Rules Committee Hearing on HR 933, FY 2013 Continuing Resolution

As I predicted yesterday (no great analytical skills required) the House Rules Committee will be holding a rule hearing tomorrow afternoon on HR 933, the Department of Defense, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013. Division C of that bill would be the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013 with Title VI dealing with the Homeland Security Department.

HR 933 and CFATS

A real quick review of the Rules Committee Print of the bill shows that §1609 would continue the authorization for the CFATS program through October 4, 2013. I don’t see any provisions of the bill that would drastically reduce the funding for the CFATS program as had been proposed by the House Appropriations Committee last year.

More details on the bill to come.

The Hearing

The Rules Committee will formulate the rule for the floor consideration of the bill. I am quite sure that this Rule will continue the open rule status for spending bills that we saw in the 112^th Congress. This means that some relatively small number of amendments will be posted to the Rules Committee site by the time the hearing starts, but more amendments will be allowed to be proposed on the floor as the reading of the bill continues.

Given the way the bill is crafted, most of the amendments will be on the military spending side of the bill. The amendments for the Homeland Security title will be fairly limited because that section mainly continues existing funding at the FY 2012 rate (which will be subject to reductions for the sequester).