Cybersecurity board stacked with industry insiders, no public seat at table
H.R. 1495 — Digital Economy Cybersecurity Advisory Act of 2025 · Filed by August Pfluger (R-TX) · Introduced Feb 21, 2025 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
Enter a ZIP to see where your representative and both senators stood on this bill.
Looked up on this device — your ZIP is never stored on our servers.
What it does
This bill creates a Digital Economy and Cybersecurity Board of Advisors within the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). The Board will have 5–25 members appointed by the NTIA's Assistant Secretary, drawn from cybersecurity experts, network operators, equipment and software vendors, and internet application providers. The Board will advise the Assistant Secretary on cybersecurity best practices, policies to secure networks and supply chains, and ways to remove barriers to innovation—but has no direct authority to implement policy. The Board will automatically dissolve after 4 years.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole operative mechanism is the creation of a formal advisory board within an existing agency. It grants no new regulatory authority, appropriates no funds, and imposes no mandates—it is a structural governance measure designed to institutionalize industry and expert input into cybersecurity policy deliberation.
What the text implies
- Board composition mandates representation from equipment vendors, software vendors, and network operators—entities with direct financial stakes in cybersecurity regulation—without corresponding seats for consumer advocates, civil liberties organizations, or public-interest technologists, potentially skewing recommendations toward industry-friendly policies.
- The board's 4-year sunset clause means its recommendations will be advisory only and non-binding; if the Assistant Secretary ignores the board's work, there is no mechanism for public accountability or legislative review of that decision.
- The prohibition on registered lobbyists does not prevent board members from being employed by companies that lobby, nor does it prevent them from returning to lobbying after their term ends, creating a revolving-door dynamic.
- No requirement for public meetings, published agendas, or disclosure of recommendations means the board's deliberations and advice may remain opaque to the public, limiting democratic oversight of cybersecurity policy formation.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill creates a structured advisory process that may improve cybersecurity policy by bringing diverse technical expertise into NTIA deliberations, potentially benefiting public security. However, the board is purely advisory with no enforcement power, and the composition requirement to include vendors and network operators creates a structural risk that industry interests will dominate recommendations without offsetting public-interest safeguards or transparency mechanisms.
Who stands to gain
- telecommunications equipment vendors
- software vendors serving network operators
- internet service providers and network operators
Named in the bill
National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information, Associate Administrator for Policy Analysis and Development, Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995
Where it stands
- Feb 21, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Feb 21, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Energy and Commerce · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
2 lobbying clients named this bill on 3 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $1,660,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 30 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 41% of bills with at least one filing.
August Pfluger, the sponsor, reported $1,070,325 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Association of Equipment Manufacturers — $980,000 on 1 filing
- Case New Holland Industrial Inc — $680,000 on 2 filings
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (5,148 characters) on Jun 3, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
“Cybersecurity board stacked with industry insiders, no public seat at table” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr1495 Report an error
The week in bills
One email, Sunday: what Congress passed, what it changed, and who paid.
One link arrives to confirm the address. It is used for this email and nothing else, and every issue carries an unsubscribe link.