Congressional Hearings for Week of March 30th

Congress is taking their traditional Friday Travel Day to get back home for the weekend. I’ve looked at that posted schedules on a variety of Committee web sites and I don’t see any hearings of particular interest to the chemical security community. There will be some more hearings on the problems along the Mexican border, but the two most potentially interesting homeland security type hearings will be conducted by the House Homeland Security Committee. The Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment will hold a hearing on Fusion Centers on April 1st at 10:00am EDT. They will have a wide variety of witnesses, including two from DHS this time. The agenda includes looking at the recent DHS IG report on Fusion Centers and the Chairwoman promises to “explore the potential pitfalls that fusion centers present in light of recent reports of privacy and civil liberties abuses at several fusion centers.” The full committee will hold a hearing on April 2nd at 10:00am looking at the potential reorganization of the Homeland Security Council in the White House. Interestingly there is no one from the White House on the witness list. Of course, everyone is still waiting for the results of the 60-day review of the HSC/NSC issue ordered by President Obama.