Bills Introduced – 1-27-15

Yesterday 65 bills were introduced in the House and Senate. Only one would be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

S 272 A bill making appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2015, and for other purposes. Sen. Shaheen, Jeanne [D-NH]

This is almost certainly a ‘clean’ spending bill designed to be considered instead of the House passed version of HR 240. It is unlikely that this bill will go anywhere.

Bills Introduced – 01-09-15

Yesterday there were only 44 bills introduced in the House and Senate; a relatively low number for the first week of the session. There was only one that will be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

HR 240 Making appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2015, and for other purposes. Rep. Rogers, Harold [R-KY-5]

As I mentioned last night the Rules Committee is meeting on this bill Monday evening and I expect that it will make its way to the floor this week. The bill will likely be on the President’s desk well before the February 27^th deadline.

S 2534 Introduced – FY 2015 DHS Spending

As I noted last month Sen. Landrieu (D,LA) introduced S 2534, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2015; the Senate version of the annual DHS spending bill. Typically the language in this bill would be substituted for the language in the House bill (HR 4903) when it is considered in the Senate.

As is typical in the DHS spending bill the only specific language of interest to the chemical security community would be the inclusion of the extension of the CFATS authorization. This bill includes that in §532. That language would extend the current authorization one year to October 4, 2015.

The Committee Report that accompanies this bill does provide a few items of potential specific interest to readers of this blog. This would include comments about the TWIC program, facility security officer training, the CFATS program and the Chemical Defense program.

TWIC

On page 79 of the report there is a brief discussion of the criminal background check portion of the Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) program. The Committee questions the lack of recurring criminal background checks after a TWIC is issued. The report requires DHS and the FBI to develop a plan to correct the situation, but stop short of requiring them to implement the plan. They do require the production of cost estimates for implementing the recurring criminal background checks, so they do realize that additional checks may raise the costs of the program significantly.

CG FSO Training

On page 86 there is a discussion about the lack of training standards for waterfront facility security officers (FSO) under the Maritime Transportation Safety Act (MTSA) and §821 of the 2010 Coast Guard Authorization Act. There is apparently a misprint in the discussion calling the FSO’s “waterfront federal [emphasis added] security officers” instead of ‘facility’ security officers.

The comment notes that the CG is internally developing the requirements for this training, but it recommends that FEMA be brought into the development process since the §821 requirements that the training should be “consistent with, and supports implementation of, the National Incident Management System”. A plan for the implementation of §821 is required to be submitted to Congress within 60 days of the passage of this bill.

Chemical Security

There is a fairly lengthy discussion (pages 102 thru 104) of the CFATS program. In addition to the obligatory requirement for multiple reports about the programs implementation there is:

• A brief discussion about the coordination between Administration agencies on chemical safety and security under EO 13650;

• A one sentence requirement to “work with industry on a viable solution to personnel surety”;

• A cryptic (and misaddressed) requirement to consider the use of “chemical neutralization technologies when creating comprehensive and integrated standard operating procedures for a unified Federal approach for identifying and responding to risks in chemical facilities” (this should be addressed at OSHA and EPA not NPPD); and

• A complaint about the abuse of Administratively Uncontrollable Overtime by chemical security inspectors.

Chemical Defense Program

On page 110 there is a very brief discussion about the Office of Health Affair’s chemical defense program; a program that I discussed last fall. Beyond recommending a continuation of current (and requested) funding levels (a comparatively miniscule $824,000) there is a requirement to submit a report on the progress being made in the four demonstration projects.

Moving Forward

This bill will move forward to the Senate floor, be amended and adopted. Then when the House bill reaches the Senate the language for this bill will be substituted for the House language (the Constitution requires that spending bills originate in the House). Then a Conference Committee will be formed to iron out the differences. September will probably be the earliest that a conference committee report will be voted upon.

Bills Introduced – 6-26-14

In their last day before taking a week off for the 4^th of July the House and Senate introduced 81 bills. Two of those bills may be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

S 2534 Latest Title: An original bill making appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2015, and for other purposes. Sponsor: Sen Landrieu, Mary L. (D,LA)

S 2547 Latest Title: A bill to establish the Railroad Emergency Services Preparedness, Operational Needs, and Safety Evaluation (RESPONSE) Subcommittee under the Federal Emergency Management Agency's National Advisory Council to provide recommendations on emergency responder training and resources relating to hazardous materials incidents involving railroads, and for other purposes. Sponsor: Sen Heitkamp, Heidi (D,ND)

As is usual I will expect that the report accompanying the DHS spending bill to be more interesting than the bill itself. The Senate will pass it’s bill and the House theirs and then the Conference Committee will work out the differences. Most of the ‘requirements’ in the report however will stand.

It is interesting that Heitkamp’s advisory committee will actually only be a subcommittee of an already existing AC. I’m looking forward to seeing what requirements are laid upon that subcommittee.

Congressional Hearings – Week of 6-22-14

Both the Senate and House will be in town this week. The House has a fair number of hearings scheduled, but none of specific interest to readers of this blog. The Senate, however will be having three separate mark-up hearings that will be of interest; one spending bill, one authorization bill, and a trio of bills that have not yet been introduced.

DHS Spending

The Homeland Security Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee will be meeting on Tuesday to mark up the FY 2015 DHS spending bill. A draft copy of that bill is not yet available.

