[Congressional Bills 118th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 3168 Introduced in House (IH)]

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118th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 3168

To establish a Joint Autonomy Office in the Department of Defense, and 
                          for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                              May 9, 2023

    Mr. Wittman (for himself and Mr. Ruppersberger) introduced the 
 following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Armed Services

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To establish a Joint Autonomy Office in the Department of Defense, and 
                          for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE JOINT AUTONOMY OFFICE.

    (a) Establishment.--Not later than 120 days after the date of the 
enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with 
the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer, shall establish 
an Office in the Department of Defense to coordinate and accelerate the 
delivery of all-domain autonomous systems to operational users.
    (b) Designation.--The office established under subsection (a) shall 
be known as the ``Joint Autonomy Office'' (in this Act referred to as 
the ``Office'').
    (c) Head of Office.--The head of the Office shall be a Director 
appointed by the Secretary of Defense from among individuals with 
management experience and technical expertise in all-domain autonomous 
system technologies.
    (d) Duties.--The duties of the Joint Autonomy Office are following:
            (1) Utilize commercial and defense best practices and 
        existing investments in defense cloud infrastructure to 
        accelerate the delivery of autonomous systems to the 
        operational user.
            (2) Implement an all-domain enterprise autonomous systems 
        software development and testing platform across classification 
        levels of the Department of Defense.
            (3) Provide access to defense programs with autonomy 
        requirements to accelerate the development and testing of all-
        domain autonomous systems.
            (4) Implement an enterprise all-domain data acquisition and 
        curation process to build, manage, and sustain datasets from 
        all available autonomy programs of the Department in order to 
        develop and test all-domain autonomous systems.
            (5) Provide access to existing and future service and joint 
        autonomous system development and acquisition programs, 
        including such programs as the Optionally Manned Fighting 
        Vehicle, Robotic Combat Vehicles, Collaborative Combat 
        Aircraft, and Large Unmanned Surface Vehicle, as development 
        and testing datasets mature.
            (6) Accelerate the Department's development and testing of 
        all-domain autonomous system prototypes to scaled production in 
        conjunction with service and joint autonomous system 
        development and acquisition and the combatant commands.
            (7) Accelerate the Department's development and operational 
        test and evaluation of all-domain autonomous systems in 
        conjunction with service and joint test community and the 
        combatant commands.
            (8) Continuously solicit and utilize joint warfighter 
        feedback on requirements and capability progress in the 
        development process.
            (9) Ensure that the development environments, generated 
        data for autonomous system development, and any prototype all-
        domain autonomous system technologies, are designed to 
        transition to full sustainment within the programs of the 
        military departments.
            (10) Ensure that knowledge of proper autonomous system 
        program design and execution, including software development, 
        test, and acquisition best practices, is transitioned to 
        service program executive offices with unmanned and autonomous 
        system requirements.
            (11) Carry out such other activities relating to the 
        coordination, development, and delivery of autonomous systems 
        as the Secretary of Defense determines appropriate.
    (e) Hiring Authorities.--
            (1) Highly qualified experts.--Pursuant to the authority 
        provided under section 9903 of title 5, United States Code, the 
        Secretary of Defense may establish within the Office up to 12 
        Highly Qualified Expert positions to facilitate the rapid 
        hiring of technical program managers with experience in the 
        development, test, production, and delivery of all-domain 
        autonomous systems. The Secretary may extend the term of each 
        such Highly Qualified Expert for a period of not more than 
        seven years.
            (2) Excepted service hiring authority.--Each position in 
        the Joint Autonomy Office shall be a position in the excepted 
        service, and the Secretary may appoint individuals to such 
        positions in the same manner as provided under section 1599f of 
        title 10, United States Code.
    (f) Data Access and Related Authorities.--
            (1) Data access.--The Secretary of Defense shall ensure 
        that the Joint Autonomy Office--
                    (A) subject to the implementation of the security 
                protocols described in paragraph (2), has unlimited 
                access to existing datasets within service and joint 
                autonomous system, artificial intelligence, and legacy 
                platform and sensor programs regardless of 
                classification level; and
                    (B) has the authority to centralize access to such 
                data and information, as required to carry out the 
                duties of the Office.
            (2) Security protocols.--The Secretary of Defense shall 
        implement appropriate security protocols to protect any data 
        and other information shared with or maintained by the Office 
        under paragraph (1).
    (g) Contracting Authorities and Limitations.--
            (1) In general.--The Director of the Office--
                    (A) subject to paragraph (2), may enter into 
                contracts with private sector, non-Government entities, 
                as appropriate, for the purposes of leveraging 
                innovative commercial technologies to aid and 
                facilitate the execution of the duties of the Office; 
                and
                    (B) shall ensure that all programs administered by 
                the Office are carried out in accordance with section 
                3453 of title 10, United States Code.
            (2) Limitation.--The Office may coordinate with other 
        offices of the Department of Defense with contracting authority 
        as required to carry out the duties described in subsection 
        (d).
    (h) Coordination.--The Director of the Office shall ensure that the 
activities of the Office are conducted in accordance with Department of 
Defense policies and in coordination with the research and development 
programs of the Department.
    (i) Briefing.--Not later than 90 days after the date of the 
enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense shall provide to the 
Committees on Armed Services of the Senate and House of Representatives 
a briefing on the status of the establishment of the Office under this 
section.
    (j) Termination.--
            (1) In general.--Except as provided in paragraph (2), the 
        Office shall terminate on the date that is seven years after 
        the date of the enactment of this Act.
            (2) Extension.--The Secretary may extend the termination 
        date under paragraph (1) for one or more additional periods of 
        seven years if--
                    (A) if the Secretary determines that such an 
                extension is in the best interest of the Department of 
                Defense; and
                    (B) submits to the Committees on Armed Services of 
                the Senate and House of Representatives notice of the 
                Secretary's intent to make such an extension.
    (k) Definitions.--In this section:
            (1) The term ``all-domain'', when used with respect to an 
        autonomous system, means interoperability across one or more of 
        the ground, aerial, maritime, and space domains.
            (2) The term ``autonomous system'' means a system with the 
        ability to conduct integrated sensing, perception, 
        communication, decision-making, and action within specific 
        boundaries and independently from a human operator's 
        instruction.
            (3) The term ``Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence 
        Officer'' has the meaning given that term in section 846(b) of 
        the James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for 
        Fiscal Year 2023 (Public Law 117-263).
            (4) The term ``operational test and evaluation'' has the 
        meaning given that term in section 4171(h) of title 10, United 
        States Code.
    (l) Authorization of Appropriations.--There are authorized to be 
appropriated to the Department of Defense $55,000,000 for fiscal year 
2024 to carry out this section.

