HR 2219 Amendments

The House session ended early Friday afternoon and there was no debate on HR 2219, the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2012 before the House adjourned for a very long weekend. They will resume consideration when they return from their July 4th ‘weekend’. There were, however, more proposed amendments to that bill published in Friday's Congressional Record for that bill. One of those amendments had potential homeland security implications, but nothing to do with cyber security.

Rep. Clarke (D, MI) proposed amendment #37 that would transfer $2 Billion from the Afghanistan Security Forces Fund (pg 135) to the “State Homeland Security Grant Program under section 2004 of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (6 U.S.C. 605)”.

I don’t think that this amendment will actually come to a vote on the floor, even if it is actually proposed by Mr. Clarke. House Resolution 320, the rule for the consideration of HR 2219, prohibits {§2(a)(1)} the transfer of funds to or from the funds designated as being for the global war on terrorism pursuant to section 301 of H. Con. Res. 34 (112th Congress). The Afghanistan Security Forces Fund is clearly identified GWOT funding and the State Homeland Security Grant program is not.

If it is introduced, Mr. Clarke would get his five minute speech then someone from the leadership would ‘raise a point of order’ against the amendment and the House would move on to the next amendment.

As I noted earlier, the House will take up HR 2219 when they return from their extended 4th of July weekend. There is a possibility that there might be more amendments published to HR 2219 during the two pro-forma sessions that will be held this week. I’ll be watching.