Bills Introduced – 04-28-17

Both the House and Senate were in session yesterday. There were 43 bills introduced with only two of those that may be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

HR 2223 To amend title 49, United States Code, to provide for a rail spill preparedness fund, and for other purposes. Rep. DeFazio, Peter A. [D-OR-4]

H Res 298 Recognizing the security challenges of convening government officials in one specific place and directing the House of Representatives to take appropriate steps so that the House of Representatives can meet in a virtual setting. Rep. Pearce, Stevan [R-NM-2]

HR 2223 will probably be a rehash of HR 5786 that was introduced last fall, but saw no action in the House.

H Res 298 will probably not be covered in this blog since it certainly won’t address control system security issues. I am going to watch for the wording of this resolution to see if/how it addresses the obvious cybersecurity issues that will have to be addressed in virtualizing Congressional meetings. That may provide some insight into the cybersecurity state of mind in Congress.

BTW: In case you missed the news yesterday, both the House and Senate passed H J Res 99, extending the current FY 2017 spending continuing resolution until next Friday night. This gives Congress another week to finish up work on a final continuing resolution for FY 2017. Of course, then work needs to start in earnest on the FY 2018 spending bills.