HR 1 Fails in Senate

Yesterday the Senate voted on HR 1, the FY 2011 continuing resolution that would have provided funding for the federal government until October 1st. Under a deal worked out in advance the Senate voted upon both the House approved version of the bill and substitute language offered by Sen. Inouye (D, HI) the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Neither version got enough votes to pass.

The House (essentially Republican) version failed by a vote of 44 to 56 with three Republicans {Demint (R, SC), Lee (R, UT) and Paul (R, KY)} voting in the negative. The Senate (essentially Democratic) version failed by a vote of 42 to 58 with ten Democrats and one Independent voting in the negative.

The twin votes demonstrate the problem Congress is going to have with budget matters this session. The three negative Republican votes on the House version were probably votes in favor of further cuts. The negative Democratic votes on the Senate version went both ways; some thought that the cuts in that version were too much while others thought that the cuts did not go far enough.

The votes were less close than they appeared because the agreement to allow the two versions to be considered required a 3/5ths majority for passage. This is the same hurdle as would have been required to close debate on the bill without the agreement. This shows how much work has to be done on a compromise to develop a version of the FY 2011 budget that can pass in both Houses.

Various news agencies are reporting that there will be another short term continuing resolution offered in the House to allow more time to negotiate a full term bill that can be passed in both Houses. What will be interesting to see is if that new short term resolution will have more cuts than the previous short term bill as some Republicans are suggesting. There will be some point where the increasing cuts in the short term bill will be unacceptable to Democrats in the Senate.

HR 1 Introduced – Continuing Resolution

On Friday Rep. Boehner (R, OH) and Rep. Rogers (R, KY) introduced HR 1, the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2011 (actually only the title for Division B of the bill). Division B is intended to serve as the vehicle for the continued funding of the Federal government after the current Continuing Resolution expires on March 4th.

Chemical Security Provisions

There are lots of things going on in this bill and political pundits will have lots to say about a lot of those provisions. In this blog post (at least) I will try to focus on those provisions of specific interest to the chemical security provisions.

First and perhaps foremost is that §1116 will extend the §550 authorization for the CFATS program until September 31, 2011. This is a slightly different provision than we have seen in the past that provided an October 4th date for the termination of authorization. It is a purely technical difference since these extensions have been based in the DHS budget which practically speaking means the end of the fiscal year is the ‘real’ expiration.

Now for the money; this bill (§1624) would authorize the annual spending level for “Department of Homeland Security, National Protection and Programs Directorate, Infrastructure Protection and Information Security” (the agency that includes ISCD/CFATS and CERT) would be set at $805,965,000. [FY 2011 Request - $865,965,000; FY 2010 Authorized - $899,416,000]. There is no indication in the bill where the in NPPD the actual spending would be cut. We will have to wait to see the Appropriations Committee report on this bill to get some sort of idea.

Similarly the bill (§1615) would reduce funds for “Department of Homeland Security, Transportation Security Administration, Surface Transportation Security” to $105,961,000 [FY 2011 Request - $137,558,000; FY 2010 Authorized - $110,516,000]. Again, there are no details of where those cuts would be applied.

Politics and HR 1

I can’t imagine any Democrats in the House voting for this bill, and I imagine that there will be some Republican defections on the final vote. Will those defections be enough to kill this bill in the House? Probably not.

What will be interesting in the House is how much this bill will be subject to amendment. That will be determined in tomorrow evenings Rules Committee Hearing. On one hand the Republicans have promised more open rules, on the other hand there is an approaching deadline of March 4th for some sort of action.

An entirely different reality faces this bill in the Senate. The Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Sen. Inouye (D, HI) has essentially declared this bill dead in the Senate. In an official press release he explains:

“It is clear from this proposal that House Republicans are committed to pursuing an ineffective approach to deficit reduction that attempts to balance the budget on the back of domestic discretionary investments, which constitute only a small percentage of overall federal spending.”

