S 1804 Introduced – Aviation Security

As I mentioned in an earlier blog post Sen. Tester (D,MT) introduced S 1804, the Aviation Security Stakeholder Participation Act of 2013. As I suspected this is pretty nearly a companion bill to HR 1204 which was recently passed in the House. The language in this proposed legislation is very nearly identical to the language reported in, and subsequently passed by, the House.

The only significant differences between the House bill and this one is that the membership of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee (ASAC) would, in this version, also include members representing “airport construction and maintenance contractors, [and] labor organizations representing employees of airport construction and maintenance contractors”{§44946(c)(1)(C)}. To accommodate the additional personnel the Committee membership is expanded from a minimum of 32 members to 34 members {§44946(c)(1)(B)}.

None of these changes will affect the chances of the bill passing. If the Senate takes up S 1804 (probably in an end of day unanimous-consent, no-vote, approval) it will be substituted for the House language an HR 1204 and be returned to the House. If this is the only change made, I would expect that the House to accept the Senate’s amendment and approve the bill.

HR 1204 Passed in House

After less than 15 minutes of debate today the House adopted HR 1204, the Aviation Security Stakeholder Participation Act of 2013 by a strongly bipartisan vote of 411 - 3. The bill would establish the Aviation Security Advisory Committee (ASAC) which would advise DHS on matters of aviation security and provide the regulated commercial aviation communities a voice in the regulatory development process.

As I noted earlier the House Homeland Security Committee’s report on HR 1204 was published yesterday (and became available this morning on the GPO web site) along with the revised language adopted by the Committee. Changes adopted in the new language included:

• Required TSA to explain to Congress why it does not adopt ASAC recommendations;

• Expand maximum ASAC membership from 30 to 32 organizations;

• Add ‘‘businesses that conduct security operations at airports” and “aeronautical repair stations” to the organizations to be represented in ASAC membership;

• Change the name of the ‘Perimeter Security Subcommittee’ to the ‘Perimeter Security, Exit Lane Security, and Access Control Subcommittee’; and

• Add a ‘Security Technololgy Subcommittee’.

If and when the bill makes it to the floor of the Senate, it will likely pass “without objection” with even less debate than happened today.

Congressional Hearings – Week of 12-01-13

The House is back in Washington this week after a relatively short Thanksgiving recess and the Senate is still working at home. There is a fairly light hearing schedule for the House (other than three major Conference Committees that are probably meeting this week) and none of the scheduled hearings are of any special interest to readers of this blog.

The House will take up one bill that I have been covering, HR 1204, the Aviation Security Stakeholder Participation Act of 2013. It will be considered under suspension of the rules on Tuesday and will probably pass with bipartisan support; there is certainly no major opposition to the bill.

NOTE: It is interesting that the Committee Report from the House Homeland Security Committee (from their October markup of the bill) has yet to be published. I would not be surprised to see it published today.

Homeland Security Mark-up Hearing Results

Yesterday the House Homeland Security Committee held their markup hearing looking at six different bills including (of potential interest here) HR 1204, HR 1791, HR 2952, and HR 3107. All six bills were ordered to be reported favorably; some with amendments (including HR 1204, HR 2952, and HR 3107).

The Committee provides a nice summary of the amendments, but none of them were significant. The closest to being a meaningful change was the amendment from Rep. Horsford (D,NV) that changed one of the subcommittee names of the new Aviation Security Advisory Committee from the “Perimeter Security Subcommittee” to the “Perimeter Security, Exit Lane Security , and Access Control Subcommittee”.

Actually ‘access control’ was already one of the topics that this subcommittee was to cover, so it only added ‘Exit Lane Security’. This topic is already a big deal in the airport security community so this just gave ‘Exit Lane Security’ a specific home.

Of course, any time a House Committee can do the markup of six bills in a single hearing, we know that there are not going to be any controversial or substantive changes made to any of the bills.

