HR 4553 Passed in the House – FY 2026 EWR Spending

Today the House completed their consideration of HR 4553, the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2026. The House began consideration of the bill yesterday and took up a combined total of 36 amendments. None of the amendments were of specific interest here; the Chinese grid equipment amendment I mentioned earlier was not added to the list of amendments in the House Report on H Res 672, the rule for the consideration of this HR 4553. The bill passed by a final near-party-line vote of 214 to 213. Four Republicans voted against the bill.

The bill now moves to the Senate. If the Senate were to take up HR 4553 as passed in the House, it would almost certainly not get the 60 votes necessary for passage in that body. What normally happens, however, is that the Senate substitutes language from their version of the bill and uses that as the base for their amendment processes. The Senate Appropriations Committee has not yet passed their version of the EWR spending bill. The Committee has been producing strongly bipartisan spending bills in this session; the same would be expected for this bill.

Review – HR 4553 Introduced – FY 2026 EWR Spending

Back in July Rep Fleischmann introduced HR 4553, the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2026. The House Appropriations Committee published their Report on the bill. There is a single cybersecurity mention in the bill. The Report contains a number of cybersecurity, chemical and counter unmanned aircraft systems discussion.

This bill is similar to HR 8997 that was introduced by Rep Fleischmann (R,TN) in July of 2024. The House Appropriations Committee published their Report on the bill and consideration of the bill began in the House, but no final vote was ever taken.

Moving Forward

The House Rules Committee is scheduled to meet tomorrow afternoon to formulate the rule for the consideration of HR 4553. The Rules Committee will determine which of the 82 amendments proposed to date will be considered during the consideration of the bill on the floor of the House.

The House is scheduled to consider the bill under that rule on Wednesday or Thursday. Even if this bill is passed in the House this week, it would be unlikely to be considered in the Senate before the end of the month. There is too much on the Senate’s plate and the focus is going to be on crafting a passable continuing resolution.

Commentary

Last year the House leadership could not get HR 8997 to a final vote in the House. The radical right would not support the bill because it did not cut spending enough. It does not look like enough spending changes were made to this bill to change that opposition. The difference this year is that the President is looking for a spending bill win leading up to the negotiations on a CR to keep the government operating past September   30^th. Failure to pass this bill will weaken the Republican’s discussion position with respect to the Democrats.

 

For more details about the cybersecurity, chemical, and cUAS provisions of this bill, as well as a discussion about the Democratic opposition, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-4553-introduced-fy-2026-ewr-spending - subscription required.

H Res 1370 – Rule for Consideration of HR 8997 and HR 8998

Earlier today, the House Rules Committee met to formulate the rule for the consideration of HR 8997, the FY 2025 EWR spending bill, and HR 8998, the FY 2025 IER spending bill. The Committee crafted H Res 1370 to govern the consideration of the two bills. The Committee also published their Report to accompany H Res 1370.

The rule provides that both bills will be addressed separately under nearly identical structured rules. This limits debate and provides a limited number of amendments that will be considered for each bill on the floor of the House. The allowed amendments are listed in appendixes to Committee’s Report; 65 amendments for HR 8997 and 97 amendments for HR 8998. Text of the authorized amendments are included in the Report.

In my CFSN Detailed Analysis post (subscription required) for HR 8997 I identified one amendment submitted by Rep Moylan (R,Guam) that might be of interest here; that amendment was included in the list of 65 amendments to be offered on the floor – Amendment # 30 (link to original amendment submitted to the Rules Committee). That amendment proposed to increase and decreases the Department of Energy Energy Programs, Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response account to emphasize the need of Guam Power Authority for a Department of Energy assessment on the cybersecurity of Guam's energy installations.

In my CFSN Detailed Analysis post (subscription required) for HR 8997 I identified one amendment submitted by Rep DeSaulnier (D,CA) that might be of interest here; that amendment was not included in the floor package for the bill. DeSaulnier’s amendment would have increased the FY 2025 spending for the Chemical Safety Board by $1 million.

 

Review - HR 8997 Introduced – FY 2025 EWR Spending

Earlier this month Rep Fleischmann (R,TN) introduced HR 8997, the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2025. The House Appropriations Committee published their Report on the bill. The bill only contains one cybersecurity mention, but the report discusses multiple cybersecurity issues as well as some unique chemical processing issues.

