Congressional Hearings – Week of 7-27-09

The only hearing currently being listed for this week that may be of interest to the chemical security community is a hearing by the Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment Hearing on the “Information Sharing Environment”. Since this should include some discussion of sharing intelligence with critical infrastructure sectors, it may be interesting. The hearing will be held on Thursday, July 30th at 10 a.m. EDT. Technically both the Judiciary and the Energy and Commerce Committees are supposed to report on HR 2868 at the end of the week. This would require them to hold hearings this week, do what ever markups are necessary and report the bill; this unlikely to be done this week. The Judiciary Committee could possibly squeeze in a sub-committee hearing on the Civilian Suits provisions of the bill, but a full committee report is unlikely. I would be surprised if the subcommittee hearing postponed last week in the Energy and Commerce Committee were held this week; that Committee is still being strangled by health care bill. In any case look for an extension of the reporting requirements on HR 2868 to be issued by the Speaker on Friday.