HR 4061 Status – 02-01-10

The Rules Committee will conduct their hearing on HR 4061 this evening at 5:00 pm. The deadline for submitting amendments was yesterday and there were 38 amendments submitted. The Committee web page provides a summary of each of the proposed amendments and a link to the amendment. According to the summaries provided by the sponsors, none of the amendments seems to address any issues related to industrial control system security. This evening Committee meeting will result in a pared down list of amendments that will be considered during floor debate, probably later this week. When that list is provided I’ll take a more detailed look at the amendments that will make it to the floor. One amendment that I predict will make it to the floor is the Flake (R, AZ) Amendment that would prohibit the use of earmarks to allocate the grants provided in the legislation. He proposes similar amendments to nearly every bill with grant programs; they almost always make it to the floor where they are usually approved. This certainly makes him a hero to his constituents; I’m not sure why other legislators don’t just include this language when they are drafting their bills.