Congressional Hearings – Week of 9-21-09

Only three hearings are of potential interest to the chemical security community are currently scheduled for next week, and none of them deal with CFATS or HR 2868. The Senate side will look at WMD’s while the House will look at Cyber Security and Intelligence. WMD September 22, 2009; 10:00 am EDT; Senate Homeland Security Committee Sen. Lieberman’s Homeland Security Committee will hold their first hearing on S 1649. As I noted in an earlier blog this is principally focused on biological attacks, but there are provisions that will impact chemical security issues. Two of the witnesses will be the Bob Graham (Chairman) and Jim Talent (Vice-Chair) of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism. The third will be Gregory D. Kutz Managing Director, Forensic Audits and Special Investigations. Cyber Security September 24, 2009; 2:00 pm EDT; House Science and Technology Committee Congressman Lipinski’s (D, IL) Subcommittee on Research and Science Education will hold a hearing on a yet to be published bill entitled the Cybersecurity (sic) Research and Development Amendments Act of 2009. There is no word about what the bill contains or who will appear before the subcommittee. Homeland Security Intelligence September 24, 2009; 10:00 am EDT; House Homeland Security Committee Congresswoman Harmon’s (D, CA) Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment will have DHS Acting Undersecretary Johnson back before the subcommittee for an update on his “ongoing efforts to focus the intelligence and information-sharing missions of I&A (Intelligence and Analysis)”.