(g) FINAL REPORT.—Not later than 4 years after the 
date of the enactment of this Act, the Assistant Secretary, 
in consultation with the Chief Information Officer, shall 
submit to the appropriate congressional committees a re-
port on the following: 
(1) Progress on each information technology so-
lution described in subsection (b). 
(2) Additional information technology solutions 
the Bureau intends to adopt. 
(3) Changes in the cost for implementation of 
the steps described in the action plan, if applicable. 
(h) FORM.—The plans and report required by this 
section shall be submitted in an unclassified form and may 
include a classified annex, if necessary. 
SEC. 6. RESEARCH ON COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE INFOR-
MATION TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS. 
(a) IN GENERAL.—Not later than 60 days after the 
enactment of this Act, the Assistant Secretary, in coordi-
nation with the Chief Information Officer, shall establish 
a working group of appropriate Department employees, 
and contractors as appropriate, to liaise with the private 
sector for the purposes of identifying commercially avail-
able technologies that may be adopted by the Bureau to 
advance the criteria described in section 4, evaluating pro-
posed technological solutions, and augmenting the Bu-
reau’s ongoing modernization efforts. 
(b) COMPOSITION.—The working group established 
pursuant to subsection (a) shall be composed of personnel 
who can consult on the policy, legal, and technical aspects 
of the passport issuance process with entities that wish 
to provide such technologies to the Department. 
(c) PILOT PROJECTS.—Not later than 180 days after 
the date of the enactment of this Act, the working group 
established pursuant to subsection (a) should consider pi-
loting not fewer than three commercial information tech-
nology systems with potential to accelerate the passport 
renewal process, reduce the backlog of requests, and 
backup legacy systems with cloud-based software solu-
tions. 
(d) REPORT.—Not later than one year after the date 
of the enactment of this Act, the Assistant Secretary, in 
coordination with the Chief Information Officer, shall sub-
mit to the appropriate congressional committees a re-
port— 
(1) describing the usefulness of the working 
group to the Department’s ongoing modernization 
efforts and its reception by private sector actors; 
(2) containing a summary of each proposal 
made to the working group pursuant to this section
and whether the Secretary intends to adopt each 
proposal; 
(3) providing recommendations to scale success-
ful solutions. 
SEC. 7. GAO REPORT. 
(a) IN GENERAL.—The Comptroller General of the 
United States shall conduct a comprehensive review of the 
passport issuance process, including— 
(1) the Bureau’s goals for timeliness of pass-
port issuance, the basis for such goals, and its per-
formance compared to those goals; 
(2) key factors affecting timeliness of passport 
issuance and the extent to which the Bureau has ad-
dressed those factors; 
(3) key factors affecting the implementation of 
technological solutions by the Bureau; 
(4) the Bureau’s efforts to implement the Trav-
el Document Issuance System (TDIS) and other re-
lated information technology systems that support 
the passport issuance process with a focus on— 
(A) whether the Bureau is following lead-
ing practices for developing, acquiring, and 
overseeing related system and infrastructure in-
vestments and leveraging existing technologies 
where appropriate;
(B) whether the program has the work-
force to resolve technical issues within the sys-
tems; and 
(C) identifying any vulnerabilities and limi-
tations of the system that may impact perform-
ance, including single points of failure; 
(5) opportunities to streamline, expedite, and 
otherwise enhance the Bureau’s passport issuance 
processes, including opportunities to reduce costs in 
the passport issuance process; 
(6) opportunities to partner with other Federal 
and State agencies and leverage existing United 
States Government information sources, such as bio-
metric databases, in support of the application and 
identity verification and resolution components of 
the passport issuance process; and 
(7) other matters as the Comptroller General 
may deem appropriate. 
(b) SUBMISSION.—Not later than 180 days after the 
date of the enactment of this Act, the Comptroller General 
shall— 
(1) brief the appropriate congressional commit-
tees on the review required by subsection (a); and 
(2) submit a final report upon completion of 
such review.
(c) 
RECOMMENDATIONS
IMPLEMENTATION
RE-
PORT.—Not later than one year after the date on which 
the report required by subsection (b)(2) is submitted, the 
Assistant Secretary and the Chief Information Officer 
shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees 
a report on progress toward resolution of each rec-
ommendation made in the report required by such sub-
section and planned steps that will be taken to resolve 
each recommendation. 
SEC. 8. RULE OF CONSTRUCTION. 
Nothing in this Act may be construed as an offer to 
procure a service or services or as a guarantee of a con-
tract for such services. 
SEC. 9. DEFINITIONS. 
In this Act— 
(1) the term ‘‘appropriate congressional com-
mittees’’ means— 
(A) the Committee on Foreign Affairs and 
the Committee on Appropriations of the House 
of Representatives; and 
(B) the Committee on Foreign Relations 
and the Committee on Appropriations of the 
Senate; 
(2) the term ‘‘Assistant Secretary’’ means the 
Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs;
(3) except as otherwise provided, the term ‘‘Bu-
reau’’ means the Bureau of Consular Affairs of the 
Department; 
(4) the term ‘‘Chief Information Officer’’ means 
the Chief Information Officer of the Bureau; 
(5) except as otherwise provided, the term ‘‘De-
partment’’ means the Department of State; 
(6) the term ‘‘passport issuance process’’— 
(A) means all steps of passport issuance 
for a new passport or renewal of a passport, as 
appropriate, from the applicant’s submission of 
documents through document processing and 
application adjudication to mailing of printed 
passports; and 
(B) includes— 
(i) the passport application submis-
sion, which includes— 
(I) the portion of the passport 
issuance process from and including 
passport acceptance by a passport ac-
ceptance agent until documents are 
received by the Department; and 
(II) payment processing and mail 
shipping times; and
(ii) the passport application proc-
essing, which includes the portion of the 
passport issuance process from the recep-
tion of completed applications and their 
distribution to passport agencies for adju-
dication until finished passports and appli-
cation documents are mailed to applicants; 
and 
(7) the term ‘‘Secretary’’ means the Secretary 
of State. 
Passed the House of Representatives March 19, 
2024. 
Attest: 
Clerk.
118TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. R. 6610 
AN ACT 
To provide for the modernization of the passport 
issuance process, and for other purposes.