Bills Introduced – 09-16-14

As the first part of the pre-election recess nears the number of political posturing bills being introduced increases. Yesterday there were 55 bills introduced in the House and Senate. Amongst the posturing were two bills that may be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

HR 5482 Latest Title: To enhance the Office of Personnel Management background check system for the granting, denial, or revocation of security clearances or access to classified information of employees and contractors of the Federal Government. Sponsor: Rep Kelly, Mike (R,PA)

HR 5488 Latest Title: To require a review of the completeness of the Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB) maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the derivative terrorist watchlist utilized by the Transportation Security Administration, and for other purposes. Sponsor: Rep Jackson Lee, Sheila (D,TX)

The first may contain provisions that will affect the approval of security clearances for critical infrastructure personnel that would be necessary for obtaining intelligence information about potential threats. The second may contain provisions that would affect the security threat assessments conducted by TSA for TWIC, HME and CFATS programs.