Committee Hearings – Week of 1-30-22

This week, with both the House and Senate in Washington, there is a moderately heavy committee schedule in both houses of congress. Of interest here will be two mark-up hearings that include cybersecurity bills and a hearing on automated vehicles.

Cybersecurity Markups

On Wednesday, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will hold a business meeting that will include consideration of 13 pieces of legislation. It will include S 2483, the Improving Cybersecurity of Small Organizations Act of 2021.

On Wednesday, the House Oversight and Reform Committee, will be holding mark-up hearing that will look at five bills. It will include HR 6497, the Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2022. I have not yet written my review of this bill, but it is an update of the FISMA statute and it does not appear to include any changes that would include operational technology within the purview of that Act.

Automated Vehicles

On Wednesday, the Highways and Transit Subcommittee of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will hold a hearing on: “The Road Ahead for Automated Vehicles”. The witness list for the hearing includes:

Martha Castex-Tatum, Vice Mayor, Houston, TX,

Scott Marler, Iowa DOT,

John Samuelsen, Transport Workers Union of America,

Catherine Chase, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety

Nat Beuse, Aurora,

Doug Bloch, Teamsters Joint Council 7,

Nico Larco, University of Oregon,

Ariel Wolf, Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association

Since none of these witnesses seems to have any particular background in cybersecurity, I do not expect that this probably lengthy hearing will address the topic in any major way. Though, I do suspect that there will be some related questions asked.

On the Floor

There is nothing scheduled in the House this week that I will be particularly following. It is interesting, however, to note that of the eleven bills on the schedule to be considered under the House suspension of the rules process, ten are postal naming bills (bills that honor locals of significance by naming a postal station or other federal building after them). It will be interesting to see if Republican bomb throwers demand votes on any of these non-controversial bills.