Bills Introduced – 01-25-17

Yesterday with the Senate in full session and the House minimally present in a pro forma session there were 25 bills introduced. Of those only three may be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

HR 4877 Making appropriations for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2018, and for other purposes. Rep. Granger, Kay [R-TX-12]

HR 4881 To require the Federal Communications Commission to establish a task force for meeting the connectivity and technology needs of precision agriculture in the United States. Rep. Latta, Robert E. [R-OH-5] 

S 2343 A bill to require the Federal Communications Commission to establish a task force for meeting the connectivity and technology needs of precision agriculture in the United States. Sen. Wicker, Roger F. [R-MS]

HR 4877 appears to be an attempt to get the DOD out of the continuing resolution cycle for this fiscal year. The House passed a bipartisan DOD appropriations bill (HR 1301) last March, but it was never taken up by the Senate. According to at least one news report, this bill is also unlikely to be taken up in the Senate. The official text of this bill is available, but I have not had a chance to review it yet.

HR 4881 and S 2343 appear to be companion bills. I will be watching to see if these bills address cybersecurity issues associated with this technology; I am not holding my breath.

Bills Introduced – 07-13-17

Yesterday with both the House and Senate in session, there were 51 bills introduced. Of those, two may be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

HR 3219 Making appropriations for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2018, and for other purposes. Rep. Granger, Kay [R-TX-12]

HR 3240 To improve the productivity and energy efficiency of the manufacturing sector by directing the Secretary of Energy, in coordination with the National Academies and other appropriate Federal agencies, to develop a national smart manufacturing plan and to provide assistance to small- and medium-sized manufacturers in implementing smart manufacturing programs, and for other purposes. Rep. Welch, Peter [D-VT-At Large]

As usual I will be watching the Defense spending bill for cybersecurity matters. A copy of the bill is already available, but I am still waiting on the copy of the Committee Report to be published.

HR 3240 is probably a bit of a long shot for coverage here. ‘Smart Manufacturing’ should mean automation and use of the industrial internet of things (IIoT) so I would hope (but probably not expect) that this bill would also include ICS cybersecurity provisions.

Committee Hearings – Week of 6-25-17

This week with both the House and Senate in session, we are starting to see movement on spending bills, continued work on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and a couple of interesting markup hearings this week.

NDAA

As I mentioned last week the House Armed Services Committee started their work on HR 2810 in subcommittee markups. This week they will move to a full committee markup on Wednesday. The Senate bill has not been made public at this point.

Senate Armed Services Committee, 6-28-17 and 6-29-17 (maybe 6-30-17)

House Armed Services Committee, 6-28-17

The HASC web site has a link to a brief (16 page) description of HR 2810. There is an interesting one paragraph blurb on cyber issues on page 11.

Spending Bills

The House Appropriations Committee starts public work on the FY 2018 spending bills this week, starting with markups of the individual spending bills by the appropriate subcommittee. We will be starting with the DOD spending bill (actually the Defense Construction and Veterans Affairs bill was marked-up last week) and the Commerce, Justice and Science (CJS) bill this week. A committee draft of the DOD bill is available, but I have not had a chance to look at it.

DOD, House, subcommittee markup, 6-26-17

CJS, House, subcommittee markup, 6-29-17

Other Mark-up Hearings

On Wednesday the House Energy and Commerce will be holding a mark-up hearing looking at a number of bills including HR 3050, Enhancing State Energy Security Planning and Emergency Preparedness Act of 2017. I did not catch this bill when it was introduced on Friday because of the way it was described at Congress.gov. Seeing the title of the bill today got me to take a quick look at the available committee draft (GPO version is not yet available) and it does have cybersecurity provisions (more later). I will be watching this bill.

On Thursday the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee will be holding an executive session that will include the markup of S 1405, the FY 2018 FAA authorization bill. The GPO version is not yet available but the committee draft shows that a number of sections of the bill deal with unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) including a re-write of the model aircraft restrictions on the FAA regulatory authority. There is currently no mention of cybersecurity in the bill.