House Begins THUD Consideration

The House began consideration of HR 2610, the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2014, on Tuesday and will finish consideration of the bill today.

To date there has only been one floor amendment approved that will be of specific interest to the chemical safety/transportation community. An amendment (Cong Rec, 7-30-13, Pgs H5117-8) offered by Rep. Griffin (R,AR) increased the operational funding of the Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration by $500,000 (2.3%). That increase was offset by taking money from account for the Office of the Secretary (DOT).

Since the reading of the bill has moved on to the HUD portion of the bill, there probably will not be any further amendments of interest to the chemical safety/transportation community. It is possible that amendments could be made to the spending for NTSB as their funding is found in Title III of the bill, but it is unlikely.

THUD Amendments in the Senate – 07-24-13

Yesterday Sen. McCain (R,AZ) offered an amendment to S 1243 (SA 1780), the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act (THUD), 2014 that dealt with cybersecurity. The amendment would withhold DOT cybersecurity funds until the Secretary reported on the planned uses of those funds.

• The report would be required to include:

• How the cyber security funding will be obligated or expended;

• The programs and activities that will receive cyber security funding;

• If and how the use of the funding complies with the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 (6 U.S.C. 101 et seq.) and any other applicable Federal law;

• The performance metrics that will be used to measure and determine the effectiveness of cyber security plans and programs; and

• The strategy that will be employed to procure goods and services associated with the cyber security objectives of the Department of Transportation.

As I noted in an earlier blog, the bulk of the DOT cybersecurity spending identified in the Senate Appropriations Committee Report would be going to the FAA. Some of the systems involved could be described as control systems. They are of a very specialized nature and most of the cybersecurity tools developed for them would probably not be widely applicable to industrial control systems.

This amendment is not one of the limited number that has been listed as ‘pending’ in the Congressional Record’s Daily Digest, but it still could be brought to the floor at any time during the debate of HS 1243 at the discretion of the leadership. These ‘report’ types of amendments have a good probability of passing if brought to a vote even if this one is a bit coercive.

House Rules Committee Provides Open Rule for HR 2610

The same rule from the House Rules Committee that governs the floor debate for HR 2397 also addresses the debate for HR 2610, the Departments of Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill, 2014. In this case, however, the Committee adopted an open rule like those that the Republican leadership has been using since regaining control of the House.

The rule provides that any time after HR 2397 has been considered the House may begin consideration of HR 2610. There will be an hour of general debate on the bill and then the reading of the bill will begin. At any point during that reading, amendments may be offered from the floor on the areas currently being read. When there are conflicts for recognition, the Chair may give priority to amendments that have been published in the Congressional Record (none had been offered as of yesterday).

At this point there is no telling when this bill will come to the floor. Consideration may start this week and carry over until next week, or it could be held until next week. And we are still waiting to see when HR 2410, the Ag spending bill, will be brought to the floor.

Congressional Hearings – Week of 7-21-13

There are only three House hearings and one Senate hearing that might be of specific interest to the chemical safety/security and cybersecurity communities. They involve a TSA markup, a rule for two spending bills, a transportation bill and a cybersecurity bill. A WMD bill will also be considered on the floor of the House.

Spending Bills

The House Rules Committee will meet this evening to try again to formulate a rule for the consideration of HR 2610 (FY 2014 DOT spending bill) and HR 2397 (FY 2014 DOD spending bill). The big holdup here is the question of whether or not to have an open rule (which the Republican leadership has made the norm for spending bills) for the DOD bill. There is a great deal of concern about an amendment defunding the NSA over the recent cyber-snooping disclosure about that agency.

Apparently there has been a resolution as to handle the DOD bill because the Majority Leader’s web site reports that HR 2397 will be considered this week.

TSA Markup

The Subcommittee on Transportation Security of the House Homeland Security Committee will be holding a markup hearing on Wednesday. One of the bills to be considered will be HR 1204, the Aviation Security Stakeholder Participation Act of 2013.

Transportation

Friday there will be a field hearing in New York City by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s Panel on 21^st Century Freight Transportation looking at “How Freight Transportation Challenges in Urban Areas Impact the Nation”. There is no witness list yet available so it is hard to tell what might be discussed. Always a possibility is the issue of the risk of hazmat trains transiting urban areas.

Cybersecurity

The Senate Commerce Committee will be holding a hearing on Thursday looking at “The Partnership Between NIST and the Private Sector: Improving Cybersecurity”. This should be another feel good hearing about the Cybersecurity Framework being developed by NIST under the President’s Cybersecurity EO (EO 13636). No witness list is yet available, but we can expect to see the NIST Director.

WMD Intelligence

There will also be a House floor vote on HR 1542, the WMD Intelligence and Information Sharing Act of 2013. This bill will be considered under suspension of rules so there will be no floor amendments allowed. There was no committee markup of this bill so there was no chance to add the industrial chemical amendment that I suggested. This bill will pass in a bipartisan vote later today.

S 1243 Introduced – FT 2014 DOT Spending

As I mentioned in an earlier post Sen. Murray (D,WA) introduced S 1243, the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2014. This bill does not actually include any specific chemical safety or cybersecurity (beyond Department IT cybersecurity spending) provisions. The Senate Appropriations Committee report does, however, include hazmat transportation safety provisions and limited cybersecurity provisions.

Cybersecurity

The Report accompanying this bill briefly addresses a unique set of control system security concerns. First the report notes that 77% of the Department’s cybersecurity budget (or $105 million) is directed to the budget of the Federal Aviation Administration. The Report then goes on to note that two separate DOT IG reports indicate “the FAA had not adequately implemented security requirements for its Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast System” (pg 33) or its En Route Automation Modernization System. The report concludes that the Committee “expects the Vice President of [FAA] Program Management to coordinate with the CIO for the FAA and for the Department to ensure the security of FAA’s systems is made a high priority”

PHMSA Spending

The spending bill provides modest increases in funding for PHMSA programs. Both the Pipeline Safety Fund and the HAZMAT show increases over the pre-sequester FY 2013 spending, but the HAZMAT program is slightly less than requested by the President. The President continues to propose a HAZMAT special permit fee in his budget, but “the Committee believes that such a fee should be established through the regulatory process or should be addressed through the authorization process” (pgs 90-1) and does not include that in the bill.

Moving Forward

Because of Constitutional limitations, this bill will probably not be brought up until the House passes their version of the bill at which time the Senate would typically substitute this language for the House wording, pass the bill (probably with a number of amendments) and then go to conference to iron out the differences.

In recent years this bill is usually folded into the Omnibus spending bill because Congress has been unable to pass all 13 of the individual appropriations bills before the end of the fiscal year on September 30^th. I suspect that that will occur this year as well.