Committee Hearings – Week of 1-28-24

This week, with both the House and Senate in Washington, there will be a nearly normal load of committee hearings. There will be two hearings of interest here; a markup hearing in the Senate and a cyber threat hearing in the House.

Markup Hearing

On Wednesday, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will hold a business meeting. In addition to seven nominations and 12 postal naming bills being considered, the Committee will markup 12 bills. These will include:

• S 3635, Industrial Control Systems Cybersecurity Competition Act, and

• S 3594, Source code Harmonization and Reuse in Information Technology (SHARE IT) Act

The text of both bills just recently became available, I will try to get reviews up before Wednesday.

Cyber Threats

On Wednesday, the House Select Committee on the CCP will hold a hearing on “The CCP Cyber Threat to the American Homeland and National Security”. The witness list includes:

• Gen Paul Nakasone, United States Cyber Command,

• Jen Easterly, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency,

• Christopher Wray, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and

• Harry Coker, Jr., Office of the National Cyber Director

While this is an open hearing, so there will not be much in the way of details discussed, there should be some significant discussions about cyber threat to energy infrastructure from China.

On the Floor

We may see a bipartisan tax bill, HR 7024, considered in the House this week. While there is nothing of specific interest here, just seeing a significant tax bill being reported in a bipartisan manner out of the House Ways and Means Committee, is a news worthy event in the 118^th Congress.