HR 3586 Passes in House

The House this afternoon took up HR 3586, the Border and Maritime Coordination Improvement Act, under suspension of the rules and passed the bill by a voice vote. The ‘debate’ on this bill lasted only 19 minutes.

I am still waiting to see the Committee Report on this bill to see if it clears up some of the issues that have been identified. The specific authorization of an undescribed Cybersecurity Joint Task Force makes little sense in a border security bill. Additionally, Laurie Thomas over at the Maritime Security/MTSA News blog pointed out an interesting title discrepancy in the bill in a blog post today.

It seems that §12 of the bill, dealing with Transportation Workers Identification Credential (TWIC) is titled “Transportation Worker Identification Credential Waiver and Appeals [emphasis added] Process”. The waiver process is not dealt with at all in this bill and the appeals process is addressed only in a report required in paragraph (b). The main part of this section deals with provisions designed to stop the TWIC being issued to unregistered aliens. Maybe this will be explained in the report (probably not).