I was wondering why the House held a pro-forma session last night at 11:00 pm. Well I found out this morning, it allowed Appropriations Committee Chair Rogers (R, KY) to introduce HR 1473, the Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011, with a date of 4-11-11. The early date is important for complying with the new Republican House rules designed to give members timely access to pending legislation. Of course the bill is not available on the GPO web site yet, but it a Committee Draft is available on the House Rules Committee web site.
Title A of the bill is actually an appropriations bill for the Department of Defense. Title B is a new continuing resolution for the remainder of FY 2011. The base figures in the new CR come from the various appropriations bills for FY 2010, the last year when such bills were actually passed.
I haven’t had a chance to review all of the DHS provisions yet, but I can tell you that §1650 extends the §550 authority for CFATS until October 4th, 2011.
Showing posts with label FY 2011 Continuing Resolution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FY 2011 Continuing Resolution. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
HJ Res 44 Passes in House
This afternoon the House passed HJ Res 44, Further Continuing Appropriations Amendments, 2011. The recorded vote, 335 to 91, showed that there was substantial bipartisan support for the short term extension of the current continuing resolution through March 18th. There were 104 Democrats joining the Republicans voting for the proposal and six Republicans voting against.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Congressional Hearings – Week of February 28th
Next week Congress will be dominated by budget matters. With the March 4th deadline for approval of FY 2011 appropriations fast approaching, there will be some sort of action or deliberate inaction on that front. And the President’s FY 2012 budget will get continued attention. The only hearings currently scheduled that will be of interest to the chemical security community will be about the FY 2012 budget.
DHS Department Budget Request
Secretary Napolitano will be making two appearances on Capitol Hill this week to explain the President’s DHS budget request for FY 2012. She will appear before the Homeland Security Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday afternoon. On Thursday morning she will make her appearance before the House Homeland Security Community that was originally scheduled for the 17th.
Her prepared testimony will be essentially the same as she presented to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on the 17th. The questions will likely be a little different, reflecting the parochial interests of the various committee members.
Typically we would not expect to see much in the way of questions about CFATS; it’s just too small a program from a budget perspective. That may change this week for two reasons. First, there is a remote chance that Chairman King might take the opportunity to ask a question or two about delays in the CFATS implementation as they might indicate a lack of resources for internal review of SSP submissions.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Wednesday arrest of 20-year-old Saudi Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari in Texas on charges related to improvised explosives (or WMD as it is known to the FBI) weren’t the subject of at least a few questions. There might be specific questions about his ability to buy the chemicals and equipment necessary to make an IED (something of no surprise to anyone in the chemical community). Secretary Napolitano would certainly be expected to include in her response that it was a chemical company’s warning that led to his arrest.
Coast Guard Budget Request
While his name does not yet appear on the House Transportation Committee web site for the Tuesday morning hearing before the Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, the Commandant of the Coast Guard will certainly be one of the three government witnesses that will testify on maritime related budget requests. Again MTSA will not likely appear in his written testimony because of its relatively small budget impact. Questions might be asked about the TWIC Reader implementation process.
FY 2011 Continuing Resolution
There is not currently any hearings scheduled on HR 1 in the Senate. There have been news reports that the Senate Appropriations Committee is crafting an alternative to the House bill. It is unlikely that there would be hearings on that alternative; it would most likely show up on the Senate floor as an amendment in the form of a substitute. Until that alternative actually makes an appearance it is difficult to forecast its potential for passing in the Senate.
With the deadline fast approaching and almost everybody expecting some sort of a fight between the Senate and the House on HR 1 there has been much talk of a potential government shut down. Yesterday we started to see news reports that the Republicans in the House were working on a shorter term version of HR 1 to be offered as deadline bridge to allow that fight to be fully played out. Such a bill would certainly call for a Rules Committee hearing, but one is not yet scheduled. Such a bill and hearing would have to be announced early in the week to conform to the new House Rules.
DHS Department Budget Request
Secretary Napolitano will be making two appearances on Capitol Hill this week to explain the President’s DHS budget request for FY 2012. She will appear before the Homeland Security Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday afternoon. On Thursday morning she will make her appearance before the House Homeland Security Community that was originally scheduled for the 17th.
Her prepared testimony will be essentially the same as she presented to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on the 17th. The questions will likely be a little different, reflecting the parochial interests of the various committee members.
Typically we would not expect to see much in the way of questions about CFATS; it’s just too small a program from a budget perspective. That may change this week for two reasons. First, there is a remote chance that Chairman King might take the opportunity to ask a question or two about delays in the CFATS implementation as they might indicate a lack of resources for internal review of SSP submissions.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Wednesday arrest of 20-year-old Saudi Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari in Texas on charges related to improvised explosives (or WMD as it is known to the FBI) weren’t the subject of at least a few questions. There might be specific questions about his ability to buy the chemicals and equipment necessary to make an IED (something of no surprise to anyone in the chemical community). Secretary Napolitano would certainly be expected to include in her response that it was a chemical company’s warning that led to his arrest.
Coast Guard Budget Request
While his name does not yet appear on the House Transportation Committee web site for the Tuesday morning hearing before the Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, the Commandant of the Coast Guard will certainly be one of the three government witnesses that will testify on maritime related budget requests. Again MTSA will not likely appear in his written testimony because of its relatively small budget impact. Questions might be asked about the TWIC Reader implementation process.
FY 2011 Continuing Resolution
There is not currently any hearings scheduled on HR 1 in the Senate. There have been news reports that the Senate Appropriations Committee is crafting an alternative to the House bill. It is unlikely that there would be hearings on that alternative; it would most likely show up on the Senate floor as an amendment in the form of a substitute. Until that alternative actually makes an appearance it is difficult to forecast its potential for passing in the Senate.
