DHS Budget Hearings

Over the weekend I had a chance to view the videos of the two hearings in the House where Secretary Napolitano provided almost 5 hours of testimony on the FY 2013 Budget Request. Both hearings were held on the 15^th, the first before the Appropriations Committee and the second before the Homeland Security Committee. As is common with most of these types of hearings the bulk of the questions supported the adage that ‘all politics is local’, with most of the questions dealing with program cuts and issues in the questioner’s district.

CFATS

The CFATS program was brought up in both hearings. Chairman King did mention the problems in the implementation of the program in his opening remarks (only available on video, no printed version has been posted to the Committee site), but he failed to ask a single question about the program during his question periods.

Rep. Dent (R,PA) was the only one to ask any CFATS related questions the issue during the Appropriations Committee hearing (at 1:43 into the hearing video). He asked a pro forma question about the ISCD report and the ‘path forward’ and got a generic response from the Secretary; hardly intense questioning, but thats expected in a budget hearing.

Dent also asked a question about the use of the TWIC for the CFATS personal surety program that is still under review by OMB. There was actually some minor conversation about the issue between he and Napolitano. The end result was a promise to ‘look into the matter’ by the Secretary.

Cybersecurity

The general issue of cybersecurity funding came up in both hearings, it’s a fairly warm subject (you know, not quite really hot) on the Hill right now. It was mentioned in the Secretary’s prepared testimony, but there was no specific discussion of control system related issues in her testimony or any of the questions she answered.

Moving Forward

Unfortunately, during the budget process there is only one place where either CFATS or control system security is likely to come up in the House hearing process and that is during Under Secretary Beer’s scheduled appearance before the Homeland Security Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee. That hearing is scheduled to be held on March 1^st, but we won’t be able to see it as it will be a classified (closed) hearing.

No word on the Senate side when the Senate Homeland Security Committee will be taking up the FY 2013 budget. Their hearing schedule has been unusually quiet so far this year.

Congressional Hearings – Week of 2-13-12

This week starts to heat up the happenings on Capitol Hill. President Obama will finally publish his FY 2013 Budget Request Monday, and a long parade of political appointees will start to appear in congressional hearing rooms; Secretary Napolitano starts the DHS parade with two appearances this week. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will finally debut their new cybersecurity legislation. Finally the House Homeland Security Committee will markup a WMD bill.

FY 2013 Budget

Secretary Napolitano will make two trips to the House committee rooms on Wednesday to explain the President’s request for spending in FY 2013. In the morning she will start with the hearing before the Homeland Security Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee. In the afternoon she will repeat her statement at the House Homeland Security Committee.

There will be a lot of questions about pet projects from committee members, but nothing of substance will be agreed to in this round of discussions. CFATS might come up, but it will be a high level discussion, again no details. The most interesting thing for CFATS will be to see if the Administration again requests a two year extension of the program’s authorization.

Cyber Security

The Senate Homeland Security Committee Staff has been working hard with other committee staffs to develop a comprehensive cybersecurity bill that address the major concerns of all of the cyber players in the Senate. It will be introduced this week and Chairman Lieberman’s Committee will hold the first hearing on the bill on Thursday. There is little likelihood that control systems will receive any major attention in the bill, but we can always hope.

WMD Markup

The full House Homeland Security Committee will meet Wednesday morning to markup four separate bills, a sure sign that Chairman King doesn’t expect much in the way of opposition to any of the bills. The last of the four to be listed for consideration (though that does not mean it will be the last to be taken up at the hearing) is HR 2356, the WMD Prevention and Preparedness Act of 2011. I discussed the provisions of this bill back in July when it was introduced and am quite surprised that it took this long for the Committee to take it up; its a favorite topic of Rep. King. Substitute language will be offered by Chairman King, but at first glance it doesn’t seem to change much about the areas I previously discussed. I’ll look at it more closely before the hearing.