House Passes DHS Bills with Minimal Debate

This has been the week for the House to consider a number of low-controversy bills for DHS. Two of the bills in particular have been ones that I have been commenting on in this blog:

HR 1646 – The Homeland Security Drone Assessment and Analysis Act

HR 2200 – The CBRN Intelligence and Information Sharing Act of 2015

Both of these bills were debated on Tuesday, but neither attracted much discussion. The debate on HR 1646 lasted a little over six minutes. The debate on HR 2200 only took nine minutes. There were 40 minutes allotted for the debate of each bill.

HR 1646 was passed on a voice vote on Tuesday. When it came to vote on HR 2200 a recorded vote was requested which delayed the proceedings until this morning. The House voted 420 to 2 to approve HR 2200. Both bills now head to the Senate where they are likely to be considered under the unanimous consent process, but there is no telling when that might happen. They could even  die a quiet death by being ignored by the Senate leadership.

Committee Hearings – Week of 06-21-15

Both the House and Senate will be in Washington this week and having a fairly normal hearing schedule. Only five hearings of potential specific interest to readers of this blog; two on the OPM hack, one cybersecurity markup, a hearing on vehicle-to-vehicle communications and the Senate version of the THUD spending bill.

OPM Hack

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will be holding part 2 of their hearing on the OPM hack on Wednesday. No witness list has been made available yet.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will look at the OPM hack and the larger issue of Federal cybersecurity on Thursday.

Vehicle-to- Vehicle Communications

On Thursday the Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee will be meeting on Thursday to look at “Vehicle to Vehicle Communications and Connected Roadways of the Future”.

Cybersecurity Markup

The Senate Homeland Security Committee will be holding a business meeting on Wednesday. One of the bills that they will be marking up in the Einstein Act (will probably be introduced today). Nothing certain yet, but it looks like it will probably deal with the Einstein cybersecurity programs being deployed across the Federal government.

FY 2016 THUD Spending Bill

The Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee will be holding a markup hearing on the FY 2015 THUD spending bill tomorrow. We did not see any crude oil train or chemical transportation safety measures in the original House bill (HR 2577) but some did make it in during the floor amendment process. We will have to wait and see what the Senate Appropriations Committee does with this bill.

On the Floor

We have a number of homeland security related bills coming to the floor of the House this week including two that I have been following in this blog; HR 2200 (CBRN Intel) and HR 1646 (Drone Assessment). I did a post yesterday on the committee report on HR 2200 and I am waiting for the GPO to publish the report on HR 1646. The bills are expected to come to the floor on Tuesday under suspension of the rules; so no amendments will be made.

Committee Hearings – Week of 5-17-15

Both the House and Senate will be in town this week before taking off next week for their Memorial Day break. Not much in the way of hearings this week of specific interest to readers of this blog; a couple of markups, an energy security hearing and the highway bill rule.

Energy Security

The Energy and Power Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee will be holding a hearing on a new bill addressing energy reliability and security on Tuesday. Among other things the bill includes EMP provisions, cybersecurity order provisions, and a new ‘Cyber Sense’ program.

The witness discussion will be wide ranging and probably superficial. It is still early in the game on this bill.

Legislation Markups

The House Homeland Security Committee will markup 11 bills on Wednesday. This will include HR 1646 and HR 2200. I covered the subcommittee markup of both of those bills last week. Both are apparently on the fast track to the House floor. The Homeland Security Committee version (HR 1738) of the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System Modernization bill will also be considered. The fate of this bill has yet to be determined by the House leadership.

The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee will also meet on Wednesday to consider 13 bills. The one of note for readers of this blog is HR 710. Chances are looking good that Rep. Jackson-Lee (D,TX) may finally see her TWIC bill making it to the floor of the Senate.

Highway Bill

As I noted on Saturday the short term extension of the highway bill, HR 2353, has been introduced and the House Rules Committee will be meeting today to formulate the rule for its consideration. This bill is obviously being fast tracked so it will be on the President’s desk by Friday.

Floor of the House

In addition to HR 2353 the House will take up the 2016 Coast Guard authorization bill (HR 1987) this week under suspension of the rules. With no amendments being allowed under that process, this bill will go to the Senate without any new hazmat security or safety measures.

