Congressional Hearings – Week of 12-03-12

Congress is steadily puddling along taking care of make work while backroom negotiations are dealing with the real problems that will eventually be voted upon. The Hurricane Sandy response will catch some attention this week, but not much else is on the official agenda for committees this week.

CG Authorization

According to the House Majority Leader’s web site the House will consider adopting the Senate amendments to HR 2838, the Coast Guard Authorization bill for 2013. As I noted in an earlier blog post this is a wholesale revision of the bill passed by the House and if there is any discussion on the floor before the vote considered under the suspension of rules (60% required for passage) it may be the first time that some of the new provisions have been debated in any congressional forum.

In any case there are no MTSA or chemical safety/security provisions in this bill. It seems that Congress is no longer interested in the security missions of the Coast Guard.

DOD Authorization

The Senate will continue to consider the DOD Authorization bill (S 3254). They cleared a large number of amendments last week and there is a cloture vote scheduled for this afternoon. There were some cybersecurity/warfare amendments adopted last week; I’ll look at them in some detail later today.

This bill will certainly pass in the Senate this week and should clear the House next week.

CG Authorization Passes in Senate

On Friday the Senate took up HR 2838, renamed it the ‘Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2012’ and changed almost every provision of the bill, including increasing the authorized funding and manpower for the Coast Guard. This was one of a large number of bills that were passed by unanimous consent without debate. HR 2838 had to be discharged from committee consideration (again by unanimous consent) to be brought to the floor for this ‘vote’.

As was to be expected the language adopted by the Senate is more closely related to S 1665, the Senate version of the authorization bill. Having said that, there were significant changes made to the version of S 1665 that was reported by the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. None of these changes were debated anywhere in the Senate.

Nothing in this new bill addresses anything that deals with chemical transportation safety or security or the Maritime Transportation Security Act. The one provision that came close to addressing those issues (GPS interference) that was included in the House version of the bill is completely missing from this version.

This bill will probably be taken up by conference committee after the election. Post-election politics will have a significant influence on the outcome, if there is one, of that conference.

Congressional Hearings – Week of 11-14-11

Both the House and Senate will be in Washington this week, but the FY 2012 spending issue will be the big news this week, not Congressional hearings (remember the current ‘continuing resolution’ expires on the 18^th). There will be two House hearings this week of potential interest to the chemical and cyber security communities, plus the House will finish work on HR 2838, the Coast Guard authorization bill.

Cyber Security

The Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security of the House Judiciary Committee will be holding a hearing on Thursday about cyber security. Politically this is an impressive array of witnesses, including Michael Chertoff, but there is no one with specific control system expertise. Who knows, though, industrial control system security might be mentioned in passing; some Representative might even ask an ICS related question. Stranger things have happened.

Subcommittee Mark-up

The Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence of the House Homeland Security Committee will also meet on Thursday to mark-up two bills; HR 2764, the WMD Intelligence and Information Sharing Act of 2011, and HR 3140, the Mass Transit Intelligence Prioritization Act. The second is an issue to the chemical security community only in that it reduces the number of DHS intelligence folks that might be looking at chemical intelligence issues. Without adding analysts this is a zero sum game that reduces the security of everyone else.

As I mentioned in my original posting on HR 2764 this is yet another bio-terrorism bill. Okay, I do have to admit it has some generic chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear language in it, but the main focus is on bio-weapons.

If anyone on the HS Committee Staff is reading, I’ll repeat my plug in that blog for an addition to this bill:

“What is lacking in the CFATS program (okay one of the things that is lacking) is an intelligence collection, analysis and dissemination capability to identify potential threats. This bill would be an excellent place to require OIA to establish a national chemical fusion center that would bring together government and private sector chemical intelligence collection and analysis capabilities. This could be coordinated with the Office of Infrastructure Protection to include communications to and from high-risk chemical facilities; the most likely sources of material for a truly large scale CBRN attack.”

Coast Guard Authorization

According to the Majority Leader’s web page the House will resume consideration of HR 2838 on Tuesday. Remember this is a restricted rule and only two pre-approved amendments are left to consider. The House version of this bill does have a ‘Homeland Security’ provision (okay, this is a real stretch); § does make GPS interference a felony if it affects maritime safety. As I asked in initial post on this bill; would that cover effecting ICS at an MTSA covered portside facility? It is just too vague to tell.

FY 2012 Spending

The Senate is due to start taking up HR 2354 on Monday afternoon. This bill would make appropriations for energy and water development and related agencies for FY 2012. While the amendment filing process has begun on this bill, I have yet to see the standard ‘amendment in the form of a substitute’ from the Senate Appropriations Committee. This may be because this bill may become the ‘vehicle’ for another short term extension of current spending authority. Various press sources have mentioned ‘Christmas’ (probably December 18^th) as the expiration of that ‘continuing resolution’. Or, the House could end up drafting a new CR out of whole cloth.

