House Rules Committee Hearing on HR 2892

As I noted in yesterday’s blog, the House Rules Committee will hold a hearing this afternoon at 5:00 pm (well, I may have forgotten to include the date/time) to prepare the rule for the consideration of HR 2892, Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2010. They have on their Committee Web site a list of all of the amendments that have been filed for consideration with this bill. It is a lengthy list, filled with all manner of political objectives. Surprisingly, there is only one amendment that concerns the CFATS regulations; it is amendment #65 submitted by Congressman Dent (R, PA). The summary of that amendment reads:

“Would ensure that no funds appropriated for the expansion of the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards would be used to mandate the implementation of inherently safer technology (IST) at chemical facilities covered under the program.”

The fact that Mr. Dent would try to limit the application of mandatory IST rules should come as no surprise to anyone that has followed the recent hearings on HR 2868 (Hearing and Markup). What would seem surprising is that an amendment like this to the FY2010 Appropriations Bill would probably not affect the operations of HR 2868 since the rules supporting that legislation are not required to be in place before January, 2011 at the earliest and could easily be expected to be in place no earlier than the beginning of FY 2012. Oh well; one must at least admire Mr. Dent for his consistency of purpose. One would certainly expect that if this amendment were to make it to the floor of the House, that it would be voted down on a nearly party-line vote.