S 2470 Introduced – FY 2020 EWR Spending

Last week Sen. Alexander (R,TN) introduced S 2470, the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2020. Like the House bill (HR 2960), S 2470 provides specific funding for Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER, pg 90) and the Appropriations Committee Report includes specific DOE cybersecurity funding.

CESER and Cybersecurity

The Senate bill would fund CESER at $179 million, $29 million higher than the House bill. Of that spending the Committee targets $96 million for Cybersecurity for Energy Delivery Systems. From those monies the Committee requests DOD spend $10 million on the DarkNet project and $7 million for Consequence driven Cyber-informed Engineering.

Finally, the Report recommends continued funding for the two following programs at $3 million for each program:

• DE–OE–00000807, “Improving the Cyber and Physical Security Posture of the Electric Sector”; and

• DE–OE–0000811, “Improving the Cyber Resiliency and Security Posture of Public Power”

Moving Forward

Again, as with S 2474 this bill will not see consideration as a stand-alone bill. The language will be substituted for Division E of HR 2740 as it starts the consideration process today.

S 2474 Introduced – FY 2020 DOD Spending

Last week Sen. Shelby (R,AL) introduced S 2474, the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2020. The bill was reported favorably by the Senate Appropriations Committee. There are no significant mentions of cybersecurity within the bill, but the Committee does include mentions of a number of cybersecurity programs within their Report.

Cybersecurity Training

The need to ensure an adequate supply of cybersecurity expertise continues to concern the Committee. On pages 226-7 the Committee outlines spending on three initiatives to address this concern:

• $12 million increase in funding for the National Centers for Academic Excellence Cyber Defense program;

• $25 million for a workforce development pilot program that would offer certificate-based courses through the Centers for Academic Excellence in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence; and

• $10 million for Department of Defense Cyber Institutes to award scholarships, student and research support, and a K–12 cyber education program

On page 229 the Committee expresses its disappointment with “continued weaknesses in the Department of Defense’s cyber posture, to include challenges in the recruitment and retention of qualified cyber talent”. The Committee would allocate $1.5 million “to develop a program that identifies university partners and a structure to award scholarships to build a certified cyber defense workforce.”

Control System Security

Industrial control system security gets special mention in the Committee Report. On page 228 the Report notes that: “the Committee recommends $10,000,000 for industrial control systems cyber security solutions for key Department of Defense installations critical to homeland defense and overseas operations, with special emphasis on the Cheyenne Mountain Complex.

Counter UAS Research

With the unmanned aircraft system threat reaching public notice through the reported attack on Saudi oil targets, the Committee presciently addressed the issue on page 212. They note that “countering UAS operations presents a special series of unmet communications, command and control, cyber, and computation and intelligence challenges at the tactical edge.” The Committee encourages the Air

Force Research Laboratory Information Directorate to “to continue research and development into the detection and countering of UAS using advanced technologies to facilitate geo-location detection, determine individual and swarm behavior, dissect swarms to identify critical nodes, situational awareness, and mission intent.”

While this research is directed at DOD tactical concerns, the lessons learned and at least some of the techniques, tactics and equipment will find use in domestic counter UAS operations once Congress deals with the legal issues related to those operations.

Moving Forward

This bill does not look like it will make it to the floor of the Senate as a stand-alone bill. The language will almost certainly show up as proposed amendment to HR 2740 when (IF) it is considered on the floor of the Senate.

Committee Hearings – Week of 09-17-19

This week with both the House and Senate in session and the end of the fiscal year fast approaching, spending bills are the main topic of interest. The Senate attempts to take up the first minibus while crafting spending bills and the House introduces a continuing resolution.

HR 2740 in the Senate

Yesterday the Senate began the process to begin debating HR 2740, the first minibus spending bill passed by the House. No amendments have been submitted yet (will start today) so I cannot yet tell how the Republican Senate intends to deal with the fact that they have no committee reported language to substitute for the Democratic House language for the LHHE and State portions of the bill.

The first cloture vote (to start debate on the bill) is scheduled for Wednesday. We may not see the 60 votes necessary to start that debate. If that happens it is very unlikely that we will see any of the minibus spending bills making their way to the President’s desk. In any case a CR will be necessary.