Reader Comment – USCG and Homeland Security

Yesterday a long time reader and security blogger in her own right, Laurie Thomas, (Maritime Security/MTSA News) responded to a comment I made in my posting about the introduction S 1665, the Senate version of the Coast Guard Authorization bill. I commented that:

“I suppose that the MTSA community should be happy that there are no new requirements added in this bill, but it does appear that the reason is not that the regulatory environment is completely covered but more because of a lack of attention.”

Laurie proposed two alternatives that she explains better in her comment (please read) but I’ll summarize as:

• Other members of the Coast Guard supported community feel that they have been slighted due to the previous attention on Homeland Security, and

• The realization that the pending MTSA 2 regulations need to be absorbed before new requirements are established.

Politically, the first reason certainly rings true. You can see this possibly reflected in the list of missions being supported that I described in the original blog post. One of those in particular, ice operations, has been receiving a lot of attention in both the Senate and the House in Coast Guard hearings this year. In a budget-limited year, adding funds for these other programs would certainly have to come at the expense of something and that could very well be reason for the lack of mention of new homeland security mission requirements.

The second reason seems a bit of a reach to me. That might explain the lack of new programs, but politicians are not known for thinking that far ahead. It certainly doesn’t explain the lack of the normal requirements for meaningless reports to Congress on TWIC Reader implementation or CFATS harmonization or any of the other hot-topic homeland security issues of the last couple of years. Nor can we assume that the Senate (and the House which also seems to have mostly ignored the HS mission in their version – HR 2838 – currently being considered on the floor) has decided to stop wasting regulator’s time with these endless reports.

No, I really think that we are starting to see a shift away from the post-9/11 sharp-focus on security and counter-terrorism. Part of the reason is certainly due to the lack of significant attacks on the homeland. The successful attacks have been extremely small scale and the larger scale attempts have been particularly inept. One would have to expect that the public and their politicians would sooner or later start to think that we seem to have the counter-terrorism thing under reasonable control.

The other problem is that the public (and the mass of reactive politicians) have a limited attention span and that is quite frankly focused on more important problems; it is yet again ‘the economy, stupid’. While this is most obviously noted in our communities by changes in funding priorities (which is what authorization bills are all about after all) it will also be seen in the lack of attention to ongoing security programs by both the public and the  politicians.

I don’t think that we are facing major cut backs in the chemical security related programs (MTSA and CFATS are both relatively low cost programs as far a Federal spending programs go). Industry has been generally supportive of what DHS and the Coast Guard have been doing and there are still some powerful politicians that strongly support these programs. I just don’t see any great new programs or requirements being set out for our community.

UNLESS…. (beware of knee-jerk political reactions)

Rules Committee Publishes Rule for Consideration of HR 2838

Yesterday afternoon the House Rules Committee met to formulate the rule for the consideration of HR 2838, the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act of 2011. Actually, the bill to be considered on the floor will be a combination of HR 2838 and HR2840, the Commercial Vessel Discharges Reform Act of 2011, published as the Rules Committee Print of HR 2838. The rule will be a structured rule with ‘just’ eighteen amendments approved by the Committee for consideration by the House.

I don’t see anything in these amendments that would have any particular impact or influence on chemical or cyber security issues in a maritime environment. The same cannot be said for some of the amendments offered but that were not included in the Rule. Two amendments would have been of interest to the chemical facility security community in particular, one dealing with TWIC Readers and the other with small boat attacks.

TWIC Reader Amendment

An amendment offered by Ranking Member Thompson (D,MS) would have modified §70107 of 46 USC to allow recipients of port security grants from 2007 through 2009 to postpone spending monies on TWIC Readers until “one year after the date of promulgation pursuant to section 70105 of such title of final regulations relating to such readers.” This would have allowed entities to use grant funds to purchase TWIC Readers that might actually comply with the ultimate requirements for those devices.

Small Boat Attack Report

An amendment offered by Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D, CA) would have required a report to Congress by the Commandant on “the threat of, vulnerability to, and consequence of an attack of terrorism using a small vessel to attack United States vessels, ports, or maritime interests on an ongoing basis” (§612). Presumably we are talking about attacks like that made on the USS Cole during a port call in the Middle East. It’s even possible that the use of semi-submersibles as a route of attack could have been considered in the report.

Rejected En Bloc

While these two amendments seem to be reasonable topics for the floor debate on the bill they were rejected by the Committee. Part of the reason is that Ranking Member Slaughter (D,NY) bundled them with a number of other amendments to be considered en bloc. With eighteen amendments already in the rule that was just too many amendments for a structured rule. They were rejected on a straight party line vote.

To Be Considered Today on the House Floor

According to the Majority Leader’s web page, the House will ‘begin consideration’ of HR 2838 today shortly after 9:00 a.m. With the last vote scheduled for before 3:00 pm (members have to plan their flights home for the weekend) it is an open question whether or not there will be a final vote on passage today. The rule does allow at any point in the debate for Transportation Committee Chairman LoBiondo to offer the remaining amendments to be considered en bloc (bundled into a single 10 minute debate and a single vote), so it is certainly possible that the final vote of the day could be a vote on passage of this bill.

