Committee Hearings – Week of 03-11-18

Both the House and Senate will be in Washington this week. Budget hearings continue to be the big news with hearings starting to get down to the agency level. There is also one cybersecurity markup hearing scheduled.

Budget Hearings

• Coast Guard, House, Subcommittee – Wednesday

• TSA, House, Full Committee – Wednesday

• DOT, House, Subcommittee – Thursday

• DOE, House, Subcommittee – Thursday

I do not pay much attention to budget hearings. They are just the start of the appropriations process and it is the end game that provides specific funding for specific programs that really means something in the real world.

Cybersecurity Markup

On Wednesday the Energy Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a markup hearing looking at four bills dealing with cybersecurity issues in the Department of Energy. The bills include:

• HR 5174, Energy Emergency Leadership Act;

• HR 5175, Pipeline and LNG Facility Cybersecurity Preparedness Act;

• HR 5239, Cyber Sense; and

• HR 5240, Enhancing Grid Security

All of these bills were introduced last week and I have not seen official copies on the Congress.gov web site, so I have not reviewed any of these bills in detail. The links provided above are to Committee drafts of the bills; I will start my reviews later today based upon these copies.