Congress orders audit of Coast Guard cyber readiness for ports
H.R. 7625 — MTS CYBER Act of 2026 · Filed by Addison McDowell (R-NC) · 2 cosponsors · Introduced Feb 20, 2026 · Reported out
Your members of Congress
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What it does
This bill tells the Government Accountability Office to check the Coast Guard. It will see if the Coast Guard has enough money and staff. The audit will look at cyber worker pay, training, and enforcement. It will check if the Coast Guard can make shipping companies follow new rules.
Who it affects
The Coast Guard must be audited. Shipping companies and ports must follow cyber rules. Citizens depend on safe ports and shipping for jobs and safety.
One thing to notice
The audit must be done in 270 days. This gives Congress a deadline to act on port cyber security funding.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
2 cosponsors: 1 Democrats, 1 Republicans.
- Feb 20, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Feb 20, 2026 — Referred to House Committee on Homeland Security and House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure · Congress.gov: “Referred to the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, and in addition to the Committee on Homeland…”
- Sep 15, 2026 — Markup held in committee · Congress.gov: “Committee Consideration and Mark-up Session Held”
- Sep 15, 2026 — Reported out of committee · Congress.gov: “Ordered to be Reported (Amended) by Voice Vote”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 groups reported lobbying about this bill. They filed 1 reports from Jun 2026 to Jun 2026.
Those reports show $240,000 in lobbying spending. Each report lists about 99 bills. So that money was not all for this bill.
More groups named this bill than 0% of bills with any report.
Addison McDowell, who sponsored the bill, received $544,500 from PACs for the 2026 election.
- Fdd Action — $240,000 in 1 report
Lobbying is legal. These reports show who lobbied about this bill, not what changed.
Words to know
- Government Accountability Office — An independent group that checks if government agencies spend money well.
- audit — A careful check of how an agency spends money and does its work.
- Coast Guard — The military branch that protects U.S. coasts, ports, and waterways.
- lobbying — Trying to influence lawmakers about a bill. Companies and groups pay people to do this.
- PACs — Groups that collect money and give it to candidates for office.
- sponsored — To sponsor a bill is to introduce it in Congress and put your name on it.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (4,109 characters) on Aug 13, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 14,342 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 Jun 2026 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 2026-09-18.
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