S.Amdt. 3696

SA 3696, proposed by Mr. Cotton and Mr. Warner, adds the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026 to bill S. 2296. Its purpose is to authorize funding and establish policies for the United States intelligence community for the 2026 fiscal year.

The amendment aims to change or add the following:

• Funding and Personnel: It authorizes appropriations for general intelligence activities, allocates $514,000,000 for the Central Intelligence Agency Retirement and Disability Fund, and addresses employee compensation, benefits, and high-level appointment processes.

• Intelligence Community Management: It introduces efficiency rules, including a plan to reduce staff at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and transferring the National Counterintelligence and Security Center to the FBI.

• Operational Reforms: It requires annual surveys on analytic objectivity, training to avoid political bias, and the creation of a CIA Chaplain Corps. It also prohibits contractors from selling or collecting location data of individuals at intelligence community locations.

• Foreign Threats and Intelligence: It mandates reports and strategies to counter foreign adversaries, specifically the People's Republic of China. This includes countering Chinese influence in Europe, reporting on the wealth of Chinese Communist Party leadership, and establishing the China Economics and Intelligence Cell to report on China's technological and economic goals. It also requires strategies to counter foreign influence in Sudan and improve counternarcotics cooperation with Mexico.

• Technology and Security: It creates the Intelligence Community Technology Bridge Program to move products from research to production. It sets rules for artificial intelligence, including an inventory of "high-impact" use cases and standards to avoid vendor lock-in. It also requires assessments of counterintelligence threats to U.S. space interests.

• Biotechnology and Genomics: It directs the identification of biotechnology threats, secures U.S. genomic data from foreign acquisition, and prohibits contracts with Chinese military biotechnology companies or suppliers that pose security threats.

• Diplomatic and Personnel Controls: It imposes travel protocols and a maximum 6-year total tour limit on diplomatic personnel from covered nations, which are Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Russia, and China.

• Accountability and Oversight: It increases whistleblower protections, removes the cap on compensatory damages for retaliatory security clearance revocations, and requires the FBI to provide annual data on specific counterintelligence and counterterrorism cases. It also mandates the declassification of intelligence regarding anomalous health incidents and the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Election Security: It requires penetration testing for voting system software and hardware and creates a 5-year pilot program for vulnerability disclosure and independent security testing for election systems.

• Nuclear and Energy: It requires a report to identify sites for advanced nuclear technologies to ensure resilient and secure energy.