HR 5956 Introduced – DHS in NSC

Last week, Rep Katko (R,NY) introduced HR 5956, the National Security Council Membership Act of 2021. The bill would amend 50 USC 3021 to include the Secretary of DHS as member of the National Security Council. DHS has been unofficially included as part of the ‘such other officers of the United States Government as the President may designate’ portion of §101(c)(1) being amended by this bill.

Neither Katko nor his sole cosponsor {Rep Thompson (D,MS)} are members of House Armed Services, Foreign Affairs or Intelligence Committees to which this bill was assigned for consideration. This means that it is unlikely that bill will be considered by any of those committees, especially since the prestige of those committee chairs is enhanced (with respect to the Homeland Security Committee) by DHS not being on the NSC list. I suspect that there would be bipartisan support for this bill if it were to make it to the floor of the House.