Rule for Consideration of HR 2577 –

The House Rules Committee met last night to formulate the rule for consideration of the Senate amendment to HR 2577, which passed in the Senate as a combination of the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies (THUD) Appropriations Act, 2017 (Division A) and the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2017 (Division B).

In an interesting move, the rule adopted last night provided for a substitute amendment which effectively removes the THUD portion of the bill and substitutes HR 4794 (Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2017), HR 5243 (Zika Response Appropriations Act, 2016) and HR 897 (Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act of 2015) for the remainder of the Senate adopted language.

It looks like the removal of the THUD provisions has more to do with the controversy surrounding the House approach to Zika funding (much less money than either the Senate funding in HR 2577 or even less than requested by the Administration) than it does any of the significant differences between the House and Senate of THUD spending.

The House THUD spending bill has not yet been introduced.

Committee Hearings – Week of 5-15-16

This week both the House and Senate will be in Washington, but there are only a limited number of hearings currently scheduled that may be of specific interest to readers of this blog; an EMP hearing and four spending bill markups in addition to the Rules Committee hearings on the FY 2017 NDAA I mentioned earlier.

EMP Hearing

The Oversight and Management Efficiency Subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee will hold a hearing on Tuesday on “Oversight of Federal Efforts to Address Electromagnetic Risks”. The witness list includes:

• Chris P. Currie, Government Accountability Office;

• Brandon Wales, Office of Cyber and Infrastructure Analysis, DHS;

• Joseph McClelland, Office of Energy Infrastructure Security, FERC;

• Judson Freed, Emergency Management & Homeland Security, Minn

The hearing will include a review of the latest GAO study on the federal efforts to counter electromagnetic risks, such as an electromagnetic pulse (EMP), to the nation’s critical infrastructure.

Spending Bill Markups

The House Appropriations Committee will be holding markups this week on three spending bills:

• Markup of FY 2017 Defense Bill;

• Markup of FY 2017 Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations Bill; and

• Markup of FY 2017 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Bill

The Defense bill markup will be on Tuesday before the full Committee, the other two are subcommittee markups. The draft copy of the defense bill being marked up does not currently include any specific mention of cybersecurity matters. No drafts are yet available on the other two bills.

The FDA spending bill will be taken up in the Senate Appropriations Committee this week. On Tuesday the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies Subcommittee will conduct their markup and the full Committee will take up the bill on Thursday.

On the Floor

The House will take up HR 4703, the National Cybersecurity Preparedness Consortium Act of 2016 that I discussed last week. As I mentioned in that post, the bill will be considered tomorrow under suspension of the rules. There will be limited debate and a 2/3 vote will be required for passage. It will almost certainly be passed.

The House will also take up HR 4909 on Thursday. That bill will also pass with at least some measure of bipartisan support, but it is hard to say whether or not it will be completed this week.

The Senate will resume consideration of HR 2577, the FY 2017 THUD spending bill. Unless there is some poison pill amendment added to the bill, the Senate will likely finish consideration of the bill this week.

Senate Begins Consideration of HR 2577 – FY 2017 THUD

Yesterday the Senate began consideration of HR 2577 (pg S 2726), the bill that is serving as the basis for the FY 2017 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. The substitute language that will actually form the basis for the legislation is SA 3896. That amendment is based upon S 2844, as reported by the Senate Appropriations Committee.

As I mentioned in my earlier blog post about S 2844, this amendment does contain any specific language on chemical transportation safety or cybersecurity. There are, however, some relatively minor mentions in the Senate Report on S 2844 (addressed in that earlier blog as well).

None of the amendments to HR 2577 proposed yesterday addressed concerns of specific interest to readers of this blog. I expect that we will continue to see additional amendments offered next week as the Senate continues consideration of the bill. I will, of course, report on those of potential interest.

HR 2577 Reported in Senate – FY 2016 THUD

Last week the Senate Appropriation Committee amended HR 2577, the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies (THUD) Appropriations Act, 2016, by adopting substitute language and reported the amended bill favorably. Substantial changes were made to the bill and all of the floor amendments adopted by the House were eliminated in the new Senate version.

