Reader Comment – CFATS and Congress in 2024

A long-time reader (from a slightly different security background) messaged me today, checking up on the status of the CFATS reauthorization. When I replied that the Senate still has not gotten around to voting on the bill {HR 4470 (removed from paywall)}, her response was ‘That’s crazy”. And it is. But this is a new year, and this deserves a re-look.

HR 4470

HR 4470 is still waiting at the Desk in the Senate. It could be taken up at any time. Since this is a relatively unimportant bill (as compared to 12 spending bills, military aid packages, border security, etc) the Senate is not likely to take up the legislation under regular order with three separate cloture votes, a series of amendments and a final vote on the bill. If amendments were approved, then the bill would have to go back to the House for another vote there before it could go to the President’s desk.

A more reasonable method of taking up a bill like HR 4470 that has wide-spread support is using the unanimous consent process. This takes just minutes to complete, and the bill would go quickly to the President. Simple. But just a single Senator (like Sen Paul) can stand and say; “I object.”; and, consideration stops, waiting for a chance to be considered under regular order, or the objecting Senator to make it known that they no longer object to the consideration of the bill.

Amendment as an Alternative

One of the most common ways of getting around the lone objection road-block in the Senate is to offer the language of the bill as an amendment to some other bill. Unfortunately, the rules and customs of the Senate provide the Chair and Ranking Member of Committees with veto power over any amendment being considered if it comes under the purview of their committee. Last year, Sen Paul became the Ranking Member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Thus, Paul can prevent CFATS reauthorization from being added on the floor of the Senate to some other bill as an amendment.

Spending Bill as an Option

With yet another spending deadline (actually two separate deadlines) fast approaching and no agreement in the works, it is becoming increasingly possible that whenever this gets resolved this year, some sort of a consolidated spending bill(s) is(are) going to be the ultimate route (once again) out of the spending quagmire. Adding CFATS reauthorization language to that (one of those) bill(s), is becoming a better looking bypass of the block in the Senate. The NDAA is another bill that frequently gets used as a dumping ground for miscellaneous legislation. I was very disappointed when the 2024 NDAA came out of conference with significant additions, but no CFATS language.

On a final note, I am not sure that passing HR 4470 at this point would really solve the CFATS reauthorization problem. I published a post (removed from paywall) back in October that discusses the problems that I think CISA would face in standing the program back off after this long a period of quiescence. No one else is talking about this potential problem, so maybe this can be kept on the back burner.