Bills Introduced – 02-06-14

There were 34 bills introduced in the House and Senate yesterday and two of those will be of specific  interest to readers of this blog. Those bills deal with CFATS authorization and the FY 2015 Coast Guard authorization.

HR 4005 Latest Title: To authorize appropriations for the Coast Guard for fiscal years 2015 and 2016, and for other purposes. Sponsor: Rep Hunter, Duncan D. (R,CA)

HR 4007 Latest Title: To recodify and reauthorize the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards Program. Sponsor: Rep Meehan, Patrick (R,PA)

The second bill is the one that I have been hearing about for over a month now. Rep. McCaul is not the author as I had been told, but he is one of the co-sponsors. There are two disappointing aspects of the bill based on the limited data available at Thomas.LOC.gov. First there is not a single Democrat cosponsoring the bill [NOTE: It has been brought to my attention that Rep Green (D,TX) is a co-sponsor, but he is not a ranking member of any committee or subcommittee with oversight of the CFATS program so the intent of the comment is correct; 2-8-14 12:30 am CST]. This obviously not a problem in the House, but bodes ill for the possibility of the bill being considered in the Senate. Second, there are no cosponsors of the bill from the Energy and Commerce Committee, which indicates that there might be a problem getting this bill to the floor of the House. Now we just have to wait for the bill to be published by the GPO to see if there is something in the language of the bill that would allow it to overcome those two obstacles.