HR 1589 Marked Up in House

Today the House Homeland Security Committee held a markup hearing to consider seven bills, including HR 1589, the CBRN Intelligence and Information Sharing Act of 2019. That bill was amended twice and adopted by the Committee by unanimous consent as part of a block of bills.

Both of the amendments to HR 1589 were relatively minor wording additions.

The first amendment from Rep. Clarke (D,NY) changed §210H(a)(1) to read:

“(1) support homeland security-focused intelligence analysis of terrorist actors, their claims, and their plans to conduct attacks involving chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear materials against the United States, including critical infrastructure [added];”

The second amendment from Rep. Jackson-Lee (D,TX) changed §210H(a)(4) to read:

“(4) leverage existing and emerging homeland security intelligence capabilities and structures to enhance early detection, [added] prevention, protection, response, and recovery efforts with respect to a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear attack;”

As I mentioned in my earlier blog post today, this bill will make its way to the floor of the House where it will be considered under the suspension of the rules process. That process does not provide for any additional amendments to be made from the floor. The bill will almost certainly pass with a significant bipartisan vote.