Bills Introduced – 12-4-24

Yesterday with the House and Senate in lame duck session, there were 31 bills introduced. One of those bills may receive additional attention in this blog:

HR 10269 To authorize the Small Business Administration to provide business loans to finance business software or cloud computing services, and for other purposes. Alford, Mark [Rep.-R-MO-4]

I will be watching this bill (if it is published before the session effectively ends later this month) for language and definitions that would specifically include cybersecurity software within the allowable uses of the proposed loans.

Mention in Passing

There are two (companion) resolutions that I would like to mention in passing:

H Res 1604 Recognizing the 40th year since the 1984 Bhopal chemical disaster and helping to ensure that no other community suffers another chemical disaster, by supporting the designation of December 3 as National Chemical Disaster Awareness Day. Jayapal, Pramila [Rep.-D-WA-7]

S Res 919 A resolution recognizing the 40th year since the 1984 Bhopal chemical disaster and helping to ensure that no other community suffers another chemical disaster, by designating December 3 as National Chemical Disaster Awareness Day. Merkley, Jeff [Sen.-D-OR]

The Bhopal incident can be viewed as the social impetus for much of the chemical safety regulation in effect in the US today. While the resolution portion of these documents directly addresses the ongoing fallout of that incident, the staffers that wrote these resolutions took the opportunity to point out inthe ‘Whereas’ statements what many environmentalists see as the continuing problems with chemical manufacturing and transportation processes in this country. The Senate version of these resolutions may be taken up under the unanimous consent process, there are certain to be some Republicans that take exception to those statements and object to that consideration. The House version will not even get that much of a hearing.