Sen. Reid (D, NV) has been quoted as saying:

“Although Democrats have repeatedly urged them to join us in responsibly cutting waste and excess, Republicans have taken a meat ax to the initiatives that invest in our economy and create jobs for the sake of appeasing their base.”

I would like to assume that the Republicans will cast a symbolic vote (ala healthcare) on HR 1 and then get down to some serious negotiations on a bill that is marginally acceptable to mainstream Republicans and Democrats. I’m hopeful that the talk of shutting the government down over this budget is just so much noise.

If the CR Stalls – Whither CFATS?

If the two sides fail to make a reasonable deal and no budget bill or continuing resolution passes by midnight on March 4th, what happens to CFATS? Well that answer is simple, along with most of the rest of the Federal government, it shuts down. When (no ‘ifs’ about it) a budget bill is finally passed it will contain a provision essentially the same as §1116 of HR 1, and CFATS will continue on until the next budget bill or someone finally gets around to passing a ‘permanent’ or ‘long-term’ reauthorization bill.

Another Continuing Resolution

The House is preparing to pass another short term continuing resolution, H. J. Res 105 [Note: Corrected typo on Resolution Number 9:19 pm EST]. This rule recognizes that that the Senate and House will almost certainly not complete action on an FY 2011 budget before midnight tomorrow and will provide for funding of the federal government at the current levels until midnight Tuesday, December 21, 2010. As with the two previous CR’s this resolution would extend the CFATS authorization until the same date.

Republicans in the House are providing pro-forma opposition to this resolution, but it will ultimately pass in the House and Senate this afternoon. The form of funding past the new time limit has yet to be decided; it could (but is unlikely to) be the previously described Omnibus Appropriations Bill, Senate concurrence with the House version of HR 3082, or possibly a longer version of this type of resolution continuing current funding until some time in February.

Chemical Security in Senate Appropriations

Well I had a chance to review the DHS portion (pages 644 thru 747) of the Omnibus Appropriations Act published yesterday by the Senate Appropriations Committee along with a published summary of the DHS portion of that bill. There are significant differences between this bill and S 3607 that was reported this summer by the Senate Appropriations Committee and with the HR 3082 version passed in the House last week.

CFATS Extension

As expected the CFATS authorization is extended in this proposed legislative amendment. The extension is found in §545 (pg 726) though there is a minor technical error in that section. As published it reads:

“Section 550(b) of the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2007 (Public Law 109–295; 6 U.S.C. 121 note) is amended by striking ‘on October 4, 2010’ and inserting ‘on October 4, 2011’.”

The minor error is the fact that §550 has been amended twice by continuing resolutions this year and the current expiration date is December 18, 2010. This is the type of error you expect to see in a 1924 page bill that was cobbled together from twelve separate draft bills and then modified to meet current political conditions. Small stuff slips through the cracks.

CFATS Money

The overall funding for DHS is $43.548 billion, a decrease from President Obama’s ($43.890 billion) budget request but an increase over FY 2010 ($42.665 billion) according to Committee DHS summary. Of this the infrastructure protection and information security programs and activities (which includes the Infrastructure Security Compliance Division) would receive $874,923,000 [vs $878,316,000 in HR 3082 passed in the House and $989,342,000 in S 3607].

That is as close as the actual budget language gets to the CFATS program. It is just too small a program to be actually listed in the document. The DHS summary document does note that the above amount would include “$105 million, as requested, to support the coordination and management of regulating high-risk chemical facilities” (pg 3).

Other Programs of Interest

The surface transportation security program at TSA would receive $137,558,000 (pg 662). This would include the folks that deal with the freight rail security program, though I would suspect that the bulk of that money will go to passenger rail and public transport security measures. It specifically includes, according to the summary, money for the “100 new inspectors and 15 Visible Intermodal Protective Response -- “VIPR” -- Teams added in FY 2010” (pg 3).

There will be “$386 million for cyber security, $7 million above the President’s request” (pg 4). The bulk of that money will go to IT programs, but I think that we can assume that ICS-CERT will continue to get its funding; whether there will be an increase in that funding remains to be seen.