Moving Forward

The House is expected to consider the bill this coming week. This was one of the spending bills that was passed last year, and it will probably pass again. It is highly unlikely that the Senate will take up their version of the bill before the end of the September. That means that once again, we are going to see conflict between the House leadership and the spending radicals on how to pass minibus spending bills. This year, that conflict is going to be aggrevated by whatever election results we end up with in November.

 

For more information on the cybersecurity and chemical provisions of the bill, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-8997-introduced - subscription required.

HR 4366 Passed in Senate – Consolidated Appropriations Act

Yesterday, the Senate completed action on HR 4366, the Consolidated Appropriations Act. After adopting the substitute language for the House bill, the Senate voted 82 to 15 to pass the amended legislation. The final bill includes the Senate version of original Military Construction spending bill (S 2127), and also the Senate’s ARD spending (S 2131) and THUD spending ( 2437) bills. Earlier in the day, the Senate rejected four additional amendments (none of specific interest here) by recorded votes.

The bill now goes back to the House for approval of the changes made by the Senate. There is no chance that that will occur, the House will insist on their version of the bill, and it will be referred to a conference committee to work out a version of the bill that could pass in both chambers. In a good year, this behind-closed-doors work takes weeks of political give and take, and a compromise is reached that no one totally likes and, it is presented to the two bodies. After much speechifying and objection, the final bill is passed and the President signs the legislation.

Depending on who gets appointed to the Conference Committee (In the House, Republicans by the Speaker, Democrats by the Minority Leader) this conference could end up being very acrimonious. There is a very real possibility that intransigent Republican negotiators could insist on their spending levels and policy riders and kill any possibility of a compromise. If a compromise bill is crafted, it will be rejected by a significant number of Republicans in the House and the bill will require at least an equal number Democrats to vote for the bill if it is to pass. The last time a spending bill required bipartisan support to pass (back at the end of September, remember that?) the Speaker lost his job, and the House was plunged into Speaker Chaos 2.0.

Oh, and remember November 17^th is the date currently set by which all twelve spending bills (not just these three) have to be signed by the President to keep the government open. This bill (forget the other nine) is unlikely to be out of conference by that date, much less signed by the President. So, we will almost certainly see a continuing resolution fight before that date.

House Passes HR 4394 – FY 2024 EWR Spending

Yesterday, the House completed consideration of HR 4394, the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies [EWR] Appropriations Act, 2024. After adopting an additional 15 amendments and rejecting 24 amendments (none of specific interest here), the House passed the amended legislation by a nearly party-line vote of 210 to 199. One Republican {Rep Buck (R,CO)} voted against the bill.

When the Senate gets around to taking up this bill, they will substitute language from S 2443 and begin their amendment process there.

Review - House Takes Up HR 4394 – FY 2024 EWR Spending

Yesterday, with the Speaker Logjam at least temporarily broken, the House resumed where they left off on October 3^rd, 2023, consideration of HR 4394, the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies [EWR] Appropriations Act, 2024, under a structured rule. Nineteen amendments were considered yesterday with four being approved by voice votes.

Moving Forward

The House is scheduled to finish consideration of HR 4394 today. This bill will likely be an interesting gauge of how some of the moderate Republicans are going to respond to the fallout of the Speaker Chaos of the last three weeks. I suspect that there will be more Republican no votes on some of these spending reduction amendments. How the more radical elements of the party respond to that repudiation will be a measure of how much they have learned about the need for compromise in the House.

 

For more details about what amendments were considered yesterday, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/house-takes-up-hr-4394 - subscription required.

Review - House to Begin Consideration of HR 4394 – FY 2024 EWR Spending

As expected, the House is scheduled to take up HR 4394, the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies [EWR] Appropriations Act, 2024, under a structured rule. The House Rules Committee met yesterday to formulate that rule. That rule adopts one of the spending-reduction proposed amendments and provides for the consideration of 60 amendments on the House floor, including two of the three amendments {Fallon (#17) and Walberg (#18)} that I mentioned yesterday.

Moving Forward

The House will begin consideration today and have a final vote on the bill tomorrow. This means that the House is unlikely to conduct a late session this evening. There is a chance that the bill will not receive enough votes to pass, Democrats will all vote against and we might see some moderate Republican reject the spending reductions in the bill.

