Committee Hearings – Week of 7-14-19

With both the House and Senate in Washington and looking towards their extended summer recess, there are a number of interesting hearings on the schedule for this week. In addition to the House Rules Committee hearing on HR 3494 there will be two markup hearings addressing cybersecurity bills and two other hearings that may address cybersecurity issues.

Cybersecurity Markups

On Tuesday the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will conduct a markup hearing on 23 bills. Bills of interest here include:

• S 174, a bill to provide for the establishment of a pilot program to identify security vulnerabilities of certain entities in the energy sector. (King/Risch); and

• S 715, a bill to improve the productivity and energy efficiency of the manufacturing sector by directing the Secretary of Energy, in coordination with the National Academies and other appropriate Federal agencies, to develop a national smart manufacturing plan and to provide assistance to small- and medium-sized manufacturers in implementing smart manufacturing programs, and for other purposes. (Shaheen)

On Tuesday the House Homeland Security Committee will conduct a markup hearing on 18 bills. Bills of interest here include:

• HR 3318, (Mr. Joyce) The “Emerging Transportation Security Threats Act of 2019”;

• HR 3699, (Mr. Cleaver) The “Pipeline Security Act” (not yet reviewed here);

• HR 3710, (Ms. Jackson Lee) The “Cybersecurity Vulnerability Remediation Act” (not yet reviewed here).

Both of these hearings are going to be dealing with a large number of bills. I do not expect much in the way of amendments and very little discussion.

Cybersecurity (?) Hearings

On Wednesday the Energy Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee will be holding a hearing on “The Future of Electricity Delivery: Modernizing and Securing Our Nation’s Electricity Grid”. The witness list includes:

• Karen Evans, DOE;

• Juan Torres, National Renewable Energy Laboratory;

• Kelly Speakes-Backman, Energy Storage Association; and

• Katherine Hamilton, Advanced Energy Management Alliance

This is almost certainly going to focus on energy supply security, not cybersecurity, but Evans is the head of Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER), so there will likely be some questions about grid cybersecurity.

On Thursday the House Oversight and Reform Committee will hold a hearing with Kevin K. McAleenan. There is no official indication of the topics to be discussed, but I suspect that it will focus on ‘border security issues.’ There is a slight chance that cybersecurity questions will be addressed to the Acting Secretary.