Congressional Hearings – Week of 10-27-13

Both the Senate and the House will be in town this week and the pace of hearings is getting back to normal after the fiscal fiasco has passed. There are four House hearings and one Senate hearing that might be of specific interest to readers of this blog. They include three mark-up hearings, one Coast Guard authorization hearing and one cybersecurity hearing.

Mark-up Hearings

The House Homeland Security Committee will try for a third time on Tuesday to mark-up a group of bills including HR 1204, HR 1791, HR 2952, and HR 3107. I wrote about this hearing in some detail last week on the second attempt to hold this hearing.

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will hold a mark-up hearing on Tuesday that will address four bills including HR 3300, the FEMA Reauthorization Act of 2013 that I described yesterday. No word yet on any potential amendments.

The Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee will have a Business Meeting today. It will either include a mark-up of some legislation, consider nominations or both; no agenda has been published.

Coast Guard Authorization

The Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will meet on Tuesday to look at a variety of issues that might be included in a Coast Guard authorization bill. The current ‘Summary of Subject Matter’ published by the Committee does not include mention of any security or chemical safety issues.

Cybersecurity

Wednesday will see a potentially interesting take on cybersecurity when the Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response and Communications and the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protections and Security Technologies of the House Homeland Security Committee (whew, that’s a lot of words) hold a joint hearing on “Cyber Incident Response: Bridging the Gap Between Cybersecurity and Emergency Management”. No agenda or witness list is currently available.

Congressional Hearings – Week of 10-20-13

The House returns to work tomorrow while the Senate remains in their States for another week of keeping in touch with voters and contributors. The House does not currently have a real heavy hearing schedule this week and only one hearing that might be of specific interest to readers of this blog, a mark-up hearing that was originally scheduled for 10-2-13.

The House Homeland Security Committee will be meeting on Thursday to consider six different bills; four of which may be of specific interest here:

• HR 1204, The Aviation Security Stakeholder Participation Act of 2013;

• HR 1791, The Medical Preparedness Allowable Use Act;

• HR 2952, The Critical Infrastructure Research and Development Advancement Act of 2013; and

• HR 3107, The Homeland Security Cybersecurity Boots-on-the-Ground Act.

Revised language will be introduced for three of these bills:

• HR 1204;

• HR 2952; and

• HR 3107

Among other things the revisions to HR 1204 would tend to re-emphasize that the TSA is to take the recommendations of the Advisory Committee very seriously; reporting to Congress when the TSA does not follow those recommendations. The changes in the language for HR 2952 are essentially non-substantive political changes. The same can be said of the proposed changes to HR 3107.

House Homeland Security Committee Markup Hearing – 10-2-13

The House Homeland Security Committee announced this morning that they would be holding a markup hearing on Wednesday to look at six bills, four of which might be of specific interest to readers of this blog.

Those four bills would be:

HR 1204, The Aviation Security Stakeholder Participation Act of 2013;

HR 1791, The Medical Preparedness Allowable Use Act;

HR 2952, The Critical Infrastructure Research and Development Advancement Act of 2013; and

HR 3107, The Homeland Security Cybersecurity Boots-on-the-Ground Act.

The Committee web site indicates that there will be an amendment in the form of a substitute offered for three of the four bills listed above:

H.R. 1204, Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute [PDF];

H.R. 2952, Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute [PDF]; and

H.R. 3107, Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute [PDF]

I haven’t had a chance to do a detailed review of the substitute language, I’ll probably report on that tomorrow.

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.

TSA Announces Closed ASAC Meeting – 4-22-13

The Transportation Security Administration published a meeting notice in today’s Federal Register (78 FR 20685) announcing that the Aviation Security Advisory Committee (ASAC) will be holding a closed meeting on April 22^nd, 2013. The closed meeting will provide TSA the opportunity to provide classified briefings to the Committee on:

• Threat intelligence related to TSA's prohibited items list; and

• TSA risk-based initiatives pertaining to passenger prescreening.

