Senate Passes House Version of HR 2576 – TSCA Reform

Yesterday the Senate passed the revised House version of HR 2576, the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (TSCA reform) by a voice vote. The vote was preceded by 45 minutes of ‘debate’ which was mainly congratulatory speechifying in support of the bill. The President is expected to sign the bill.

Now we just have to wait on the EPA to re-write the regulations enforcing the program. That will almost certainly be done under the next administration. It will be interesting to see if this is even mentioned on the 2016 Campaign trail.

Rule for Consideration of HR 2576 – TSCA Reform

Last night the House Rules Committee finished their rule for the consideration of the Senate amendment to HR 2576, the TSCA Modernization Act of 2015. The House amendment that I described Saturday was further amended and will be offered as an amendment to the Senate amendment on the House floor, perhaps as soon as today. There will be one hour of debate and the vote will be held without further amendment.

The amendment made last night was a four-page technical correction to the language of the amendment agreed to by the unofficial conferees. That amendment is included in the Rules Committee report on the Senate amendment to HR 2576.

The bill will almost certainly pass with at least some bipartisan support, as all of the major chemical safety players in the House and Senate have agreed to this new language.

Bills Introduced – 05-26-15

Both the House and Senate met in pro forma sessions yesterday while the vast majority of congresscritters were in their home states on a very extended Memorial Day weekend. Even so there were four bills introduced in the House (the Senate does not allow bill introductions during pro forma sessions). One of those bills may be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

HR 2576 To modernize the Toxic Substances Control Act, and for other purposes. Rep. Shimkus, John [R-IL-15]

This is supposed to be the House version of bipartisan TSCA reform. It will probably not get much mention in this blog. The bill is too complex and only tangentially touches on the aspects of chemical safety that I typically cover in this blog.

Senate Passes HR 2576 – Pipeline Safety

Yesterday the Senate passes HR 2576, the Pipeline Incorporation by Reference Bill, by unanimous consent. Sen. Reid (D,NV) asked for the bill to be discharged from Committee and it was adopted without debate. The bill now goes to the President for signature.

House Passes HR 2576

As expected this evening the House passed HR 2576, Pipeline Incorporation by Reference Bill. The bill passed by an overwhelmingly bipartisan recorded vote of 405 - 2; only two Democrats dissented. Fifteen days from introduction to passage in House; this demonstrates that the system can work.

It will be interesting to see if anyone in the Senate and more importantly on the Senate Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will push this bill as effectively as it was pushed in the House.

Committee Hearings – Week of 7-14-13

It looks like the hearing list is getting shorter as the summer recess approaches and we are still dominated by spending hearings, three this week in the Senate. The House only has one hearing of note for my readers, a hearing on the Cybersecurity Framework development. The House will also consider a pipeline safety bill on the floor this week.

Cybersecurity

The Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Security Technologies of the House Homeland Security Committee will hold a hearing on Thursday on "Oversight of Executive Order 13636 and Development of the Cybersecurity Framework". Calling this an ‘oversight’ hearing might be a bit of a stretch since this is the implementation of an Executive Order, not implementing a congressional mandate. No witness list is currently available, but I would suspect that NIST and NPPD will provide at least two of the witnesses.

Pipeline Safety

According to the Majority Leader’s web site the House will consider HR 2576, the Pipelines Incorporation by Reference bill, on Tuesday. Readers will remember that this bill was introduced and reported out of committee last week so it is safe to say that the bill is on the fast track. This simple bill will almost certainly pass with nearly universal support. The only question now is if there is someone with pull in the Senate who can get this bill to the floor, it will probably pass with unanimous consent.

Senate Spending Bills

Constitutionally speaking these Senate originated spending bills are a bit of an anomaly. All spending bills must originate in the House according to §7 of the Constitution so the Senate typically considers its bill and then substitutes the final language of the Senate bill for the language in the respective House bill. The House then either concurs with the Senate changes (not often lately), revises and sends the bill back to the Senate (an even more unlikely response), or takes the bill to Conference with representative of both Houses ironing out the differences behind closed doors.

There will be three Senate hearings this week on two spending bills. There will be both a subcommittee hearing (Tuesday) and a full Appropriations Committee hearing (Thursday) for the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Fiscal Year 2014 Appropriations bill. This bill will include spending for NIST and thus the Cybersecurity Framework even if it is not specifically listed. The same full committee hearing will also look at the approval of the Homeland Security Fiscal Year 2014 Appropriations bill after a subcommittee hearing on Wednesday.

House Transportation Committee Approved HR 2576

As expected the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee adopted HR 2576, Pipelines Incorporations by Reference Bill, by a voice vote in a markup hearing today. No changes were made to the bill as it was ordered reported favorably. The Committee has a fact sheet available explaining the Committee’s reasoning in adopting the bill.

I still kind of expect that this bill will be added to a transportation authorization bill.

New Mark-up Hearing Scheduled

Yesterday evening the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee added a markup hearing for tomorrow. Among the bills to be considered will be HR 2576, a bill that affects the pipeline safety law by amending 49 USC 60102(p), the Limitation on Incorporation of Documents by Reference.

The bill revises that paragraph (added in January, 2012 by PL 112-90, the Pipeline Safety, Regulatory Certainty, and Job Creation Act of 2011) to read:

“Beginning 3 years after the date of enactment of this subsection, the Secretary may not issue a regulation pursuant to this chapter that incorporates by reference any documents or portions thereof unless the documents or portions thereof are made available to the public, free of charge.”

The bill changed the time limit from one year to 3 years {§1(1)}, removed the words ‘guidance or’ from the phrase “not issue guidance or a regulation” {§1(2)}, and removed the words “on an Internet Web Site” from the end of the paragraph.

In short, this bill would expand, slightly, the use of incorporation by reference that was restricted somewhat by the 2012 law.

Given the number of other bills being considered by the Committee during this hearing, I don’t expect that any significant changes will be made to this bill in mark-up. The bill will certainly pass in committee and I suspect that it will pass on the floor without significant opposition if it gets to the floor. It might also get added to the DOT authorization bill.