1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Ensuring American Leadership over International Standards Act of 2019 . 2. Findings Congress finds the following: (1) Standards serve as the building blocks for product development and help ensure functionality, interoperability, and safety. (2) Global cooperation and coordination on standards for emerging technologies will be critical for having a consistent set of rules to enable market competition, preclude barriers to trade, and allow innovation to flourish. (3) China’s Standardization Reform Plan and Five-Year Plan for Standardization highlight its high-level goals to establish China as a standards power by 2020, participate in at least half of all standards drafting and revision efforts in recognized international standards setting organizations, and to strengthen China’s participation in the governance of international standards setting organizations. (4) As emerging technologies develop for global deployment, it is critical that the United States and its allies continue to shape standards that underpin the technologies themselves, and the future international governance of these technologies. (5) United States position on standardization in emerging technologies will be critical to United States economic competitiveness. (6) NIST is in a unique position to strengthen United States leadership in standards development, particularly for emerging technologies, to ensure continuing United States economic competitiveness and national security. 3. External study (a) In general Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology shall enter into an agreement with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to conduct a study, and make recommendations with respect to the impact of Chinese government policies and standards development on international bodies engaged in developing and setting international standards for emerging technologies. The study may include— (1) an