Sponsors (4)
Creating a new NTIA office centralizes coordination of cybersecurity, privacy, innovation, and digital inclusion—boosting protections, access, and market support for users, businesses, and underserved areas—but increases costs and raises risks of policy bias, weaker regulation, and interagency duplication.
Internet users and businesses gain a dedicated NTIA office that coordinates cybersecurity and privacy guidance, strengthening network security and consumer protections across online services.
Small and rural communications providers get a formal channel to submit feedback and influence policy, increasing the likelihood that regulations and programs reflect their operational realities.
Tech workers, startups, and researchers benefit from policies that promote innovation and commercialization, which can expand tech markets and create jobs with attention to barriers faced by smaller firms and rural areas.
Taxpayers may face higher federal administrative costs because creating and staffing a new NTIA office requires additional funding.
State governments and small businesses could see a shift in policymaking influence if NTIA takes an advocacy role before the FCC and Congress, raising concerns about regulatory capture or biased policy priorities.
Internet users and consumer advocates may get weaker protections if the office emphasizes market-based approaches over regulatory measures that some view as necessary for stronger consumer safeguards.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Creates an NTIA Office of Policy Development and Cybersecurity led by an Associate Administrator to coordinate cybersecurity policy, promote market-based communications policy, digital inclusion, and stakeholder collaboration.
Introduced June 12, 2025 by John Wright Hickenlooper · Last progress June 12, 2025
Creates a new Office of Policy Development and Cybersecurity within the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and establishes an Associate Administrator to lead it. The new office will analyze internet and communications policy, coordinate multistakeholder cybersecurity and privacy guidance, promote market-based policies for innovation, competition, access, and digital inclusion, and advise NTIA leadership before the FCC, Congress, and other bodies. The bill converts the existing Associate Administrator for Policy Analysis and Development into the new Associate Administrator for Policy Development and Cybersecurity upon enactment. It directs the office to engage with small and rural communications providers, promote collaboration between security researchers and providers, support an existing NTIA program (47 U.S.C. 1607(a)), and advocate for secure, resilient networks and supply chains; it does not appropriate new funds or set new deadlines.