Committee Hearings – Week of 6-12-16

The House and Senate are both in Washington this week, trying hard to get the important bills passed before they take their election year lengthened summer recess in mid-July. There are six hearings currently scheduled for this week that may be of interest to readers of this blog; three spending bill hearings, one cybersecurity, and one Coast Guard and one pipeline safety hearing.

Spending Bills

The House Rules Committee is holding a hearing as I write this blog to determine the rule for the consideration of HR 5293, the FY 2017 DOD spending bill. The Republicans are going to be backing off of open rules for these spending bills to ensure that Democrats don’t add poison pill amendments that will prevent the bills from passing (help pass a moderately liberal amendment that draws the ire of the hardcore conservatives and then vote against the final bill). We will only see some amendments in today’s rule.

Tomorrow the Rules Committee will hold their second hearing on HR 5293 to set out the remainder of the amendments that will be considered on the floor of the House.

The House Appropriations Committee will be meeting Tuesday to markup the FY 2017 DHS spending bill.

Coast Guard Hearing

The Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will be meeting Tuesday to look at “Coast Guard Mission Needs and Resources Allocation”. The hearing will probably not address chemical transportation safety or security issues. The witness list is short:

• Admiral Michel, United States Coast Guard; and

• Jennifer Grover, US GAO

Cybersecurity

The House Homeland Security Committee will be holding a hearing on Wednesday to look at “The Cybersecurity Act of 2015: Industry Perspectives”. The witness list includes:

• Matthew J. Eggers, U.S. Chamber of Commerce

• Robert H. Mayer, United States Telecom Association

• Mark Clancy, Soltra

• Mordecai Rosen, CA Technologies

• Ola Sage, e-management

Pipeline Safety

The Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee will be holding a hearing on Tuesday to “Examine oil and gas pipeline infrastructure and the economic, safety, environmental, permitting, construction, and maintenance considerations associated with that infrastructure.” The witness list includes:

• Andrew Black, Association of Oil Pipe Lines;

• Sean McGarvey, North America's Building Trades Unions;

• Paul W. Parfomak, Congressional Research Service;

• N. Jonathan Peress, Environmental Defense Fund

On the Floor

Earlier this afternoon the House considered HR 5312, the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Modernization Act of 2016. A vote will take place later this evening or tomorrow. Later this week the House will consider HR 5293 described above.

The Senate will be finishing up consideration of S 2943, the FY 2017 National Defense Authorization Act. As of this morning none of the amendments that have been mentioned in this blog have been considered and there is no telling if any will make it to the floor. After action is completed on S 2943, the Senate will take up S 2837, the FY 2017 Commerce, Justice and Science spending bill.