CR in the House

The House Rules Committee will meet today to take up a ‘clean’ continuing resolution that will reportedly extend the current spending until November 21^st. No actual language is currently available for review.

Three Spending Bills in Committee

The Senate Appropriations Committee will take up three additional spending bills this week. The subcommittee markup hearings will be held on Tuesday:

• Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies (THUD);

• Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies (ARF); and

• Financial Services and General Government

On Thursday the full Committee will take up whichever spending bills are adopted by the Subcommittees. At this point, which, if any, will be reported remains a guess at best. These three bills would make up about ½ of the second minibus (HR 3055) that the House passed back in June. Presumably the Committee will take up the remaining bills (CJS, IER, Military Construction) next week.

On the Floor

Today the House will take up S 1790, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020. The House passed their version of the bill (HR 2500). The House will certainly ‘insist’ on their language and request a conference to work out the differences between the two bills.

The House will likely take up the CR discussed above on Wednesday.

Commentary

Okay, what is a ‘clean CR’? In a non-complicated world (where CR’s would never be needed anyway) a ‘clean CR’ would be just a couple of sentences extending the expiration date of the current spending authorization (in this case HJ Res 31). In the real world there are additional add-ons that would extend other expiring programs in the extension of the fiscal year.

Which programs get added is what gets interesting. Non-controversial programs do not endanger passage of the CR. The addition of controversial programs could derail the CR when it gets to the Senate. The line between the two gets more than a little fuzzy and a CR this early in the process could see the Democrats pushing the limit to see what they can get. They do, after all, have another week to come back and try again.

Committee Hearings – Week of 09-08-19

This week both the House and Senate will be back in Washington after their long summer recess. Spending bills will be the big news this week, but congressional committees will be tackling some other issues as well. Of concern here will be a Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) hearing, DOE security, homeland security threats, and TSA oversight.

Appropriations

With spending bills (or continuing resolution) due by the end of the month, the Senate Appropriations Committee will start marking up spending bills this week (they were waiting on the budget deal to be completed before they started their work). The following hearings are scheduled:

• Defense Subcommittee – 9-10-19;

• Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Subcommittee – 9-10-19;

• State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Subcommittee – 09-11-19; and

• Full Committee – 09-12-19

It looks like the Full Committee bill will be minibus combining the bills from the three committees listed above. This would be the equivalent of the first minibus (HR 2740) that was passed in the House back in June. We are likely to see this bill next week on the floor of the Senate. Even if it is passed then, it will likely have to go to conference with the House before it can be sent to the President. That is unlikely (possible though depending on how partisan the bill is) to happen before the end of the month.

Homeland Security Threats

On Tuesday the House Homeland Security Committee will hold a hearing on "Global Terrorism: Threats to the Homeland, Part I". No witness list is available. I doubt that there will be much (if any) focus on cybersecurity or specific threats against chemical facilities, but we will have to wait and see.

CFATS Hearing

On Wednesday the House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on "Protecting and Securing Chemical Facilities from Terrorist Attacks". The witness list includes:

• David Wulf, DHS;
• Matthew Fridley, Brenntag North America, Inc;

• Michele Roberts, Environmental Justice Health Alliance (EJHA);

• John Paul Smith, United Steelworkers (USW); and

• Scott Welchel, Dow Chemical Company

NOTE: Wulf is listed as the “Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection” not the Director of the DHS Infrastructure Security Compliance Division (ISCD). This is a recurring problem for Wulf, every there is a vacancy up the chain of command at DHS Wulf moves up to the IP position.

The ‘missing’ witness here is a representative from the GAO. We typically see the GAO representative on these CFATS hearings. The other, oddly refreshingly, thing about the witness list is that it presents a balanced list of witnesses, two activist organizations and two industry organizations. Typically, a committee controlled by Democrats has three activist and one industry representative on the witness panel (and to be fair, Republican controlled committees generally reverse the ratio).

