More on President’s Budget – Proposed DHS Spending Language

As part of the President’s budget request the Administration publishes proposed language for each of the spending bills that would support that budget process. This, of course, includes the DHS spending bill language. Now most of this is pure boiler plate; standard language that changes little from year to year. The most important policy provisions are found in ‘General Provisions’ portion of the language (starting on page 559).

Most of these policy provisions were added to modify various requirements that were enacted at one time or another by Congress. Rather than change the underlying law, these provisions make ‘temporary’ changes that, for the most part, get repeated from year to year. The Administration’s proposed language makes some significant changes to many of these repeating modifications including the complete elimination of 30 of the provisions found in last year’s spending bill.

Eliminations

All of the proposed eliminations from the General Provisions have placed various restrictions on the spending of the Administration. The following sections from last year’s DHS spending bill were eliminated in this proposed language: 512, 513, 515, 518, 521, 523, 527, 529, 532, 533, 534, 535, 537, 539, 542, 543, 544, 546, 547, 553, 554, 557, 558, 559, 560, 565, 566, 568, 570, 571, and 572. Additionally, all of the ‘Rescission’ sections (573 thru 577) were deleted.

Of these three (523, 529, and 533) would have restricted the Administration’s ability to make the cuts to the Coast Guard spending that I described in an earlier post.

CFATS Extension

The proposed DHS spending bill language includes the obligatory extension of the CFATS §550 authorization. Early in the Obama Administration there had been an attempt made to make this a two year extension, but this version only includes (§524) a standard one year extension of the current authorization.

Moving Forward (NOT)

As I mentioned in my earlier post, the proposed language, like the budget numbers, will be completely ignored by the House when they write the DHS spending bill. Almost all of the sections removed by the Administration will be put back in as a matter of course by the Republican staff of the Appropriations Committee. The only provision that I am sure will be included will be the CFATS authorization language.

Congressional Hearings – Week of 4-21-13

With a terrorist attack and a catastrophic chemical accident still dominating the domestic news Congress returns to Washington to look at more mundane matters including freight transportation and the FY 2014 budget. Two security related hearings will be held looking at cybersecurity and weapons of mass destruction.

Budget Related Hearings

• Federal Railroad Administration Budget, House Appropriations, 4-25-13;

• Oversight of the President's Fiscal Year 2014 Budget Requests for Coast Guard and NOAA, Senate Commerce, 4-23-13; and

• FY 2014 Budget Request for the Department of Homeland Security, Senate Appropriations, 4-23-13

Freight Transportation

On Wednesday the Panel on 21st Century Freight Transportation (not a subcommittee, maybe a temporary subcommittee) will hold a hearing on the Overview of the United States’ Freight Transportation System. According to a Panel document, they will be looking at the ‘system’ from an intermodal perspective. There is no specific mention of hazardous material shipping in that document, nor shipping security, but the topics may come up

The witness list includes:

• Fred Smith, FedEx Corporation

• Charles W. Moorman, Norfolk Southern Corporation

•  James Newsome, South Carolina Ports Authority

• Derek Leathers, Werner Enterprises

• Edward Wytkind, Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO

Weapons of Mass Destruction

The Counterterrorism and Intelligence Subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee will be holding a hearing on Counterterrorism Efforts to Combat a Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) Attack on the Homeland. This hearing was originally scheduled for April 11^th. The witness list remains the same as I reported earlier.

Cybersecurity

The Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection and Security Technologies Subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee will be holding a hearing on Thursday on Striking the Right Balance: Protecting Our Nation's Critical Infrastructure from Cyber Attack and Ensuring Privacy and Civil Liberties. It is odd that this hearing is coming after the House passage of CISPA, but that doesn’t appear to be the end of cybersecurity legislation. No witness list is currently available.

Action on the House Floor

There is only one bill that is currently scheduled to come to the floor of the House this week that even remotely concerns chemical safety matters (much less security of any kind) and that is H.R. 527, the Responsible Helium Administration and Stewardship Act. It will be debated under a Rule on either Thursday or Friday. I haven’t covered this bill and I probably won’t mention it again.