Committee Hearings – Week of 9-17-23

This week, with both the House and Senate in session there is a moderate load of committee hearings on the schedule. Of interest here is a federal cybersecurity hearing, a rule hearing, and an advanced technology hearing.

Federal Cybersecurity

On Tuesday, the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection of the House Homeland Security Committee will hold a hearing on “Evaluating CISA’s Federal Civilian Executive Branch Cybersecurity Programs”. The witness list is not currently available. While I do not focus on federal cybersecurity issues much, the topics raised in this hearing may have an impact on private sector efforts. I do not expect much in the way of control system issues being mentioned.

Rule Hearing

This afternoon, the House Rules Committee will meet to consider a rule for three pieces of legislation, including the draft continuing resolution that I discussed briefly earlier today.

Advanced Technology

On Tuesday, the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Spending Oversight of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will hold a hearing on “Advanced Technology: Examining Threats to National Security”. The witness list includes:

Gregory C. Allen, Wadhwani Center for AI and Advanced Technologies,

Jeff Alstott, RAND Corporation, and

Dewey Murdick, Center for Security and Emerging Technology

There is some chance that operational technology issues may discussed, but the focus will be on AI issues.

On the Floor

The Senate will continue its work on HR 4366, the Military Construction spending bill that will become a three part spending bill during the amendment process. Amendments will be the order of the day for the early part of the week.

The House will be taking up eight bills under the suspension of the rules process today, none of particular interest here. The current schedule calls for consideration of HR 4365 under the rule set last week. That bill was blocked by the Republican 11 last week, but the hope is that the CR being discussed today will get them to allow for consideration of the bill.