Readers might recall that last month Rep. Thompson (D,MS), the ranking member on the House Homeland Security Committee, introduced HR 1204, the Aviation Security Stakeholder Participation Act of 2013. That bill would require this type of consultation with the ASAC prior to making decisions like the recent decision to allow passengers to resume carrying small knifes on board airliners.

I am a pretty creative guy, but I am hard pressed to be able to describe some sort of intelligence information that would convince airline industry representatives and labor groups that there are no terrorist organizations that would consider trying to hijack an aircraft with a box cutter. I mean the most effective airline hijackings in history utilized just such a weapon. And the likelihood of having to find an FBI informant to acquire one is really small.

No this is a political move on the part of the Administration to forestall action on Thompson’s bill that would provide some sort of editorial control over the security theater being played out at the nation’s airports.

HR 1204 Introduced – Aviation Security

As I mentioned earlier Rep. Thompson (D,MS) recently introduced HR 1204, the Aviation Security Stakeholder Participation Act of 2013. This bill would require the DHS Assistant Secretary for TSA to formally establish an Aviation Security Advisory Committee (ASAC) to advise the Department on “aviation security matters, including on the development and implementation of policies, programs, rulemaking, and security directives pertaining to aviation security, while adhering to sensitive security guidelines”{added in 49 USC §44946(b)(1)}.

According to a press release from Thompson, the ASAC was actually formed in 1989 but became inactive until it was reinstituted by TSA Administrator Pistole in 2011. What this bill would do is to require the Administrator to consult with the ASAC on the items listed above. Rep. Thompson noted that he hoped that such consultation would help to prevent actions like the recently announced TSA policy change to allow small knives to be carried by passengers aboard commercial airplanes.

The ASAC would not be just focused on passenger security issues. The bill would require the establishment of subcommittees to address:

• Air Cargo Security {§44946(d)};

• General Aviation Security {§44946(e)};

• Perimeter Security {§44946(f)}; and

• Risk-Based Screening of both passengers and cargo {§44946(g)};

Over the years many activist organizations have objected to the formation and activities of various federal advisory committees, complaining that they provide big business with too much influence over the regulatory process. Thompson’s bill seeks to pre-empt many of these types of complaints by mandating that labor unions, privacy organizations, minority owned small businesses and advocacy groups all have some representation on the Committee.

This is a motherhood and apple pie bill that will certainly pass with bipartisan support if it reaches the floor in both houses of Congress. The problem will be in ensuring that the leadership actually brings it to the floor. That problem may be avoided if this bill gets tacked onto an authorization bill. The most likely candidate would be the TSA authorization, but it could also end up attached to a DOT authorization bill.

Bills Introduced – 03-14-13

It was a relatively busy day for submitting legislation in both houses of Congress yesterday, 24 bills in the Senate and 59 in the House. Two of the bills may end up being of interest to members of the chemical safety/security community and the cybersecurity community, HR 1163 and HR 1204.

HR 1163 Latest Title: To amend chapter 35 of title 44, United States Code, to revise requirements relating to Federal information security, and for other purposes. Sponsor: Rep Issa, Darrell E. (R,CA)

HR 1204 Latest Title: To amend title 49, United States Code, to direct the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security (Transportation Security Administration) to establish an Aviation Security Advisory Committee, and for other purposes. Sponsor: Rep Thompson, Bennie G. (D,MS)

HR 1163 could end up being anything from a bill to regulate federal IT security measures to addressing how classified information is handled. If it is the latter, it could have some impact on information sharing with critical infrastructure. That would be the most likely way that this could be of potential interest to readers of this blog.

HR 1204 is most likely going to be another passenger related security measure. It could, however, include provisions for the ASAC to look at cargo security. If that’s the case it would be a bill that I would be following.

NOTE: The Library of Congress legislative web site, Thomas.LOC.gov, is having some sort of problems this morning. It doesn’t currently list the 24 bills introduced yesterday in the Senate. Fortunately, the Congressional Record site was updated and I could review the bill titles there.