Senate Confirms Nominees on Its Way Out of Town

Yesterday as part of its docket clearing activity prior to leaving town for their summer recess the Senate took up a large number of relatively non-controversial nominations and confirmed them en bloc. Five of those confirmations will be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

∙ Marie Therese Dominguez to be Administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, Department Of Transportation;

∙ Kristen Marie Kulinowski to be a member of the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board;

∙ Vanessa Lorraine Allen Sutherland to be a member of the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board; and

∙ Vanessa Lorraine Allen Sutherland to be Chairperson of the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board

Committee Hearings – Week of 04-19-15

Both the Senate and House will be in session this week, though the House is only working three days. A lot of hearings on spending matters, but the big news is cybersecurity information sharing.  There is one other cybersecurity hearing and the CSB chair nominee hearing will be held.

Information Sharing

The two competing House bills on cybersecurity information sharing will hit the floor this week; HR 1560 on Wednesday and HR 1731 on Thursday. Before that can happen the Rules Committee will have to meet to set up the rule for the consideration of the two bills; HR 1731 today and HR 1560 tomorrow.

Other Cybersecurity

The House Committee on Small Business will hold a hearing on Wednesday on “Small Business, Big Threat: Protecting Small Businesses from Cyber Attacks”. Looking at the witness list and the meeting notice it certainly looks like this will focus on IT and breach issues instead of control system security, but you never can tell.

Spending

The Homeland Security Subcommittee in both the House and Senate will hold hearings on FEMA spending this week. The Senate on Wednesday and the House on Thursday. Also on Wednesday the THUD subcommittee in the Senate will hold a hearing on the FY 2016 DOT spending.

CSB Chair

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will be holding a nomination hearing on Wednesday for Vanessa Sutherland to be a Member and Chairperson of the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board. Ms. Sutherland is currently the Chief Counsel at PHMSA. Management and leadership questions will probably dominate this hearing given the current problems at CSB.