HR 2838 Report Published – CG Authorization

Last week the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure published their report on HR 2838, the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act of 2011. Not much has changed from a chemical security perspective in the amended version of the bill reported from when the bill was introduced.

Interfering with GPS

As I noted in my earlier blog §302 makes it a class E felony to interfere “with the broadcast or reception of a radio, microwave, or other signal (including a signal from a global positioning system)” {proposed amendment to 14 USC 88(e)}. Interestingly the explanation of that section in the Committee Report (pg 22) never mentions GPS, simply referring to ‘Aids to Navigation’. Actually that explanation may target GPS signal tampering better than the wording in §302.

Fast Track

It looks like this bill may be on a relative fast track to consideration before the House. The report includes letters from Chairman King (R,NY; Homeland Security Committee) and Chairman Smith (R,TX; Judiciary Committee) explaining that they are foregoing requesting serial referral of the bill to their respective committees “in order that it may proceed expeditiously to the House floor for consideration” {Chairman Smith letter, September 27^th, 2011; page 58 of Report}. Interestingly, neither Committee was originally included in the committee referral list at introduction; should they have been?

Transportation Committee Marks Up CG and Pipeline Bills

Today the House Transportation Committee held a markup hearing where it approved five bills by voice votes; including two bills that might be of interest to readers of this blog:

H.R. 2838, the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act of 2011; and

H.R. 2845, the Pipeline Safety, Regulatory Certainty, and Job Creation Act of 2011.

HR 2838

I discussed the provisions of HR 2838 when it was introduced last week. None of the amendments offered today (7 offered, 3 withdrawn, 4 passed by  voice votes) had any effect on the provisions discussed in that posting. Neither did any of the amendments address and MTSA/TWIC issues or pending Certain Dangerous Cargo rules. In short, there is nothing in this bill (besides the GPS interference provisions) that will have any appreciable effect on chemical security or chemical safety in a maritime environment.

I did note in that earlier post that this bill was obviously a priority for Subcommittee Chairman LoBiondo (R,NJ). The full committee markup today is an indication of the importance accorded to this bill by both LoBiondo and Committee Chair Mica (R,FL).

HR 2845

HR 2845 was introduced yesterday by Rep. Shuster (R, PA) and an official copy of the bill is not yet available on the GPO web site. The link above is to a committee draft of the bill. A quick review of that draft shows that this bill has some significant difference from the House Energy and Commerce bill on the same topic that I discussed back in July. It is also appears substantially different from S 275 that addresses most of the same topics.

Since this bill was referred to the Energy and Commerce Committee as well as the Transportation Committee, the two slightly different approaches to pipeline safety will have to be reconciled before the bill comes to a floor vote. The version adopted by the full House (a relative certainty given the bipartisan support shown for the bill in Committee today) will most likely have to then be reconciled with the version of S 275 that will be adopted by Committee in that body.

NOTE: I did not include this hearing in my weekly list of upcoming hearings because it was not announced until yesterday.

HR 2838 Introduced – CG Authorization

Yesterday, during the pro forma session of the House, Rep. LoBiondo (R,NJ), introduced HR 2838, the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act of 2011. LoBiondo is the Chair of the Coast Guard & Maritime Transportation Subcommittee of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

This proposed legislation is a significant deviation from the recent history of authorization bills in that it does not introduce a large number of new programs and responsibilities for the covered organization. The bill does include a new policy on sexual harassment/violence {§202} and it does call for an assessment to be made on “the need for additional Coast Guard prevention and response capability in the high latitude regions” {§308}. These and a few other new requirements form a really modest set of mandates for the Coast Guard.

No mention is made of the Maritime Transportation Security Act or any of its components.

GPS Interference

There is an interesting provision that the Federal Communications Commission and Lightspeed may find disconcerting. Section 302 of the bill would make it a Class E Felony to “knowingly and willfully operate[s] a device that interferes with the broadcast or reception of a radio, microwave, or other signal (including a signal from a global positioning system) transmitted, retransmitted, or augmented by the Coast Guard for the purpose of maritime safety”.

Where the appropriations committees have been requiring reports from various agencies on the reports of GPS interference by the proposed new broadband communications system from Lightspeed, Chairman LoBiondo appears to be trying to do something about it. It remains to be seen how liberal (excuse me for mentioning ‘liberal’ and ‘LoBiondo in the same paragraph) he expects the term ‘maritime safety’ to extend. Would it cover, for instance, control systems at portside chemical facilities?

Authorization Bill a Priority

According to the Subcommittee web site, passing a Coast Guard Authorization Bill is a priority for Chairman LoBiondo. We’ll have to watch how quickly it progresses in the next couple of weeks to see how much of a priority it really is. Of course, this bill will have to be reconciled with the desires of Chairman Rockefeller of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.