Bills Introduced – 06-25-15

Yesterday there were 104 bills introduced in the House and Senate. Four of those bills may be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

HR 2886 To direct the Secretary of Transportation to establish an Automated and Connected Vehicle Research Initiative, and for other purposes. Rep. Lipinski, Daniel [D-IL-3]

HR 2899 To amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to authorize the Office for Countering Violent Extremism. Rep. McCaul, Michael T. [R-TX-10]

HR 2933 To amend title 49, United States Code, to establish a local rail facilities and safety program to award grants for freight capacity projects, and for other purposes. Rep. Larsen, Rick [D-WA-2]

H Res 340 Returning to the Senate H.R. 1735, a bill to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2016 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities... Rep. Boustany, Charles W., Jr. [R-LA-3]

Based on the testimony presented in yesterday’s hearing on vehicle-to-vehicle communication it seems that the initiative called for in HR 2886 may be a little late. It will be interesting to see the actual language of the bill.

McCaul’s bill will probably only be of tangential interest to readers of this blog, but I certainly want to read the language first.

Unless HR 2933 contains specific language that would affect chemical hazmat shipments, I probably will not mention this bill again.

H Res 340 is one of those inter-house disagreements that is of interest mainly to insiders. It seems that the Parliamentarian of the House concluded that §636 of HR 1735 that was added in the Senate was a violation of Article I, Section 7, Clause 1 of the Constitution:

“All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.”

Such usurpation of the prerogatives of the House could not be countenanced and H Res 340 was drafted, offered and passed in the House without comment. The response in the Senate was just as quick; Sen. McCain offered a unanimous consent request that the Clerk of the Senate be directed to remove §636 from the engrossed version of the bill and it was approved without objection or additional discussion. The bill will arrive back in the House today for their decision to accept, amend or request a Conference. Everyone expects a request for Conference.

NOTE: The House accepted the revised HR 1735 yesterday, disagreed with the Senate amendments and requested Conference. Added 6-26-15 9:35 CDT.