Bills Introduced – 5-15-23

Yesterday, with both the House and Senate in session, there were 101 bills introduced. One of those bills will receive additional coverage in this blog:

HR 3286 To amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to establish the duties of the Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency regarding open source software security, and for other purposes. reen, Mark E. [Rep.-R-TN-7]

Sharp eyed readers will have probably noted that this sounds suspiciously like the HR ____ that was discussed here yesterday in my post about markup hearings. It looks like this bill will be marked up in the House Homeland Security hearing on Wednesday.

Side Note: I counted 22 bills introduced in the House yesterday (out of 85 bills introduced in the chamber) dealing with various aspects of the permitting process for broadband and personal wireless communications facilities. It almost looks like a coordinated effort. Many of the bills would exempt a variety of such facilities from requirements for environmental or historical preservation reviews.

There is no way that any of the committees involved in these activities will be able to address each of these 22 bills. To be effective legislatively (move a bill to the President’s desk) these 22 bills would have been better served if they had been consolidated into one or two bills. But that would have required communications, coordination and horse trading, processes which are sadly lacking in the 118^th Congress.