Bills Introduced – 10-23-15

With just the House in session on Friday there were 15 bills introduced. Of those four may be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

HR 3815 To deter terrorism, provide justice for victims, and for other purposes. Rep. King, Peter T. [R-NY-2]

HR 3819 To provide an extension of Federal-aid highway, highway safety, motor carrier safety, transit, and other programs funded out of the Highway Trust Fund, and for other purposes. Rep. Shuster, Bill [R-PA-9]

HR 3823 To provide for direct hire authority for positions in the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, and for other purposes. Rep. Green, Gene [D-TX-29]

HR 3825 To improve transportation safety, efficiency, and system performance through innovative technology deployment and operations. Rep. Takano, Mark [D-CA-41]

HR 3815 was added to the list just because I wanted to see what new and innovative counter-terrorism ideas that Rep. King (R,NY) has come up with since he left chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee.

HR 3819 is a bill to extend the current surface transportation authorization until November 15^th. It is being introduced as a budget reconciliation bill so that it cannot held up in the Senate by cloture. It is currently scheduled to be considered in the House under suspension of the rules onTuesday. This is being done to give Congress a chance to act on HR 3673 which indicates that action on that bill will not be as clean as I originally predicted.

HR 3823 may be of interest depending on what employee slots this will effect and the reason given. The federal hiring process is a mess and we will be seeing more of these types of bills as the Feds try to fill existing critical slots in their agencies.

HR 3825 will only be of interest here if it addresses cybersecurity issues related to intelligent transportation systems.