As with the base House version there is no specific mention of hazardous chemical transportation issues in the Senate version. There is a cybersecurity provision in the bill (that was also in the House version) that may now be interesting in light of the OPM hack. The bill includes DOT HQ spending of $8 Million dollars for:

“…necessary expenses for cyber security initiatives, including necessary upgrades to wide area network and information technology infrastructure, improvement of network perimeter controls and identity management, testing and assessment of information technology against business, security, and other requirements, implementation of Federal cyber security initiatives and information infrastructure enhancements, implementation of enhanced security controls on network devices, and enhancement of cyber security workforce training tools…” (pg 171)

Commentary: While $8 Million would be a sizeable increase to my personal budget, for a Department as large as DOT I would bet that it really does not buy much cybersecurity.

While the bill itself did not have much to say about hazmat transportation issues the same could not be said for the report that accompanied the revised bill. This is not unusual for spending bills that even with just high level spending mentioned run into the hundreds of pages. The Report allows for addressing some of the programmatic spending on selected issues of interest to the Committee.

Federal Railroad Administration

As one would expect given the on-going controversy over shipping of crude oil by train, the Committee chimed in on this issue. First it provided more money (an extra $3.4 Million) “to support FRA’s efforts to improve the safe transport of energy products. The STEP initiative supports additional crude oil safety inspectors, crude oil route safety managers, and tank car quality assurance specialists, as well as supports increased mileage of a dedicated Automated Track Inspection Program vehicle on routes with energy products traffic”(pgs 66-7).  It then added $2.0 Million “to further the Short Line Safety Institute’s mission, including continued efforts to improve the safe transportation of crude oil and other hazardous materials by rail”

(pgs 67-8).

The Committee also noted that they expect the next major STEP controversy to be the transportation of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) by rail. The Committee included $2.0 Million for FRA and PHMSA to accelerate the “research and development on the safe transportation of LNG” (pg 68). The Committee believes that this should allow the completion of work started this year.

Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration

PHMSA has been the lead agency for most of the regulations of crude oil transportation, so they received the most attention from the Committee on this topic. Those comments addressed three areas:

∙ Crude oil shipment across various modes of transportation;

∙ Crude oil volatility; and

∙ Comprehensive oil spill response plans.

On the first topic the Committee wants a detailed report to Congress on the comparative safety of shipping oil by rail, pipeline, or truck. It would specifically include a listing by transportation mode of the total amount of crude oil shipped and the total amount spilled. The report conclusions would include a recommendation on the safest mode of transportation as well as “necessary measures to improve the safety of each form of transportation” (pg 91).

The Committee acknowledges the complexity of the issue of determining combustibility of crude oil (the basis for concern about volatility) and directs DOT to continue to work with the Department of Energy to “complete the second phase of the Department of Energy’s study on oil volatility” (pg 91).

The Committee expressed their disappointment that PHMSA has not moved fast enough on their rulemaking efforts concerning oil spill response plans for crude oil shipped by rail. This disappointment is aggrevated by the fact that additional funding had been provided for that rulemaking effort. To make their position absolutely clear the Committee is directing “PHMSA to initiate a rulemaking to expand the applicability of comprehensive oil spill response plans to rail carriers within 90 days of enactment of this act and to issue a final rule no later than 1 year after enactment of this act” (pg91).

The report also addresses the importance of protecting the integrity of pipelines at river crossings. Given the direct and immediate impact on water quality and safety issues of a pipeline failure under a riverbed, the Committee is requiring a report on “how real-time monitoring during flood events and pertinent data from other agencies such as the United States Geological Survey is being used to address challenges associated with the dynamic and unique nature of rivers and flood plains” (pg 93).

Moving Forward

If the Republicans and Democrats in the Senate can resolve their differences on the sequestration issue, there is a chance that this bill could make its way to the floor of the Senate before the summer break in August. If the Defense spending bill does not make it to the floor before that recess, I suspect none of the spending bills will and we will be worrying about a continuing resolution come the end of September.

