Committee Hearings – Week of 7-16-23

This week with both the House and Senate in Washington and the summer recess looming we see a typical load of hearings scheduled for both bodies. Spending bills are being marked up by both Appropriations Committees. We have an rule hearing (FAA authorization) of interest and an energy threats hearing in the House. And there are two markup hearings of interest here in the Senate.

Spending Bills

	House	Senate
THUD	Full Committee	Full Committee
IER	Full Committee
EWD		Full Committee

FAA Authorization Rule

This afternoon the House Rules Committee will meet to formulate the rule for the consideration of HR 3935, the Securing Growth and Robust Leadership in American Aviation Act. This annual ‘must-pass’ bill includes cybersecurity and UAS provisions that may be of interest here (I am working on my analysis). There have been 356 amendments proposed to the Rules Committee as of this morning.

Note: The version of the bill being considered by the Committee actually includes two additional, related bills: HR 3559 - FAA Research and Development Act of 2023, and HR 3796 - To provide for the extension of taxes funding the Airport and Airway Trust Fund and to require the designation of certain airports as ports of entry.

Energy Threats

Tomorrow the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on “Examining Emerging Threats to Electric Energy Infrastructure”. No witness list is available. This will probably include cybersecurity threats, but could also address supply chain issues and physical security threats.

Senate Markups

On Wednesday, the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee will hold a business meeting to consider 25 bills, including S 1458, the SECURE Small Business Act.

Also on Wednesday, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will hold a business meeting to consider 21 bills, including S 2256, the Federal Cybersecurity Workforce Expansion Act. The language for that bill has not yet been printed by the GPO, so I am not sure what the provisions are.

On the Floor

As I noted above, the House will consider the FAA reauthorization bill, starting on Wednesday.

The House will take up only four bills this week under their suspension of the rules process. Again, this is a much lighter schedule of consideration of these consensus bills than we have seen in recent years.

It looks like next week will see the first spending bills coming to the floor of the House. The House Rules committee has set amendment deadlines for HR 4368 (ARD spending) and HR 4366 (Military Construction). These will be somewhat contentious debates, but both will probably pass with narrow majorities.