Press Releases

Today, the House of Representatives passed the FY22 National Defense Authorization Act, which included five amendments offered by Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-VA), Chairman of the House Government Operations Subcommittee. Connolly’s provisions included the FedRamp Authorization Act, Global Health Security Act, Protection of Saudi Dissidents Act, efforts to streamline federal agency performance plans and protect the civil service, and an amendment to cut red tape in the Art in Embassies Program.

“I want to thank Chairman Smith for his leadership in this year’s NDAA,” Chairman Connolly said. “These amendments will help modernize our federal government, secure justice for Jamal Khashoggi, prepare our global community in the face of future pandemics, ensure the civil service cannot be attacked or politicized.”

The following provisions were included in the legislation headed to the Senate.

• FedRamp Reauthorization: The bipartisan legislation offered by Chairman Connolly and Ranking Member Comer reforms the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) to help ensure that federal agencies' processes of moving safely to the cloud are streamlined and efficient. Similar legislation offered by Connolly was one of the first bills to pass the 117^th Congress in January 2021.
  
• Global Health Security Act: Directs the President to create the Global Health Security Agenda Interagency Review Council to implement the Global Health Security Agenda and to appoint a U.S. Coordinator for Global Health Security to coordinate and report on the interagency process for responding to global health security emergencies.
  
• Protection of Saudi Dissidents Act: Imposes temporary limits on arms sales to Saudi Arabia and requires various reports and actions related to the death of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The legislation was included in the House-passed FY 2022 NDAA.
  
• Performance Enhancement Reform Act: Ensures key stakeholders and resources are not left out of the creation of federal agencies’ performance plans.
  
• Preventing a Patronage System Act: Prevents any position in the competitive service from being reclassified to an excepted service schedule that was created after September 30, 2020 and limits federal employee reclassifications to the five excepted service schedules in use prior to fiscal year 2021.