Committee Hearings – Week of 12-12-22

With both the House and Senate in what may be the last week of their lame duck session (and maybe not), there is a relatively light hearing schedule. Oversight and information gathering hearings predominate. There are two oversight hearings in the House that may be of interest.

DHS Intel and Analysis Oversight

On Tuesday, the Intelligence and Counterterrorism Subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee will conduct an oversight hearing of the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis. The witness list includes:

• Kenneth L. Wainstein, DHS

It is odd that there is no witness from GAO. Committees usually use the GAO to do the heavy lifting on background research for such hearings.

FITARA

On Thursday, the Government Operations Subcommittee of the House Oversight and Reform Committee will hold their biannual hearing on progress being made under the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA). The Subcommittee will also be releasing their fifteenth FITARA Scorecard. The witness list will include:

• Chris DeRusha, OMB,

• Jason Gray, USAID,

• Carol C. Harris, GAO, and

• Jennifer Franks, GAO

On the Floor

The House agenda for the week currently includes four bills to be considered under rules, nothing of major import here. The big issue for the week is the 2023 spending bill, the current CR expires Friday night, with nothing officially available yet. There are 39 bills that will be considered under the suspension of the rules process with lots of postal naming bills.

One of those 39 bills will be followed here; HR 7077, the Empowering the U.S. Fire Administration Act. The Senate amended the bill last week and the House will likely accept the Senate amendment today.

The Senate does not publish a weekly agenda in the same way as the House, but beyond some more judicial nominations, the Senate is likely to take up HR 7776, the 2023 NDAA. This is a must pass bill there could be some issues delaying the consideration. And, of course, the Senate will have to deal with whatever the House does with the spending bill.