[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 158 (Thursday, September 29, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5573-S5574]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SA 6035. Mr. WICKER (for himself and Ms. Lummis) submitted an
amendment intended to be proposed to amendment SA 5499 submitted by Mr.
Reed (for himself and Mr. Inhofe) and intended to be proposed to the
bill H.R. 7900, to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2023 for
military activities of the Department of Defense, for military
construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy,
to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for
other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:
At the appropriate place, insert the following:
TITLE __--NATIONAL STRATEGY FOR THE RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT OF
DISTRIBUTED LEDGER TECHNOLOGIES
SEC. __. DEFINITIONS.
In this title:
(1) Director.--Except as otherwise expressly provided, the
term ``Director'' means the Director of the Office of Science
and Technology Policy.
(2) Distributed ledger.--The term ``distributed ledger''
means a ledger that--
(A) is shared across a set of distributed nodes, which are
devices or processes, that participate in a network and store
a complete or partial replica of the ledger;
(B) is synchronized between the nodes;
(C) has data appended to it by following the ledger's
specified consensus mechanism;
(D) may be accessible to anyone (public) or restricted to a
subset of participants (private); and
(E) may require participants to have authorization to
perform certain actions (permissioned) or require no
authorization (permissionless).
(3) Distributed ledger technology.--The term ``distributed
ledger technology'' means technology that enables the
operation and use of distributed ledgers.
(4) Institution of higher education.--The term
``institution of higher education'' has the meaning given the
term in section 101 of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20
U.S.C. 1001).
(5) Relevant congressional committees.--The term ``relevant
congressional committees'' means--
(A) the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
of the Senate; and
(B) the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology of the
House of Representatives.
(6) Smart contract.--The term ``smart contract'' means a
computer program stored in a distributed ledger system that
is executed when certain predefined conditions are satisfied
and wherein the outcome of any execution of the program may
be recorded on the distributed ledger.
SEC. __. NATIONAL DISTRIBUTED LEDGER TECHNOLOGY R&D STRATEGY.
(a) In General.--The Director, or a designee of the
Director, shall, in coordination with the National Science
and Technology Council, and the heads of such other relevant
Federal agencies as the Director considers appropriate and in
consultation with such nongovernmental entities as the
Director considers appropriate, develop a national strategy
for the research and development of distributed ledger
technologies and their applications, with a particular focus
on applications of public and permissionless distributed
ledgers. In developing the national strategy, the Director
shall consider the following:
(1) Current efforts and coordination by Federal agencies to
invest in the research and development of distributed ledger
technologies and their applications, including through
programs like the Small Business Innovation Research and
Small Business Technology Transfer programs.
(2)(A) The potential benefits and risks of applications of
distributed ledger technologies across different industry
sectors, including their potential to--
(i) lower transactions costs and facilitate new types of
commercial transactions;
(ii) protect privacy and increase individuals' data
sovereignty;
(iii) reduce friction to the interoperability of digital
systems;
(iv) increase the accessibility, auditability, security,
efficiency, and transparency of digital services;
(v) increase market competition in the provision of digital
services;
(vi) enable dynamic contracting and contract execution
through smart contracts;
(vii) enable participants to collaborate in trustless and
disintermediated environments;
(viii) enable the operations and governance of distributed
organizations; and
(ix) create new ownership models for digital items.
(B) In consideration of the potential risks of applications
of distributed ledger technologies under subparagraph (A),
the Director shall take into account, where applicable--
(i) software vulnerabilities in distributed ledger
technologies and smart contracts;
(ii) limited consumer literacy on engaging with
applications of distributed ledger technologies in a secure
way;
(iii) the use of distributed ledger technologies in illicit
finance and their use in combating illicit finance;
(iv) manipulative, deceptive, and fraudulent practices that
harm consumers engaging with applications of distributed
ledger technologies;
(v) the implications of different consensus mechanisms for
digital ledgers and governance and accountability mechanisms
for applications of distributed ledger technologies, which
may include decentralized networks;
(vi) foreign activities in the development and deployment
of distributed ledger technologies and their associated tools
and infrastructure; and
(vii) environmental, sustainability, and economic impacts
of the computational resources required for distributed
ledger technologies.
