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The bill creates a temporary, multi-stakeholder advisory board to improve routing and communications security and inform federal policy quickly, while trading off risks of implementation costs, limited unpaid participation, executive control over the board, and potential disruption when the board sunsets after four years.
Internet users, businesses, and network operators will receive expert recommendations to strengthen routing (BGP) security, reducing the likelihood of outages and route hijacks.
Stakeholders in communications supply chains (including utilities and state governments) may get policies and guidance to improve component security and resilience, lowering the risk of service disruptions.
NTIA and federal policymakers will gain coordinated, multi-stakeholder technical advice that can speed adoption of industry best practices without creating new regulatory mandates.
Recommendations could favor particular vendors or technologies (even with a lobbyist ban), imposing implementation costs on network operators, utilities, and other implementers.
Service on the board is unpaid, which may limit participation to those who can afford uncompensated time and narrow the diversity of technical perspectives.
The Assistant Secretary's broad appointment and removal authority concentrates control in the executive branch and risks politicizing the board's technical advice.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Creates a 5–25 member advisory board at NTIA to advise on cybersecurity, secure supply chains, and digital-economy policy; members unpaid and registered lobbyists are excluded.
Introduced February 21, 2025 by August Pfluger · Last progress February 21, 2025
Creates a new advisory board inside the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to advise the Assistant Secretary on cybersecurity and digital-economy policy, including technical best practices (such as Border Gateway Protocol security), secure supply chains, and measures to promote trust and innovation. One short provision also establishes an official short title for the Act. The board will include 5–25 unpaid members with cybersecurity or supply-chain expertise, will exclude registered lobbyists, be chaired by the NTIA Associate Administrator for Policy Analysis and Development, may form reporting subcommittees (which cannot give advice directly to the Assistant Secretary), has member terms of up to two years with reappointment allowed, members removable at the Assistant Secretary’s discretion, and will terminate four years after enactment. The bill defines key terms but does not itself appropriate funds or create new compensation for members.