Committee Hearings – Week of 6-20-21

With both the House and Senate in Washington this week, there is a full slate of hearings scheduled. This week starts the markup of spending bills, two House Appropriations subcommittee markups of lesser (from the perspective of this blog anyway) bills scheduled for later this week. There are two cybersecurity hearings scheduled in the Senate and the House Rules Committee has set an amendment submission deadline for HR 3684.

Cybersecurity

Tomorrow the Subcommittee on Communications, Media, and Broadband for the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee will hold a hearing “Building Resilient Networks”. The witness list includes:

• Harold Feld, Public Knowledge,

• Jonathan Adelstein, Wireless Infrastructure Association,

• Denny Law, Golden West Telecommunications, and

• Jeff Johnson, Western Fire Chiefs Association

On Thursday the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing on examining infrastructure needs. Also on the schedule is consideration of an original bill (not yet introduced), the Energy Infrastructure Act. A quick look at the table of contents shows a cybersecurity subtitle that apparently includes language from HR 2928 and HR 2931 (subscription required for both links).

HR 3684 Amendment Process

The House Rules Committee announced that it was accepting potential amendments for HR 3684, the INVEST in America Act. The Committee will be formulating a rule for the bill’s consideration before the full House next week. The text that will form the basis for that consideration is the language marked up by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee earlier this month plus some modifications made since then. I will try to get that text reviewed later this week.

On the Floor

This week the House is scheduled to consider 18 bills under the suspension of the rule’s procedure. One of those bills, HR 1374, the Enhancing State Energy Security Planning and Emergency Preparedness Act of 2021, contains some passing references to energy cybersecurity.