Vote Smart's Synopsis:

Vote to pass that authorizes appropriations to the Department of Defense (DOD) for military activities for the 2021 fiscal year.

Highlights:

• Requires the Secretary of Defense (DOD) to implement a plan to remove all names, symbols, displays, monuments, and paraphernalia that honor or commemorate the Confederate States of America or any person who served voluntarily with the Confederacy, from all assets of the DOD, no later than 3 years after this bill’s date of enactment (Sec. 377). 

• Requires the Secretary of Homeland Security to produce a report on the state of digital content forgery technology, also known as “deepfake technology,” that includes (Sec. 6243):

• An assessment of the underlying technologies used to create or propagate digital content forgeries; 

• A description of the types of digital content forgeries, including those used to commit fraud, cause harm, or violate civil rights; 

• An assessment of how foreign governments could use digital content forgeries to harm national security; and

• An analysis of the methods used to determine whether the content is genuinely created by a human or through digital content forgery technology, as well as recommendations on how to identify and address suspected content and elements to provide warnings to users of the content.

• Requires the DOD Secretary to enter into an agreement with an independent organization with relevant expertise in cyber policy and governmental organization to conduct and complete an assessment of the feasibility and advisability of establishing a National Cyber Director (Sec. 1637).

• Specifies that the above-mentioned assessment should include a review of the development of recommendations related to the following, including the development of proposed legislative text for the establishment of a National Cyber Director, (Sec. 1637):

• The authorities necessary to bring capabilities together across the interagency, all levels of government, and the private sector; 

• A definition of the roles of the National Cyber Director in planning, preparing, and directing integrated cyber operations in response to a major cyber attack on the United States, including intelligence operations, law enforcement actions, cyber effects operations, defensive operations, and incident response operations; and

• The authorities necessary to align resources to cyber priorities.

• Authorizes the Director of Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to issue a subpoena for the production of information necessary to identify and notify the entity at risk, if the Director identifies a system connected to the internet with a specific security vulnerability and has reason to believe that the security vulnerability relates to critical infrastructure and affects a covered device or system, and the Director is unable to identify the entity at risk that owns or operates the covered device or system (Sec. 6088).

• Defines “covered device or system” as a device or system commonly used to perform industrial, commercial, scientific, or governmental functions or processes that relate to critical infrastructure and industrial control systems, distributed control systems, and programmable logic controllers (Sec. 6088).

• Requires the DOD Secretary to conduct an assessment and direct comparison of capabilities in emerging biotechnologies for national security purposes, including applications in material, manufacturing, and health, between the capabilities of the US and the capabilities of adversaries of the US (Sec. 231).

• Prohibits any funds authorized in this bill from being used by the DOD to implement any activity that recognizes the sovereignty of the Russian Federation over Crimea (Sec. 1233).

• Requires the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to submit a report to the appropriate congressional committees on the corruption and corrupt activities of Russia and other Eastern European oligarchs (Sec. 9507).

• Requires the DOD Secretary to complete a comparative study on the defense budgets of China, Russia, and the United States (Sec. 6281).

• Requires the US Comptroller General to assess the efforts of the intelligence community and the DOD to identify and mitigate the risks posed to the intelligence community and the DOD by the use of direct-to-consumer genetic testing by China (Sec. 9321). 

• Requires the DOD Secretary to identify a set of no fewer than 5 use cases of the application of existing artificial intelligence-enabled systems to support improved management of enterprise acquisition, personnel, audit, or financial management functions that are consistent with the National Defense Strategy (Sec. 213).

• Requires the Director of National Intelligence to complete a detailed assessment of the critical technology trends relating to artificial intelligence, microchips, semiconductors, and related supply chains (Sec. 9504).

• Requires the DOD Secretary to carry out an initiative to ensure the effective implementation of the National Defense Strategy with respect to the Indo-Pacific Region, to be known as the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, whose purpose is to carry out (Sec. 1251):

• Activities to increase the lethality of the joint force in the Indo-Pacific region by improving the defenses against theater cruise, ballistic, and hypersonic missiles for bases, operating locations, and other critical infrastructure at locations west of the International Date Line; and

• Activities to enhance the design and posture of the joint force in the Indo-Pacific region; and 

• Activities to strengthen alliances and partnerships.

• Authorizes $156.35 billion in appropriations to the DOD for military personnel expenses (Sec. 4401).

• Authorizes $134.01 billion in appropriations to the DOD for defense-wide procurement (Sec. 4101).

• Authorizes $5.03 billion in appropriations to the DOD for procurement of defense systems for overseas contingency operations (Sec. 4102).

• Authorizes $106.66 billion in appropriations to the DOD for research, development, testing, and evaluations (Sec. 4201).

• Authorizes $195.57 billion in appropriations to the DOD for operations and maintenance (Sec. 4301).

• Authorizes $57.75 billion in appropriations to the DOD for operations and maintenance for overseas contingency operations (Sec. 4302).

• Authorizes $6.11 billion in appropriations to the DOD for military construction projects (Sec. 4601).

• Authorizes $19.77 billion in appropriations to the Department of Energy for the National Nuclear Security Administration (Sec. 4701).

• Authorizes $785.42 million in appropriations to the DOD for drug interdiction and counter-drug activities (Sec. 4501).

Full Bill Text

Full Bill Text