Update DHS Spending Mark-up Information

Earlier this week I mentioned that the House Appropriations Committee would be holding a mark-up of the DHS FY 2014 spending bill. Today the Committee placed additional information on the hearing web site. They provided an updated draft version of the bill and a draft copy of the Committee Report that will accompany the bill. Both documents contain important provisions for DHS cybersecurity and chemical security operations.

Draft Bill

This new draft bill is apparently different than the version that I reviewed during the approach of the Homeland Security Subcommittee hearing last week. All of the CFATS provisions and TWIC Reader provisions that I discussed in that earlier post remain the same in this new version of the bill.

Draft Report

In many ways the Committee Report that accompanies these spending bills is more important than spending bill. The reports provide the Appropriations Committee a certain level of oversight over individual programs through the pocket book. Most times programs like CFATS never get mentioned in the main bill, but do frequently get attention in the report.

Some of the items discussed in this draft report include:

• TSA requirement to develop “a program to facilitate the tracking of motor carrier shipments of highway security-sensitive materials (HSSM)” (pg 59);

• Detailed TWIC Reader discussion (pgs 61-2);

• CFATS funding at FY 2013 level (pg 82);

• Detailed CFATS discussion (pgs 83-86);

• Ammonium Nitrate security discussion (pgs 85-86) and

• Cybersecurity discussion (pgs 86-88)

Several of these items deserve a detailed discussion. If they remain in the final Committee Report, I will address them in more detail.