(3) Potential uses for distributed ledger technologies that
could improve the operations and delivery of services by
Federal agencies, taking into account the potential of
digital ledger technologies to--
(A) improve the efficiency and effectiveness of privacy-
preserving data sharing among Federal agencies and with
State, local, territorial, and Tribal governments;
(B) promote government transparency by improving data
sharing with the public;
(C) introduce or mitigate risks that may threaten
individuals' rights or access to Federal services; and
(D) automate and modernize processes for assessing and
ensuring regulatory compliance.
(4) Ways to support public and private sector dialogue on
areas of research that could enhance the efficiency,
scalability, interoperability, security, and privacy of
applications using distributed ledger technologies.
(5) The need for increased coordination of the public and
private sectors on the development of voluntary standards,
including those regarding security, smart contracts,
cryptographic protocols, virtual routing and forwarding,
interoperability, zero-knowledge proofs, and privacy, for
distributed ledger technologies and their applications.
(6) Applications of distributed ledger technologies that
could positively benefit society but that receive relatively
little private sector investment.
(7) The United States position in global leadership and
competitiveness across research, development, and deployment
of distributed ledger technologies.
(b) Consultation.--
(1) In general.--In carrying out the Director's duties
under this section, the Director shall consult with the
following:
(A) Private industry.
(B) Institutions of higher education.
(C) Nonprofit organizations, including foundations
dedicated to supporting distributed ledger technologies and
their applications.
(D) State governments.
[[Page S5574]]
(E) Such other persons as the Director considers
appropriate.
(2) Representation.--The Director shall ensure
consultations with the following:
(A) Rural and urban stakeholders from across the Nation.
(B) Small, medium, and large businesses.
(C) Subject matter experts representing multiple industrial
sectors.
(c) Coordination.--In carrying out this section, the
Director shall, for purposes of avoiding duplication of
activities, consult, cooperate, and coordinate with the
programs and policies of other relevant Federal agencies,
including the interagency process outlined in section 3 of
Executive Order 14067 (87 Fed. Reg. 14143; relating ensuring
responsible development of digital assets).
(d) National Strategy.--Not later than 1 year after the
date of enactment of this Act, the Director shall submit to
the relevant congressional committees and the President a
national strategy that includes the following:
(1) Priorities for the research and development of
distributed ledger technologies and their applications.
(2) Plans to support public and private sector investment
and partnerships in research and technology development for
societally beneficial applications of distributed ledger
technologies.
(3) Plans to mitigate the risks of distributed ledger
technologies and their applications.
(4) An identification of additional resources,
administrative action, or legislative action recommended to
assist with the implementation of such strategy.
(e) Research and Development Funding.--The Director shall,
as the Director considers necessary, consult with the
Director of the Office of Management and Budget and with the
heads of such other elements of the Executive Office of the
President as the Director considers appropriate, to ensure
that the recommendations and priorities with respect to
research and development funding, as expressed in the
national strategy developed under this section, are
incorporated in the development of annual budget requests for
Federal research agencies.
(f) Authorization of Appropriations.--There are authorized
to be appropriated to the Director $1,000,000 to carry out
this section for fiscal years 2023 and 2024.
SEC. __. DISTRIBUTED LEDGER TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH.