Commentary  

Anyone that expected a change in the influence of the Republican 11 after this weekend’s passage of the continuing resolution would be surprised at the spending reduction attempts authorized by the Rules Committee. They should not be; spending cuts are still a strong part of the Republican agenda. It will be interesting to see, however, if moderate Republicans continue to allow the more conservative elements of the party to control these spending bills.

 

For more details about the consideration of the bill, including highlights of the spending reduction amendments, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/house-to-begin-consideration-of-hr - subscription required.

Review - HR 4549 Introduced – FY 2022 EWR Spending

Last month, Rep Kaptur (D,OH) introduced HR 4549, the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies (EWR) Appropriations Act, 2022. The House Appropriations Committee marked-up the bill before it was introduced. The Committee Report on the bill is also available. The only mention of cybersecurity in the bill refers to the funding of the DOE’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response on page 27. The Committee sets funding for five programs under CESER in the Report.

I do not expect that this bill will make it to the floor of the House as a standalone bill. I am pretty sure that we are going to see what has become the standard for spending bill consideration again this year. There will be a continuing resolution before midnight on September 30^th moving the deadline for a combined spending bill until sometime in December. If the Democrats get their larger infrastructure bill passed, there will be little need for them to try to force through spending measures that the Republicans will not accept. They should be able to craft a bill that would allow 10 Republicans in the Senate to vote yeah.

If that infrastructure bill fails, the fight could get ugly this year.

 

For more details about the cybersecurity provisions in the bill, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-4549-introduced - subscription required.

S 2470 Introduced – FY 2020 EWR Spending

Last week Sen. Alexander (R,TN) introduced S 2470, the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2020. Like the House bill (HR 2960), S 2470 provides specific funding for Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER, pg 90) and the Appropriations Committee Report includes specific DOE cybersecurity funding.

CESER and Cybersecurity

The Senate bill would fund CESER at $179 million, $29 million higher than the House bill. Of that spending the Committee targets $96 million for Cybersecurity for Energy Delivery Systems. From those monies the Committee requests DOD spend $10 million on the DarkNet project and $7 million for Consequence driven Cyber-informed Engineering.

Finally, the Report recommends continued funding for the two following programs at $3 million for each program:

• DE–OE–00000807, “Improving the Cyber and Physical Security Posture of the Electric Sector”; and

• DE–OE–0000811, “Improving the Cyber Resiliency and Security Posture of Public Power”

Moving Forward

Again, as with S 2474 this bill will not see consideration as a stand-alone bill. The language will be substituted for Division E of HR 2740 as it starts the consideration process today.

Bills Introduced – 09-12-19

Yesterday with both the House and Senate in session, there were 52 bills introduced. Of those, four will likely receive additional attention in this blog:

HR 4306 To require the Administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration to conduct an evaluation of the safety, security, and environmental risks of transporting liquefied natural gas by rail, and for other purposes. Rep. DeFazio, Peter A. [D-OR-4]

S 2469 A bill to amend title 49, United States Code, to require the use of advanced leak detection technology for pipelines, and for other purposes. Sen. Udall, Tom [D-NM]

S 2470 An original bill making appropriations for energy and water development and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2020, and for other purposes. Sen. Alexander, Lamar [R-TN]

S 2474 An original bill making appropriations for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2020, and for other purposes. Sen. Shelby, Richard C. [R-AL]

DeFazio has been fighting a PHMSA special permit for shipping LNG by rail for a couple of months now. This appears to be the latest salvo.

Two of the three spending bills that were scheduled for this week were adopted in the Senate Appropriations Committee. The failure of the Committee to vote on the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies bill reflects the continuing problem the Congress is having with spending bills.

This is going to have an impact on how the Senate deals with the first House spending minibus (HR 2740) that passed in the House in June. Since that minibus included all three of the spending bills mentioned above, the Senate will not be able to take up HR 2740 and substitute language from their three bills (only two have been published). They can either substitute language from the two bills that were adopted by Committee and try to just amend the House language on the LHHE portion of the bill, or just wait until the Committee can reach an internal compromise that would allow the introduction of the Senate LHHE bill. I suspect the later will be the case. If this cannot be accomplished in the next week or so, we have no real chance of seeing spending bills sent to the President and will have to wait for a continuing resolution and an omnibus bill later in the year. Not looking forward to this, haven’t been all year.

