S 1274 Status Update – 07-21-09

The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation held an Executive Session yesterday afternoon at which they marked-up S 1274, a bill to prevent the re-occurrence of the efforts of Bayer CropScience to limit the discussion of information related to their fatal accident last year by excessive claims of coverage as Sensitive Security Information. The bill was ordered to be reported favorably with an amendment in the nature of a substitute. There was no discussion and the substitute language is not currently available. When the Committee report is made available, I’ll take a look at what changes have been made. I’m still not sure why Sen. Rockefeller (D,WV), the sponsor of this bill, is proceeding with this legislation as he was able to get identical provisions added to the Senate version of HR 2892, the DHS FY2010 Budget. Of course that bill has not yet passed, or even come out of conference committee. He may just be covering his bets.