House Subcommittee Markup of HR 1646

Yesterday the Oversight and Management Efficiency Subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee held a markup hearing where four bills were recommended to the full Committee for consideration. Among those was HR 1646, the Homeland Security 3 Drone Assessment and Analysis Act.

Amendments

Two amendments were offered for HR 1646, one by Rep. Coleman (D,NJ) the author of the bill, and one from Rep. Scott Perry (R,PA). Both amendments were adopted by voice vote. The Coleman amendment expanded the participation in the study development process and added State and local fusion centers to the list of agencies that would receive copies of the required study. The Perry amendment limited the maximum size of ‘medium sized’ drones to 1300 lbs and stressed the need for recommendations on how prevent and mitigate the risk from drone attacks.

Moving Forward

As I mentioned in my earlier post on this bill it looks like this bill will be actively moving forward in the House Homeland Security Committee. It could easily become one of those bill that is moved further forward as much for its show of bipartisan support as for the actual content of the bill.

Commentary

There is still nothing in the bill that would drive the report down to non-government owned critical infrastructure facilities that are responsible for the security of most CI facilities. While the addition of the fusion centers to the report recipients is a positive move there is still nothing that would guarantee that responsible security personnel would ever see the results.

HR 1646 Introduced – Drone Security Research

Last month Rep. Watson Coleman (D,NJ) introduced HR 1646, the Homeland Security Drone Assessment and Analysis Act. The bill would require DHS to conduct an assessment of the risk of drone attacks and how to mitigate those attacks. In her press release about the bill and in comments on the floor of the House, Ms Watson Coleman has stated that the bill arose out of concerns that she heard in testimony before the  Management and Oversight Subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee.

This is a short bill with very simple requirements. First the DHS Secretary is required to conduct research into “how commercially available small and medium sized unmanned aerial systems could be used to perpetuate an attack” {§2(a)}. There is no funding for the study, no guidance on how it is to be conducted and there is no definition of the key terms ‘small’ and ‘medium sized unmanned aerial systems’.

Once the study is completed the Secretary is required to coordinate with DOD, DOT and DOE to “develop Federal policies, guidance, and protocols to prevent such an attack or mitigate the effects of such an attack” {§2(a)}. Additionally, the Secretary is required to disseminate the information to “State, local, and tribal law enforcement officials regarding how such officials may bolster preparedness for and responses to attacks perpetrated by commercially available small and medium sized unmanned aerial systems” {§2(b)}. There is no mention of sharing the information with critical infrastructure owners who might be considered to be the targets of most of the homeland security related attacks.

And finally, of course, is the standard requirement to report on the security assessment to Congress.

Since this bill does not require anyone to really do anything besides conduct a study, and no funds are included in the bill this bill would almost certainly face no organized opposition if it made it to the floor. Since Rep. Watson Coleman is the ranking member of the Homeland Security subcommittee looking at the bill, there is a very good chance that this bill could get considered in committee and successfully move to the floor of the House. 

Bills Introduced – 03-26-15 House

Yesterday 111 bills were introduced in the House. The Congressional web site is not yet reporting on the Senate introduced bills because of how long the Senate stayed in session last night. The large number of bills in the House is due to their leaving town for their Easter break.

Of those bills introduced in the House yesterday three may be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

HR 1646 - To require the Secretary of Homeland Security to research how small and medium sized unmanned aerial systems could be used in an attack, how to prevent or mitigate the effects of such an attack, and... Rep. Watson Coleman, Bonnie [D-NJ-12]

HR 1679 - To ensure the safe transportation of Bakken crude oil by rail, and for other purposes. Rep. Garamendi, John [D-CA-3]

HR 1704 - To establish a nation data breach notification standard, and for other purposes. Rep. Langevin, James R. [D-RI-2]

HR 1704 is not the bill on the same topic that was marked up in the Energy and Commerce Committee this week. This, combined with the fact that Langevin is not on either of the two committees to which this bill was assigned, means that we will probably not be hearing about HR 1704 again. NOTE: The Committee bill approved this week did not contain any control system language; it was strictly a personal information protection bill.