If this bill does make it to the floor there will be a lengthy amendment process with a large number of additions of programs and spending amounts for various infrastructure projects. If spending caps remain in place (as I expect they will) the costs of those projects will have to come from administrative costs elsewhere in the bill. There will be a lot of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

House Amends and Passes HR 2577

Yesterday the House finished action on the FY 2016 THUD spending bill, HR 2577. While there were no new provisions in the original bill that would be of specific interest to readers of this blog there were a couple of amendments brought to the floor that might peak that interest. The bill passed by a very close (216 to 210) due to the defection of 31 Republicans.

Pipeline Safety Amendments

There were a couple of amendments from Rep Capps (D,CA) that proposed modifying some of the funding for the pipeline safety segments of the bill. She attempted (CREC, 613-15, pg H3856) to increase the industry funded Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund by almost $28 Million, but was defeated on a vote that was very similar to the final vote on the bill, 202 to 222.

She was successful (CREC, 6-3-15, pg H3856) in adding an amendment that would earmark $1 Million of the PHMSA funding for completing the regulation for requiring the addition automated shut shutoff valves and leak detection on pipelines. This was not new funding, just specifying how some of the standard appropriation for the Oil Pollution Spill Liabilty Trust Fund would be spent.

HHFT Funding

There was an attempt by Rep. Gosar (R,AZ) to strip funding (CREC, 6-4-15, pg H3886) for the enforcement of the recent DOT Highly-Hazardous Flammable Train (HHFT) regulations. While most of Gosar’s ire was directed at the new railcar standards, the amendment would have stopped all funding for the enforcement of the regulation. This amendment was defeated in a mainly bipartisan vote of 136 to 286.

Drones

Rep. Newhouse (R,WA) introduced an amendment that would prevent the FAA from spending money to implement or enforce their recent rulemaking on Drones unless agricultural uses were specifically addressed. The original amendment (CREC, 6-9-15, pg H3978) was withdrawn due to a registered point of order on the language (presumably the standard ‘legislating in a spending bill’ objection). A modified version was subsequently offered that would prohibit implementing any drone rules unless they followed the restricted category certificate requirements of 14 CFR 21.25(b)(1).

The second version of the amendment was adopted by a voice vote.

Moving Forward

The close vote in the House indicates that there might be problems in getting this bill onto the floor of the Senate for consideration. The Democrats in the Senate have already indicated that they intent to oppose any spending bills that continue the sequestration program, but the Republican leadership had hoped that this bill would get to the floor with the backing of some moderate Democrats. If any Republican Senators join those from the House that objected to this bill, there is no way that there will be enough Democratic votes available to bring this bill to the floor.

Committee Hearings – Week of 05-31-15

The House and Senate are back in town after a very extended Memorial Day Weekend. Not much in the way of hearings this week; one Rules Committee hearing on two spending bills and the TSCA markup in the House.

Spending Bills

As I write this the House Rules Committee is holding a hearing on HR 2577, the THUD spending bill, and HR 2578, the CJS spending bill. Both were introduced last week. This hearing will almost certainly be a non-issue as these spending bills under the Republican leadership have been considered under open rules with unlimited amendments. The Commerce, Justice and Science bill does not currently contain any cybersecurity language in the NIST section. The Transportation, Housing and Urban Development bill contains no specific language on hazmat transportation issues.

The CJS bill will be considered first later this week and if there is enough time left in the House Schedule the THUD bill consideration will start.

TSCA Markup

Starting tomorrow afternoon and finishing up on Wednesday the House Energy and Commerce Committee will be holding a markup hearing that will include HR 2576, the House version of TSCA modernization. The hearing website has a staff summary of the two bills being marked up.

Note that all three of the bills mentioned in this post were all introduced last week while Congress was out of town. The quick action on the spending bills is not unusual but the TSCA bill is moving very quickly, especially for such a controversial topic. Lots of behind the scenes stuff going on here.

Bills Introduced – 05-27-15

With both the House and Senate out of town this week on their extended Memorial Day weekend two spending bills were still introduced in the House on Wednesday. Both may be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

HR 2577 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016 Rep. Diaz-Balart, Mario [R-FL-25]

HR 2578 Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016 Rep. Culberson, John Abney [R-TX-7]

The text of both bills is already available and I will be reviewing them later today. I’ll report details of HR 2577 that include any specific mention of new transportation safety requirements. On HR 2578 I’ll be looking for cybersecurity requirements in the NIST portion of the bill.