Committee Hearings – Week of 9-10-23

This week, with both the House and Senate back in Washington, the major focus is going to be on spending bills, but not much in the way of hearings to watch. There is one Rules Committee hearing on the DOD spending bill and a 9/11 anniversary hearing in New York looking at evolving terror threats.

DOD Spending Bill

The House Rules Committee will meet tomorrow to formulate the rule for the consideration of HR 4365, the FY 2024 DOD spending bill. There are currently 341 amendments that have been submitted to the Committee for potential inclusion in the floor consideration of the bill, most of them political plays from both Republicans and Democrats. There are two cybersecurity amendments in all of that political chaff that I briefly mentioned last week in my CFSN Detailed Analysis post (subscription required). The Republican 11 have three votes on the Rules Committee which may be enough to stop consideration of legislation if the four Democrats also vote no. This could be a real possibility for H 4365, because Dems already have a lot to object to in this bill, so the Republican leadership probably needs to include a large number of radical amendments, including more spending cuts, to be able to move the bill to the floor.

Post 9/11 Terror Threats

Today, the Emergency Management and Technology Subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee will be holding a hearing in New York City on “Evolving Threats: Security and Safety in a Post-9/11 World”. The witness list includes:

• Joseph Pfeifer, New York City Fire Department,

• Laura Kavanagh, New York City Fire Department,

• Rebecca Weiner, New York City Police Department,

• Patrick J. Ryder, Nassau County Police Department

• Greg Ehrie, Port Authority of New York & New Jersey

This will be a narrow view of the ‘terror threat’, from the perspective of ‘just one city’. I do not expect any major threat revelations, but I do expect to hear complaints about funding for prevention and response activities.

On The Floor

The Senate will resume consideration of HR 4366, their first (?) omnibus spending bill for FY 2024. The first (of potentially three) cloture votes is scheduled for this evening. A successful vote will kick off the consideration of amendments. There are indications that this could take through next week sometime to pass this bill.

The House is currently scheduled to consider seven bills (nothing of particular interest here) under the suspension of the rules process tomorrow. Then they will take up the DOD spending bill under a rule. Currently there is no mention of any action on a Biden impeachment bill this week.