S. 5379: BIS Strategic Talent Recruitment to Enhance National Guardrails for Technological Handling Act

This bill would give the Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security new authority to hire a limited number of outside experts for the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), the Commerce Department office that helps oversee export controls and related national security rules.

What it would change

• Allows BIS to identify hard-to-fill skill gaps by doing an annual review of its staffing needs.
• Lets BIS hire people from outside the normal federal civil service system if they have the needed expertise.
• Lets BIS set pay for these hires at levels up to the senior-level federal pay cap, including locality pay.

Limits on the new hiring authority

• Any person hired under this authority could serve for no more than 5 years.
• No more than 25 people may be employed under this authority at any one time.
• Total compensation for each of these employees could not exceed the Vice President’s annual pay limit.
• The authority would expire 5 years after enactment, although people already hired could continue serving under their original terms.

Reporting requirements

The Under Secretary would have to report to certain congressional committees within 180 days of enactment, and then once a year after that. The report would need to include:

• the areas where BIS has identified expertise gaps;
• what steps were taken to try to fill those gaps through the regular civil service first;
• how many people were hired under this authority;
• their qualifications and job duties;
• how they affected BIS’s work; and
• an assessment of BIS’s longer-term staffing needs for export controls.

Other safeguards

• The bill does not remove requirements for background checks or qualifications.
• It also does not change federal ethics or conflict-of-interest rules.

Relevant Companies

None found