Congressional Hearings Week of 06-21-10

There will only be three congressional hearings this week that look to be of interest to the chemical security community. There will be mark-ups of two different pieces of legislation that could peripherally affect the community and then a pipeline safety hearing that might be of interest. Mark-ups As I mentioned in a blog posting last Friday, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will be doing their mark-up of S 3480 along with some other legislation. The Committee is also expected to vote on the nominee for the head of TSA. The hearing will be held on Thursday at 2:30 pm EDT. The House Homeland Security Committee will be holding their mark-up on HR 5498, the Committee’s WMD legislation. I mentioned in an earlier blog the base bill won’t have much effect on the chemical security community, but revisions in the mark-up could change that. The hearing will be held on Wednesday at 10:00 am EDT. Pipeline Safety The Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine of the Senate’s Commerce Committee will be holding a hearing to look at the safety of the nation’s pipelines. While there has been no announcement that security issues will be specifically looked at, in today’s environment security should be considered an integral part of any safety program, especially for hazardous materials pipelines. This hearing will be held on Thursday at 2:30 pm EDT.