House Passes HR 5895 – FY 2019 EWR Spending

Today the House completed consideration of HR 5895, the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies (EWR) Appropriations Act, 2019. The House passed the bill by a somewhat bipartisan vote of 235 to 179 (23 Democrats voting AYE and 16 Republicans voting NAY). The version of the bill debated, amended and passed by the House included language from HR 5894, and HR 5786; essentially combining three of the twelve annual spending bills.

As I have noted earlier, the Senate will not actually take up the language passed in the House today. Instead they will substitute the language from S 2975 that was recently reported in the Senate and amend that language. Then a conference committee will be formed to work out a compromise between the two versions of the bill.

If this process can move forward for this bill, then there is a chance that for the first time in recent history we may have spending bills to the President before the end of the fiscal year ends and will not need a series of continuing resolutions leading to a post-election omnibus bill. If this bill does not move forward (and it is the least controversial of the spending bills) then we will again be forced to hold our collective breaths again, waiting to see if intermediate compromises can be worked out to get interim funding approved.

S 2975 Introduced – FY 2019 EWR Spending Bill

Last month Sen. Alexander introduced S 2975, the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2019. Like HR 5895, the bill’s counterpart in the House, S 2975 includes the “Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response” (CESER) reporting category. This version, however, includes a much larger amount of spending on that category; $260 million vs $146 million.

CESER

Since this is a new spending category, it is clear that the two appropriations committees have different ideas on what should be included in the category. The House version only shows three line items; cybersecurity for energy delivery systems, infrastructure security and energy restoration, and program direction. The Senate Report shows those same categories plus (pg 117) from the ‘old’ Electricity Delivery category:

• Transmission reliability;

• Resilient distribution systems;

• Energy storage;

• Transformer resilience and advanced components; and

• Transmission permitting and technical assistance;

The Senate allocation of funds for each of the line items is significantly less than provided in the House bill. For example, the ‘cybersecurity for energy delivery systems’ line item draws only $80.8 million in S 2975 versus $116.5 million in HR 5895. The only reason that the CESER funding is higher is because of the additional line items.

There is a little more cybersecurity detail in the comments portion of the Senate report. For instance, they note that the “Committee recommends $10,000,000 for the DarkNet project to explore opportunities for getting the Nation’s critical infrastructure off the Internet and shielding the Nation’s electricity infrastructure from disruptive cyber penetration” (pg 78).

There is also an interesting comment about grid security research. The Report notes (pgs 80-1):

“The Committee supports the establishment of an EMP/GMD testing facility that can, without posing risk to the existing grid, replicate EMP/GMD events and cyber-attacks on a real-world configuration of critical grid components and systems. Such a facility is necessary to expose entire substations, including devices such as Extra High Voltage Transformers and subsystem components, to the combined effects of the complete composite EMP Waveform for early stage research and development, as well as testing and validation purposes at both the transmission and distribution levels.”

Moving Forward

This bill was reported favorably by Committee with just one vote in opposition. This type of bipartisan support is necessary for a bill this important to move forward to the floor of the Senate. Actually, the Senate will probably not take up this bill. Usually the Senate takes up the House version of the bill (HR 5895 in this case) and immediately substitutes the language from this bill for the House passed language.

The two different versions of the bill that come out of this process will be cleaned up by a conference committee. One of the important things coming out of this year’s committee will be a determination of which line item will end up being reported under the CESER heading in subsequent years.

HR 5895 Debated in House – FY 2019 EWR Spending Bill

Today the House began consideration of HR 5895, the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies (EWR) Appropriations Act, 2019. The debate began under the rule that I had previously reported and is continuing under provision of an additional rule approved today by the House Rules Committee. That rule added one new amendment concerning a cybersecurity related provision to the Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER) section of the bill.

The Sato amendment that I previously described (adding $1 million to the CESER account) passed by a voice vote at about 5:30 pm EDT this afternoon.

The new amendment (originally #93 on the Division A list; but now #5 in the new rule) was offered by Rep. Hasting (D,FL) would add another $5 million to the CESER account. The money would come from the Fossil Energy Research and Development (page 24 of the Committee Print). That account was initially set at $785 million.

The Hastings amendment was considered at about 10:05 pm EDT this evening and was defeated by a voice vote.

As I write this the debate is continuing with about 20 possible amendments still to be considered. The final vote is likely to come early in the morning.

