange of infor-
mation and intelligence necessary to strengthen 
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the security and resilience of critical infrastruc-
ture. 
(D) Conduct comprehensive assessments of 
the vulnerabilities of the Nation’s critical infra-
structure in coordination with the SSAs and in 
collaboration with SLTTs and critical infra-
structure owners and operators. 
(E) Coordinate Federal Government re-
sponses to cyber or physical terrorism incidents 
affecting critical infrastructure consistent with 
statutory authorities. 
(F) Support the Attorney General and law 
enforcement agencies with their responsibilities 
to investigate and prosecute threats to and ter-
rorist attacks against critical infrastructure. 
(G) Coordinate with and utilize the exper-
tise of SSAs and other appropriate Federal de-
partments and agencies to map geospatially, 
image, analyze, and sort critical infrastructure 
by employing commercial satellite and airborne 
systems, as well as existing capabilities within 
other departments and agencies. 
(H) Report annually to Congress on the 
status of national critical infrastructure efforts 
to meet the objectives of this section. 
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(c) SECTOR-SPECIFIC AGENCIES.—Recognizing exist-
ing statutory or regulatory authorities of specific Federal 
departments and agencies, and leveraging existing sector 
familiarity and relationships, the head of each SSA shall 
carry out the following roles and responsibilities for their 
respective sectors: 
(1) Serve as a day-to-day Federal interface for 
the dynamic prioritization and coordination of sec-
tor-specific activities related to cyber security critical 
infrastructure protection from terrorism. 
(2) Carry out terrorism incident management 
responsibilities consistent with statutory authority 
and other appropriate policies, directives, or regula-
tions. 
(3) Provide, support, or facilitate technical as-
sistance and consultations for such sectors to iden-
tify vulnerabilities and help mitigate terrorism inci-
dents, as appropriate. 
(d) RESEARCH AND REPORT ON BEST PRACTICES 
FOR COORDINATING.—The Secretary shall conduct re-
search and submit a report to Congress not later than 180 
days after the date of the enactment of this Act on the 
best practices for coordinating with civilian agencies, pri-
vate sector critical infrastructure owners, local, State, trib-
al, and territorial agencies, other relevant Federal depart-
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ments and agencies, where appropriate with independent 
regulatory agencies, and SLTTs, as appropriate, to imple-
ment this Act. 
SEC. 5. STRATEGIC IMPERATIVES. 
(a) RESEARCH AND REPORT ON THE MOST EFFI-
CIENT MEANS FOR INFORMATION EXCHANGE BY IDENTI-
FYING BASELINE DATA AND SYSTEMS REQUIREMENTS 
FOR THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.—The Secretary shall 
facilitate the timely exchange of terrorism threat and vul-
nerability information as well as information that allows 
for the development of a situational awareness capability 
for Federal civilian agencies during terrorist incidents. 
The goal of such facilitation is to enable efficient informa-
tion exchange through the identification of requirements 
for data and information formats and accessibility, system 
interoperability, and redundant systems and alternate ca-
pabilities should there be a disruption in the primary sys-
tems. 
(b) IMPLEMENTATION
OF
AN INTEGRATION
AND 
ANALYSIS FUNCTION TO INFORM PLANNING AND OPER-
ATIONAL DECISIONS REGARDING THE PROTECTION OF 
CRITICAL
INFRASTRUCTURE
FROM
TERRORISM 
EVENTS.—The Secretary of Homeland Security shall im-
plement an integration and analysis function for critical 
infrastructure that includes operational and strategic 
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