SEC. 2. FRAMEWORK FOR CLASSIFICATION OF AUTONOMOUS CAPABILITIES.

    (a) In General.--Not later than 180 days after the date on which 
Joint Autonomy Office is established pursuant to section 1, the 
Director of the Office, in consultation with the Under Secretary of 
Defense for Policy, the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and 
Engineering, the commanders of the combatant commands, and the 
Secretaries of the military departments, shall establish a Department-
wide classification framework for autonomous capabilities.
    (b) Purpose.--The purpose of the framework required under 
subsection (a) shall be to facilitate the development of a common 
understanding within the Department of Defense of autonomous 
capabilities and related operational requirements to better plan for, 
resource, and integrate appropriate autonomy-enabling hardware and 
software into current and future systems across the Department.
    (c) Autonomy Classification Framework.--At a minimum, the framework 
required under subsection (a) shall--
            (1) include multiple levels of increasingly complex 
        autonomous maneuver capability with a focus on classifying 
        necessary levels of human supervision or control during 
        operational use;
            (2) apply to current and future autonomous systems 
        operating across land, air, maritime, and space domains;
            (3) include estimates of costs necessary to achieve 
        specific levels of autonomous capability; and
            (4) include--
                    (A) operational requirements including necessary 
                levels of survivability in GPS- or communications-
                denied environments;
                    (B) specific operational or engagement scenarios; 
                and
                    (C) necessary levels of teaming with other 
                autonomous systems.
    (d) Progress Report.--Not later than 30 days after the 
establishment of the framework under subsection (a), the Director of 
the Joint Autonomy Office shall submit to the congressional defense 
committees a report that includes a description of the framework and 
the specific methodologies, criteria, and operational requirements used 
to develop the classifications under the framework.
    (e) Regular Reassessment.--
            (1) In general.--Not less frequently than once every two 
        years, Director of the Joint Autonomy Office shall reassess and 
        update the classification framework required under subsection 
        (a) to ensure the framework incorporates recent developments in 
        technology, standards, and operational requirements relating to 
        autonomous capabilities.
            (2) Briefing.--Not later than 30 days of the completion of 
        each reassessment under paragraph (1), the Director of the 
        Joint Autonomy Office shall provide to the congressional 
        defense committees a briefing on the results of the 
        reassessment and any resulting revisions to the classification 
        framework under subsection (a).
    (f) Implementation.--Not later than 90 days after the establishment 
of the framework under subsection (a), the Under Secretary of Defense 
for Policy shall issue instructions to the military services to 
implement such framework by operationalizing the use of the framework 
in the planning and budgeting processes of individual program offices.