Committee Approves Rule for HR 5895 – EWR Spending Bill

Yesterday the House Rules Committee approved the rule for the consideration of HR 5895, the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2019. As I noted earlier, the Committee has combined two other spending bills into this bill to speed the consideration of spending bills this year. The approved rule provides for a structured debate with only a limited number of amendments approved for debate on the floor. Additional amendments will be considered by the Rules Committee in their meeting today.

In that earlier post I identified one cybersecurity related amendment in the 173 amendments submitted to the Committee, Soto Amendment #59. That amendment made the cut to be included in the 39 amendments to be approved for consideration by this initial rule. It is likely to be included in an en bloc amendment to further speed the debate on HR 5895.

Rules Committee to Meet on HR 5895 – FY 2019 EWR Spending

The House Rules Committee will meet twice this coming week (Tuesday and Wednesday) to formulate the rule for consideration of HR 5895, the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2019. The version of the bill that will be affected by the two rules (general debate and amendment consideration) will include language from HR 5894 (Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2019) as Division B and HR 5786 (Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2019) as Division C.

The date for the submission of amendments to be considered by the Rules Committee has passed. A total of 173 amendments were submitted for all three divisions of the bill. Only one of the amendments may be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

Division A, #59, Soto (D,FL) – Increases funding to the Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER) program by $1,000,000 to further facilitate the Department of Energy’s effort to secure the nation’s energy infrastructure against all hazards, reduce the risks of and impacts from cyber events, and assist with restoration activities.

The amendment would take the $1 million from the DOE salary and administration account; decreasing that account to $279.5 million. It would increase the CESER account to $147 million.

The bill is currently scheduled to come to the floor of the House on Thursday.

HR 5895 Introduced – FY 2019 Energy and Water Spending

Last week Rep. Simpson (R,ID) introduced HR 5895, the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies (EWR) Appropriations Act. For the first time the bill contains a separate reportable category for “Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response”.

CESER

The new ‘Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response’ section (under Title III) of the bill covers “expenses including the purchase, construction, and acquisition of plant and capital equipment, and other expenses necessary for energy sector cybersecurity, energy security, and emergency response activities” (pg 22). The spending is set at “$146,000,000, to remain available until expended”.

The Committee Report notes (pg 88) that this is $50.2 million more than requested by the President and $50 million more than was included for similar activities in the FY 2018 spending bill. The spending tables for CESER (pg 126) show three-line items:

• Cybersecurity for Energy Delivery Systems - $116.5 million;

• Infrastructure Security and Energy Restoration - $18.0 million; and

• Program Direction - $11.5 million

The bulk of the funding increase ($48.5 million) is found in the first category with the remainder put into Program Direction spending.

The Report also explains that (pg 89):

“Within available funds for Cybersecurity for Energy Delivery Systems, $10,000,000 is for research and development on concepts to simplify and isolate automated systems and remove vulnerabilities that could allow unauthorized access to the grid through digital software systems.”

Moving Forward

The Appropriations Committee markup of this bill has been completed so the next step is to move to the floor of the House. I expect that we will see this bill on the floor sometime in June. There will be amendments from the floor during the debate, but those will be limited by a Rule. The bill is likely to pass with significant bipartisan support and some conservative opposition. The Minority Views section (pgs 192-6) of the Committee Report indicates strong Democratic opposition to many elements of this bill, but the bill will probably pass with just Republican support [added 5-31-18, 12:23 am EDT].

The Senate will take up their own version of the bill, probably in July, if some level of bipartisan support can be found [added 5-31-18, 12:23 am EDT]. A conference committee will work out the inevitable differences in the two bills. There is a distinct possibility that a final version of this bill could be on the President’s desk before the end of the fiscal year.

Bills Introduced – 05-24-18

Yesterday, with both the House and Senate preparing to leave Washington for their long Memorial Day Weekend, there were 75 bills introduced. Of these, four bills may be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

HR 5952 Making appropriations for the Departments of Commerce and Justice, Science, and Related Agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2019, and for other purposes. Rep. Culberson, John Abney [R-TX-7]

HR 5961 Making appropriations for Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies programs for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2019, and for other purposes. Rep. Aderholt, Robert B. [R-AL-4]

S 2975 An original bill making appropriations for energy and water development and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2019, and for other purposes. Sen. Alexander, Lamar [R-TN]

S 2976 An original bill making appropriations for Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies programs for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2019, and for other purposes. Sen. Hoeven, John [R-ND]