Coast Guard Authorization

The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee will meet on Tuesday to mark-up 8 bills including S 2444, the Coast Guard Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 2015 and 2016.

Three Homeland Security Bills

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will meet on Wednesday to address one nomination and mark-up 11 bills. Three of those bills have yet to be introduced and those are the ones of specific interest here. They are:

• The Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2014;

• The National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center Act of 2014; and

• The Protecting American Chemical Facilities From Attack Act of 2014.

The first may possibly contain language that affects control system security (not too likely) but the second has a better chance.

The third bill will be the long awaited Senate plan for the longer term reauthorization of the CFATS program. This will certainly contain provisions not seen in HR 4007 that has not yet made it to the floor of the House. I would not be surprised to see IST or worker participation language in this bill, both of significantly absent from the House bill. If they do show up here in strongly worded language, then that might signal that the House bill would not be considered in the Senate; that would be the death of comprehensive chemical security legislation for another session of Congress.

Bills Introduced – 6-19-14

The House and Senate both continued to work in Washington yesterday and 44 bills were introduced. Two of those bills may be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

HR 4903 Latest Title: Making appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2015, and for other purposes. Sponsor: Rep Carter, John R. [TX-31]

S 2500 Latest Title: A bill to restrict the ability of the Federal Government to undermine privacy and encryption technology in commercial products and in NIST computer security and encryption standards. Sponsor: Sen Walsh, John E. (D,MT)

I have already discussed the probable provisions of HR 4903 as it proceeded through markup in the House Appropriations Committee.

The Senate bill may or may not contain provisions that specifically apply to control system security. If it does there will be continued coverage of the bill in this blog.

Full Committee Draft of FY 2015 DHS Spending Bill Published

Today the House Appropriations Committee published the Full Committee Draft of the bill to fund DHS for FY 2015. The bill is substantially the same as the one that was published a couple of weeks by the Homeland Security Subcommittee. It certainly contains the two CFATS provisions that I discussed earlier.

The Committee also published a draft of their Committee Report that would accompany the bill when it is reported to the Whole House. This contains a great deal more information that may be of interest to readers of this blog.

CFATS

The report details the amount of money that would be provided to the Infrastructure Security Compliance Division to fund the CFATS program and the Ammonium Nitrate Security Program (ANSP), if/when those regulations actually get published. The Committee will be recommending $83.3 Million for ISCD. This is up from the $81.0 Million allotted for FY 2014, but down from the $87.0 Million requested by the Administration. There is no threat this year to withhold any of those funds.

There is a lengthy discussion about the CFATS program on pages 89 and 90 of the Committee Report. Included in that discussion is a backhanded compliment to recent program improvements overseen by Director Wulf:

“Since that time [the 2006 adoption of the §550 authorizing language], and in spite of ample appropriations provided by Congress, DHS has only recently begun to make considerable progress in carrying out its regulatory responsibilities under the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program.”

The discussion goes on to explain the purpose of the $2.3Million year-to-year increase in funding enhance critical efforts related to compliance with CFATS, including:

• Developing an automated process for identification of CFATS outliers [non-reporting facilities];

• Addressing concerns raised by GAO regarding the risk-tiering methodology; and

• Fulfilling other requirements [almost certainly including the ANSP and SSP implementation].

There is an interesting discussion at the end of the CFATS section that I haven’t seen addressed by Congress before. It is a discussion about the techniques used to ‘seal’ [a device used to indicate that a load has not been tampered with since it was loaded] chemical containers in transit. The CFTATS discussion concludes by saying:

“The Committee is aware of concerns that storage and transit cargo containers used by the chemical industry may rely on outdated mechanical sealing technologies. The Committee encourages DHS to work with the Chemical Sector Coordinating Council to disseminate information about proven next generation sealing technologies to the chemical sector, including through the Chemical Sector Supply Chain Good Practices Guide [NOTE: this is a SOCMA link not a DHS link, I can’t find this on a DHS web site].”

This is addressed again during the discussion about the DHS Science and Technology Directorate (S&T). There they discuss the use of Reusable Electronic Conveyance Security (RECONS) solutions and recommend that DHS “consider piloting the use of commercially available RECONS that integrate physical security mechanisms with wireless tracking and security systems” (pg 117).

ICS Security

There is actually a brief discussion of control system security, termed ‘operational cybersecurity’. Again, as part of the S&T discussion, the Committee recommends S&T, “in collaboration with NPPD, establish operational cybersecurity research initiatives” (pg 116). There does not appear to be any additional funding for the exercise, however.

That lack of funding is in-line with the Committee’s planned reduction of NPPD’s cybersecurity spending by $46.7 Million from last year and an almost $1 Million less than requested by the Administration.

Markup Hearing

As I mentioned earlier the full Committee will meet tomorrow to markup this bill and I expect that it will be introduced later this week. The way that the House is moving on spending bills, I expect that this will reach the floor this month; well before the Summer Recess.

Subcommittee Draft DHS Appropriations Bill Published

Last night the Homeland Security Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee published the draft of the FY 2015 DHS spending bill that will be marked up this evening. As expected that draft includes language that would re-authorize the CFATS program for an additional year {§530}. It also includes, for the first time language that is clearly (but not specifically) targeted at the CFATS Personnel Surety Program. That new language {§556} would limit the Departments ability to require chemical facilities to submit names of individuals for clearance against the Terrorist Screening Database if they had already be vetted against that list by another DHS program. This provision would only apply in FY 2015.