Committee Hearings – Week of 04-17-16

Both the House and Senate are in Washington this week. Lots of committee hearings as the spending bills start up in earnest along with some potentially interesting cybersecurity hearings and two pipeline safety/security hearings.

Cybersecurity

On Tuesday the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee will be holding a hearing on “Deciphering the Debate Over Encryption: Industry and Law Enforcement Perspectives”. There will be two witness panels; law enforcement and industry. The witnesses include:

• Amy Hess, Federal Bureau of Investigations

• Thomas Galati, New York City Police Department

• Ron Hickman, Harris County Sheriff's Office

• Charles Cohen, Indiana State Police

• Bruce Sewell, Apple, Inc

• Amit Yoran, RSA Security

• Daniel Weitzner, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Matthew Blaze, University of Pennsylvania

On Wednesday the Information Technology Subcommittee of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will be holding a hearing on “Federal Cybersecurity Detection, Response, and Mitigation”. No witness list is currently available

On Wednesday the House Small Business Committee will be holding a hearing on “How Cyber-Attacks Threaten Both Committee on Small Business”. Witnesses include:

• Richard Snow, Maine Indoor Karting;

• Kevin Dunn, NCC Group

• Nicholas A. Oldham, King & Spalding LLP

• Stephen F. Mankowski, National Conference of CPA Practitioners (NCCPAP)

Pipelines

On Tuesday the Transportation Security Subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee will be holding a hearing on "Pipelines: Securing the Veins of the American Economy". The witness list includes:

• Sonya Proctor, TSA

• Andrew Black, Association of Oil Pipe Lines

• Kathleen S. Judge, National Grid

• Paul W. Parfomak, Congressional Research Service

On Wednesday the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will hold a markup hearing. It will include HR 4937 – The Protecting our Infrastructure of Pipelines and Enhancing Safety Act of 2016. The GPO does not yet have an official copy of the bill available.

On Thursday the Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee will be holding a markup hearing of HR 4909. There is no mention in the introduced version of the bill of cybersecurity. If amendments adding cybersecurity provisions are going to be made in Committee, they are likely to be made here.

Spending Bills

House Appropriations Committee

• Tuesday - Markup of FY 2017 Agriculture Bill, Energy and Water Bill – Full Committee

Senate Appropriations Committee

• Tuesday - Markup of the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies – THUD Subcommittee

• Wednesday - Markup of the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies – CJS Subcommittee

• Thursday - Markup of the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies – Full Committee

• Thursday - Markup of the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies – Full Committee

On the Floor

There is currently nothing scheduled on the floor of the House that will be of specific interest to readers of this blog.

On the Senate side of the Hill there are two bills that are expected to be completed this week; HR 636 and S 2012. Both contain cybersecurity provisions.