Congressional Hearings – Week of 3-23-14

Both the House and Senate will be back in Washington this week. The budget continues to be a big topic for hearings; the table below provides a summary of the budget hearings. No other House hearings of specific interest, but there will be three hearings on the Senate side of the Capital that might be of specific interest to readers of this blog. They include topics of perennial interest; emergency response, cybersecurity and transportation safety.

Agency	House Appropriations	House Oversight	Senate Appropriations	Senate Oversight
DHS	3-11-14	3-13-14	3-11-14	3-13-14
DOT	3-12-14	3-12-14	3-13-14
Defense	3-13-14	3-6-14
CG	3-12-14	3-26-14
FEMA	3-26-14	3-25-14		3-13-14
TSA	3-25-14

Budget Hearing Summary

Emergency Response

The Emergency Management, Intergovernmental Relations and District of Columbia Subcommittee of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will be holding a hearing on Tuesday looking at “Preparing our First Responders for Emerging Threats and Hazards”.

The focus of the hearing will be on transportation related incidents and crude oil trains will be widely discussed. Witnesses include:

• Mike King, FEMA;

• Tim McLean, Casselton, ND Fire Department; and

• Lisa Stabler, Transportation Technology Center, Inc.

Cybersecurity

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will hold a hearing on Wednesday looking at “Strengthening Public-Private Partnerships to Reduce Cyber Risks to Our Nation’s Critical Infrastructure”.

The witness list is pretty wide ranging so there may be some discussion about control systems in this hearing, but probably not much. The witnesses include:

• Phyllis A. Schneck, NPPD-DHS;

• Donna Dodson, NIST;

• Stephen L. Caldwell, GAO;

• Elayne Starkey, Delaware Department of Technology and Information,

• David M. Velazquez, Pepco Holdings, Inc.;

• Doug Johnson, Financial Services Sector Coordinating Council; and

• Steven R. Chabinsky, CrowdStrike, Inc.

Transportation Safety

On Thursday the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will be holding a hearing looking at “MAP-21 Reauthorization: State and Local Perspectives on Transportation Priorities and Funding”. No witness list is available yet, but the title indicates that they will probably be State and local officials. Transportation safety will be one of the topics discussed.

On the Floor

There will probably be nothing of specific interest to readers of this blog brought up on the floor of either body this week. We are getting deeper into the political cycle so we are seeing more political posturing and looking good for the home audience. Tuesday will see a number of bills on the floor of the House renaming Federal buildings after local heroes; most of the renaming ceremonies will take place before the first Tuesday in November and will feature the local Congressional delegation.