Congressional Hearings – Week of 6-13-14

The summer congressional recess is fast approaching and then the electioneering season begins in earnest when they get back to Washington in September. In these last weeks before the recess there are lots of hearing scheduled but only two (both in the Senate this week) will likely be of specific interest to readers of this blog; both dealing with the FY 2015 DOD spending bill.

FY 2015 DOD Appropriations

There will be two hearings this week on the Senate version of the FY 2015 DOD spending bill. Tuesday the Defense Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee will markup the bill and then Thursday the full committee will take their pass at it.

For the last couple of years I have been watching the DOD spending bill for cybersecurity measures. I did not see much in the House bill (HR 4870) this year and I am beginning to think that the spending folks have passed cybersecurity by. We will see how the topic fares in this bill.

House Floor

According to the House Majority Leader’s web site, there is a chance that HR  4871, a TRIA reauthorization bill, will come to the floor of the House on Thursday. That is too late for consideration under suspension of the rules, so we can probably expect to see a Rules Committee hearing on Wednesday if this is going to happen.

There is a chance that a competing Senate bill , S 2244 could also be considered this week. I suspect that both bills will pass in their respective house. Whichever one get’s passed first will be ignored by the other house until just after final passage when the bill number will be changed to the counterpart legislation. That will send the whole thing to Conference. That would probably mean a TRIA bill going to the President in September.