(a) In General.--The Director of the National Science
Foundation shall make awards, on a competitive basis, to
institutions of higher education or nonprofit organizations
(or consortia of such institutions or organizations) to
support research, including socio-technical research, on
distributed ledger technologies and their applications, with
a particular focus on applications of public and
permissionless distributed ledgers, which may include
research on--
(1) the implications on trust, transparency, privacy,
accountability, and energy consumption of different consensus
mechanisms and hardware choices, and approaches for
addressing these implications;
(2) approaches for improving the security, privacy,
resiliency, interoperability, performance, and scalability of
distributed ledger technologies and their applications, which
may include decentralized networks;
(3) approaches for identifying and addressing
vulnerabilities and improving the performance and expressive
power of smart contracts;
(4) the implications of quantum computing on applications
of distributed ledger technologies, including long-term
protection of sensitive information (such as medical or
digital property), and techniques to address them;
(5) game theory, mechanism design, and economics
underpinning and facilitating the operations and governance
of decentralized networks enabled by distributed ledger
technologies;
(6) the social behaviors of participants in decentralized
networks enabled by distributed ledger technologies;
(7) human-centric design approaches to make distributed
ledger technologies and their applications more usable and
accessible; and
(8) use cases for distributed ledger technologies across
various industry sectors and government, including
applications pertaining to--
(A) digital identity, including trusted identity and
identity management;
(B) digital property rights;
(C) delivery of public services;
(D) supply chain transparency;
(E) medical information management;
(F) inclusive financial services;
(G) community governance;
(H) charitable giving;
(I) public goods funding;
(J) digital credentials;
(K) regulatory compliance;
(L) infrastructure resilience; and
(M) peer-to-peer transactions.
(b) Accelerating Innovation.--The Director of the National
Science Foundation shall consider supporting startups that
leverage distributed ledger technologies, have the potential
to positively benefit society, and have the potential for
commercial viability, through programs like the Small
Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology
Transfer programs.
(c) Consideration of National Distributed Ledger Technology
Research and Development Strategy.--In making awards under
subsection (a), the Director of the National Science
Foundation shall take into account the national strategy, as
described in section __(d).
(d) Fundamental Research.--The Director of the National
Science Foundation shall continue to make awards supporting
fundamental research in areas related to distributed ledger
technologies and their applications, such as applied
cryptography and distributed systems.
SEC. __. DISTRIBUTED LEDGER TECHNOLOGY APPLIED RESEARCH
PROJECT.
(a) Applied Research Project.--Subject to the availability
of appropriations, the Director of the National Institute of
Standards and Technology, shall carry out an applied research
project to study and demonstrate the potential benefits and
unique capabilities of distributed ledger technologies.
(b) Activities.--In carrying out the applied research
project, the Director of the National Institute of Standards
and Technology shall--
(1) identify potential applications of distributed ledger
technologies, including those that could benefit activities
at the Department of Commerce or at other Federal agencies,
considering applications that could--
(A) improve the privacy and interoperability of digital
identity and access management solutions;
(B) increase the integrity and transparency of supply
chains through the secure and limited sharing of relevant
supplier information;
(C) facilitate increased interoperability across healthcare
information systems and consumer control over the movement of
their medical data; or
(D) be of benefit to the public or private sectors, as
determined by the Director in consultation with relevant
stakeholders;
(2) solicit and provide the opportunity for public comment
relevant to potential projects;
(3) consider, in the selection of a project, whether the
project addresses a pressing need not already addressed by
another organization or Federal agency;
(4) establish plans to mitigate potential risks, for
example those to privacy, of potential projects;
(5) produce an example solution leveraging distributed
ledger technologies for 1 of the applications identified in
paragraph (1);
(6) hold a competitive process to select private sector
partners, if they are engaged, to support the implementation
of the example solution;
(7) consider hosting the project at the National
Cybersecurity Center of Excellence; and
(8) ensure that cybersecurity best practices consistent
with the Cybersecurity Framework of the National Institute of
Standards and Technology are demonstrated in the project.
(c) Briefings to Congress.--Not later than 1 year after the
date of enactment of this Act, the Director of the National
Institute of Standards and Technology shall offer a briefing
to the relevant congressional committees on the progress and
current findings from the project under this section.
(d) Public Report.--Not later than 12 months after the
completion of the project under this section, the Director of
the National Institute of Standards and Technology shall make
public a report on the results and findings from the project.
______