CFATS Extension Hearing – 3-12-20

This evening the House Energy and Commerce Committee announced that the Environment and Climate Change Subcommittee would hold a markup hearing on Thursday that would take up two bills; one of which would be HR 6160, which would extend the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program. Chairman Pallone (D,NJ) is a co-sponsor of the bill; as is Rep Tonko (D,NY), the Subcommittee Chair.

The GPO has not yet printed a copy of the bill, but the hearing website contains a committee draft of the bill. This would be a clean extension of the CFATS program until October 18^th, 2021. That would kick the can down the road to the 117^th Congress.

I do not expect much in the way of amendments to this bill. There will be some proforma objections to the extension of the CFATS program rather than a reauthorization, but the Energy and Commerce Committee has not been able to come up with consensus reauthorization language for HR 3256.