With the deadline fast approaching and almost everybody expecting some sort of a fight between the Senate and the House on HR 1 there has been much talk of a potential government shut down. Yesterday we started to see news reports that the Republicans in the House were working on a shorter term version of HR 1 to be offered as deadline bridge to allow that fight to be fully played out. Such a bill would certainly call for a Rules Committee hearing, but one is not yet scheduled. Such a bill and hearing would have to be announced early in the week to conform to the new House Rules.
Monday, February 21, 2011
HR 1 Passed in House
Late on the legislative day on Friday, which was actually early on Saturday morning, the House passed HR 1 by a roll call vote of 235-189 on a mainly party line vote. The bill was debated over four days on the floor with 583 amendments offered. Of those 162 had some formal action taken on the floor. A total of 66 amendments were passed and 59 were rejected by recorded votes. A total of nine were withdrawn by their authors and 28 were rejected by the Chair due to their violations of House Rules.
Of the twenty amendments that had something to do with DHS spending only two were considered and passed; the Pascrell (D, NJ) amendment that I discussed in an earlier blog and one submitted by Rep. Lowey (X, XX) that limits the grants under the Urban Area Security Initiative under section 2003 of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (6 U.S.C. 604) to no more than 25 high-risk urban areas.
While the Democrats found little to like in the final bill, and none voted for it, that was due to their lack of votes, not a lack of chances to have their voices or ideas heard. They certainly have a voting record that they can take to the voters in 2012 to see if their view of this budget proposal better matched that of the voters.
The bill will go to the Senate when both the Senate and House return from their President’s Day district work session on February 28th. It is unlikely to nearly the point of impossibility that HR 1 will be approved in its current form by the Senate. In fact, there is a very good chance that it will not be brought to the floor of the Senate for consideration.
The deadline of March 4th is unlikely to be met by ultimate passage of this bill. There is a lot of finger pointing and posturing on whether or not there will be any budget action by that date. President Obama has threatened to veto HR 1 if it does reach his desk in anything close to its current form and it is unlikely that there would be enough votes in the Senate to overturn such a veto.
The one thing that is likely when Congress returns next week is that there will be lots of yelling and screaming about the FY 2011 budget. And Congress still has to consider FY 2012 spending.
BTW: The 'engrossed' version of the bill is not yet available on the GPO web site due to the Presidents Day Holiday.
Of the twenty amendments that had something to do with DHS spending only two were considered and passed; the Pascrell (D, NJ) amendment that I discussed in an earlier blog and one submitted by Rep. Lowey (X, XX) that limits the grants under the Urban Area Security Initiative under section 2003 of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (6 U.S.C. 604) to no more than 25 high-risk urban areas.
While the Democrats found little to like in the final bill, and none voted for it, that was due to their lack of votes, not a lack of chances to have their voices or ideas heard. They certainly have a voting record that they can take to the voters in 2012 to see if their view of this budget proposal better matched that of the voters.
The bill will go to the Senate when both the Senate and House return from their President’s Day district work session on February 28th. It is unlikely to nearly the point of impossibility that HR 1 will be approved in its current form by the Senate. In fact, there is a very good chance that it will not be brought to the floor of the Senate for consideration.
The deadline of March 4th is unlikely to be met by ultimate passage of this bill. There is a lot of finger pointing and posturing on whether or not there will be any budget action by that date. President Obama has threatened to veto HR 1 if it does reach his desk in anything close to its current form and it is unlikely that there would be enough votes in the Senate to overturn such a veto.
The one thing that is likely when Congress returns next week is that there will be lots of yelling and screaming about the FY 2011 budget. And Congress still has to consider FY 2012 spending.
BTW: The 'engrossed' version of the bill is not yet available on the GPO web site due to the Presidents Day Holiday.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
HR 3081 – the CR Legislative Vehicle
I made a mistake in my earlier posting about the pending Continuing Resolution. I reported that the legislative vehicle would be S 3676. The article I quoted reported that the Senate would use the State Department Appropriations bill, but did not include the bill number. I checked the House Appropriations Committee web site and they only listed the Senate bill on their chart of Appropriation Bills Status. This evening I had a chance to check the Senate web page that shows the results of today’s votes and it lists HR 3081 as the vehicle that the Senate will use to discuss and vote on the CR.
The Senate voted this evening to approve the cloture motion on HR 3081 (the vote tally was not reported as of 9:22 pm EDT). That means that the Senate will begin their discussion of HR 3081 tomorrow, probably starting with the offering of the amendment in the nature of a substitute that will be proposed CR. No other word on the Senate web site tonight about what other amendments might be offered before the vote on the CR is taken. That information may be available in the morning when the Congressional Record Daily Digest for today is posted.
The use of HR 3081 will obviously make the previous discussion about constitutional issues completely out of date and worthless. Oh well, that’s the way it goes.
The Senate voted this evening to approve the cloture motion on HR 3081 (the vote tally was not reported as of 9:22 pm EDT). That means that the Senate will begin their discussion of HR 3081 tomorrow, probably starting with the offering of the amendment in the nature of a substitute that will be proposed CR. No other word on the Senate web site tonight about what other amendments might be offered before the vote on the CR is taken. That information may be available in the morning when the Congressional Record Daily Digest for today is posted.
The use of HR 3081 will obviously make the previous discussion about constitutional issues completely out of date and worthless. Oh well, that’s the way it goes.
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