SEC. 3. PLAN FOR INTEGRATION OF AUTONOMOUS CAPABILITIES INTO SYSTEMS OF 
              THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE.

    (a) Plan Required.--Not later than one year after the date on which 
Joint Autonomy Office is established pursuant to section 1, the 
Director of the Joint Autonomy Office shall develop and implement a 
plan and procedures to standardize the planning, resourcing, and 
integration efforts with respect to autonomous capabilities for current 
and future systems across the Department.
    (b) Elements.--The plan required under subsection (a) shall include 
the following:
            (1) A Department-wide assessment of the status of efforts 
        to resource and integrate autonomy software into current and 
        future systems, including--
                    (A) the identification of current and future 
                systems across the Department which can be integrated 
                with autonomy software to enable continuous operational 
                capability of such systems in GPS- or communications-
                denied environments, including those systems identified 
                in the report required by section 246 of the National 
                Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022 (Public 
                Law 117-81; 135 Stat. 1622); and
                    (B) an assessment of gaps in--
                            (i) program funding related to the 
                        acquisition of autonomy software;
                            (ii) acquisition processes, including the 
                        planning, programming, budgeting, and execution 
                        process for acquiring and integrating autonomy-
                        enabling capabilities across relevant programs 
                        of record;
                            (iii) training capabilities;
                            (iv) testing, evaluation, verification, and 
                        validation capabilities in all environments, 
                        including virtual and real world environments; 
                        and
                            (v) efforts to test, resource, and scale 
                        commercially available technologies.
            (2) A plan to address, to the maximum extent practicable, 
        the gaps assessed in paragraph (1), including--
                    (A) updated procedures to plan for autonomy 
                software costs at the onset of the acquisition life 
                cycle;
                    (B) plans to include in greater detail the 
                projected autonomy software costs for applicable 
                programs of record within period covered by the Future 
                Years Defense Program; and
                    (C) plans to standardize the acquisition of 
                autonomy software for programs of record across the 
                military services including the use of the capability 
                classification framework required in section 2 of this 
                Act.
    (c) Consultation.--The Director of the Joint Autonomy Office shall 
develop the plan under subsection (a) in consultation with--
            (1) the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and 
        Sustainment;
            (2) the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer;
            (3) the Joint Chiefs of Staff;
            (4) the senior acquisition executive of each military 
        service;
            (5) the commanders of the combatant commands; and
            (6) such other organizations and elements of the Department 
        of Defense as the Director determines appropriate.
    (d) Report.--
            (1) In general.--Not later than 90 days after the 
        completion of the plan under subsection (a), the Director of 
        the Joint Autonomy Office shall submit to the congressional 
        defense committees a report that describes the specific 
        elements of the plan.
            (2) Form.--The report under paragraph (1) shall be 
        submitted in unclassified form but may contain a classified 
        annex.
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