The Coast Guard will receive “$8.92 billion (excluding mandatory retirement funding), $142 million above FY 2010 and $200 million above the request” (pg 2). The MTSA program and various hazmat security programs are too small to be mentioned.

The Way Forward

HR 3082 will not come up in the Senate until sometime after the tax cut bill vote is completed (probably today?). It is not clear that there are enough votes to bring this amendment to an actual vote. Many Republicans want to see a short term continuing resolution (45 days) to allow the new Congress to set the spending priorities for the bulk of FY 2011. There may be enough Republican votes from the members of the Senate Appropriations Committee to close debate.

Of course if this amendment is passed in the Senate, then HR 3082 will have to go back to the House. It would probably be approved there; the Democrats can always point to their attempt to reduce spending and the Republican objections effectively don’t count. Of course, if there is any delay or hold up in the process, there will need to be another very short term continuing resolution; the current CR expires Saturday.

Legislative Status Update 08-28-10

I just updated the Legislative Status page to add a new category that certainly belongs on the page; FY 2011 Budget Related Bills. Currently there is only one bill listed, S 3607, the Senate version of the DHS spending bill. I will add other department’s spending bills as I see significant chemical security related provisions added to those bills.

Congressional Hearings Week of 02-22-10

Well Congress is finally coming back to work after being out most of the month of February for Snow Days and the Presidents’ Day Recess. As you would expect the budget is high on the hearing priority list. Secretary Napolitano will be making the Congressional rounds this week explaining the President’s DHS Budget request. She is scheduled for the following hearings:

Senate Homeland Security Committee, 2-24-10, 10:00 am EST House Appropriations HS Sub-Committee, 2-25-10, 10:00 am EST House Homeland Security Committee, 2-25-10, 2:00 pm EST

Typically, she will submit the same written testimony to each committee and it will be posted to the DHS web site as well. Usually the differences in the testimony will come in the questions that she is asked, but this year with the recent security incidents I expect she will be mostly asked the same questions about airline and general aviation security issues. Hopefully, someone will ask her about the 1 year CFATS authorization extension included in the President’s budget request. There will be one other chemical security connected budget hearing this week. The House Transportation Committee’s Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation will look at the maritime related portions of the President’s Budget. Even though the Coast Guard falls under Homeland Security, this is one of the continuing oversight problems that the Secretary has to live with. There is no witness list yet for this hearing, but I suspect the Commandant will be explaining the President’s budget request. There might be a TWIC Reader question or two asked at this hearing but that will probably be the limit of MTSA coverage. There is one chemical security related hearing that doesn’t deal with the budget this week. The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation will be looking at cyber security and infrastructure protection on Tuesday at 2:30 pm EST. There is no witness list posted yet, but this committee has a history of looking at industrial control system security issues. This hearing may end up being interesting.

Congressional Hearings – Week of 02-08-10

If Congress can get back into town after this weekend’s snow storm, it looks like committee work will start to pick back up. For the chemical security community there will be multiple appearances by Secretary Napolitano explaining the Obama Administration’s DHS FY 2011 Budget request and a Judiciary Committee meeting on counter-terrorism information. Budget Hearings In addition to the two committee hearings on the budget that I mentioned last week there is one more Secretarial appearance on the schedule. The Secretary will appear before the House Appropriations Sub-Committee on Homeland Security on Tuesday at 3:00 pm EST. Once again, there will probably be little mention of the CFATS program funding in this hearing, but someone might ask a question or two about the extension of the CFATS authorization. I expect that the written testimony provided by Napolitano will be the same for all three hearings this week. Information Sharing The House Judiciary Committee will be holding a hearing on Wednesday the 10th at 10:00 am EST entitled: “Sharing and Analyzing Information to Prevent Terrorism”. Currently that is the only information available. I suspect that this might be just another hearing on the lack of information sharing that lead up to the Underwear Bomber fiasco, but it could easily encompass more than that looking at the title. We’ll know more when they publish their witness list later in the week.