Well the election is over and the 112th Congress
is coming back to Washington to catch up on some of the work they couldn’t get
done, for a variety of reasons, before the election. There are a large number
of important topics on their plate to be dealt with in their limited time left
in office yet they still have time to conduct hearings on topics that have
already been talked to death.
One such topic is Weapons of Mass Destruction (maybe it
should be all caps, if you listen to the rhetoric). This coming week the
Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence of the House Homeland
Security Committee will be holding a hearing on “WMD
Terrorism: Assessing the Continued Homeland Threat” on Thursday. No witness
are currently listed on Committee web site. It is not currently listed as a
closed hearing so there will be no real update of intelligence information
presented.
The Chair of the Subcommittee, Rep. Meehan (R,PA), is one of
the co-authors of HR 2356, the WMD Prevention and Preparedness Act of 2011,
that was reported
just before the extended election break, so there doesn’t seem to be much of a
legislative reason for conducting this hearing unless the testimony is expected
to provide additional information to support a House vote on the pending bill
during the lame duck session. There has been bipartisan support for this bill,
but action is still ‘pending’ on this bill in four other committees with a
'deadline' for their action of November 30th. It might take a WMD to
actually get this bill to the floor.
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