IC Oversight & Policy — 2026-07-21

HPSCI Passes FY2027 Intelligence Authorization Act With AI Expansion, Counterintelligence Reforms, and Election Security Provisions

BLUFCrawford's SECURE Act restructuring of counterintelligence authority, not the AI or cyber provisions, will drive the sharpest interagency friction as the bill moves to floor action.

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence approved the fiscal 2027 Intelligence Authorization Act on Monday, according to CyberScoop 1. The bill authorizes a cyberthreat intelligence-sharing pilot program letting the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, DHS, and FBI brief one selected state monthly on unclassified cyber threats, and directs GAO to assess current federal-to-state intelligence sharing and the obstacles security clearances pose to it 1. A Republican summary cited by CyberScoop describes provisions expanding funding for frontier AI models in intelligence and cyber missions and codifying the NSA's Artificial Intelligence Security Center 1. During markup, committee Democrats won adoption of three election security amendments: Ranking Member Jim Himes's measure requiring an unclassified IC assessment of foreign threats to the 2026 midterms, Jason Crow's amendment withholding part of ODNI's funding until Congress receives overdue 2024 and 2026 election reports, and Chrissy Houlahan's provision protecting analysts from retaliation over foreign-influence election products 1. The House Intelligence Committee separately announced a counterintelligence reform effort, Chairman Rick Crawford's SECURE Act, which would replace ODNI's National Counterintelligence and Security Center with a new National Counterintelligence Center to lead and synchronize IC-wide counterintelligence activities 2.

Analysis
The SECURE Act's consolidation of counterintelligence authority under a new National Counterintelligence Center marks the more consequential structural change in this markup, since the cyberthreat-sharing pilot and AI funding provisions largely extend existing ODNI and NSA missions rather than redistribute IC authority, with moderate confidence given uncertainty over whether agencies losing deconfliction authority contest the reallocation before floor action. Democrats' success in attaching three election-security amendments over apparent committee resistance shows they retain oversight leverage despite Republican control, and the new SECURE Act and election provisions were absent from the Senate's FY2027 companion reported in May. Reporting traces to a single CyberScoop account of the markup, corroborated only by the committee's own release rather than independent outlets. The AI-funding and counterintelligence emphasis may be messaging timed to the incoming DNI confirmation fight as much as a substantive legislative priority.

3 sources

House intel bill includes provisions on state and local threat intelligence, election security, AI - CyberScoop
House Intelligence Committee Passes Effort to Ensure Success of the U.S. Counterintelligence Mission in IAA - House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2027 (H.R. 9624) Bill Status - GovInfo (Library of Congress)