This is being billed as a ‘legislative hearing’ focusing on HR 3256, Protecting and Securing Chemical Facilities from Terrorist Attacks Act of 2019. In other words, the Committee would expect to hear the witness opinions about the provisions of the bill. Interestingly, the copy of the bill is the copy of the bill as introduced, not the amended version that was passed in the Homeland Security Committee. The summary provided in the Staff Briefing Memo, however, refers to the amended version of the bill.

DOE Security

On Wednesday the Senate Energy Subcommittee of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a legislative hearing looking at nine pending bills. The witness list includes:

• Mark Menezes, DOE; and

• Anton Porter, FERC

One of the nine bills one has been covered here: S 2095, Enhancing Grid Security Through Public-Private Partnerships Act.

TSA Oversight

On Wednesday the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee will hold a hearing on “Protecting the Nation’s Transportation Systems: Oversight of the Transportation Security Administration”. The current witness list has only one witness, Patricia Cogswell, Acting Deputy Administrator, TSA,

As with most TSA related hearings, I suspect that this vast majority of the discussion at this hearing will be targeted at passenger air security, not surface security issues.

HR 2740 Passes in House – First FY 2020 Minibus

On Wednesday the House passed HR 2740, the first FY 2020 minibus spending bill by a vote of 226 to 203; a near party-line vote with seven Democrats voting Nay. A large number of amendments were adopted in two en bloc votes, including the Walberg amendment that I discussed earlier. That amendment would add $7 million to the Cybersecurity, Energy Security, And Emergency Response (CESER) spending account in the Department of Energy.

When (if?) the Senate takes up HR 2740, it will substitute language from the appropriate Senate spending bills for the language in the House bill. To move the bill to the President a conference committee would have to work out compromise language that would subsequently be passed by both the House and Senate. The ‘(if?)’ is because the Republicans in the Senate are still trying to work out a budget deal with the House and President that would set the spending caps for FY 2020. The Senate might not take up spending bills until that deal is reached.

Second Rule Provides for Additional Amendments to HR 2740 – FY2020 Spending Minibus

The House Rules Committee adopted the second Rule for the consideration of amendment to HR 2740, the first FY2020 Minibus. The rule authorizes the consideration of 115 additional amendments, including #72 proposed by Rep. Walberg (R,MI), the same amendment I discussed on Saturday. That amendment increases the spending for Cybersecurity, Energy Security, And Emergency Response (CESER) by $7 million. This amendment is likely to be taken up on Thursday.

The Gosar amendment that I described in that post was not included.

Rule for Consideration of HR 2740 – First FY 2020 Minibus

Yesterday the House Rules Committee completed their work on the first rule for the consideration of HR 2740, the first FY 2020 Minibus spending bill. The rule provides for the removal of Division B (legislative branch, HR 2729) from the bill. It also provides for consideration of 106 amendments for Division A (LHHE) and Division D (State). Amendments for the remaining divisions will be considered by the Committee this evening.

Consideration of the bill will probably start tomorrow.

Amendments Proposed to HR 2740 – First FY 2020 Spending Minibus

The House Rules Committee will meet Monday to consider what amendments will be considered next week during the consideration of HR 2740, the first FY 2020 spending bill to be considered in the House. HR 2740 will include the original HR 2740 (LHHE), HR 2729 (Legislative Branch), HR 2968 (DOD), HR 2839 (State), and HR 2960 (EW).

The Rules Committee HR 2740 web site lists the 521 amendments that have been submitted to the Committee. Two of those amendments (to the HR 2960 portion of the bill) would affect Cybersecurity, Energy Security, And Emergency Response (CESER) spending in the Department of Energy.

• Division E, #3, Rep. Walberg (R,MI); and

• Division E, # 70, Rep. Gosar (R,AZ)

The Walberg amendment would add $7 million to the CESER account ($150 million). The money would be taken from the DOE administration account ($264 million).

The Gosar amendment would add $3 million to the CESER account ($150 million). The money would be taken from the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy ($2,651 million).

Bills Introduced – 05-15-19

Yesterday with both the House and Senate in session there were 74 bills introduced. One of these may receive additional coverage in this blog:

HR 2740 Making appropriations for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2020, and for other purposes. Rep. DeLauro, Rosa L. [D-CT-3]

I will be watching this bill for cybersecurity provisions and chemical safety issues.