House Accepts Senate Amendment to HR 307

This evening the House voted to accept the Senate amendment to HR 307, the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Reauthorization Act of 2013, in a bipartisan vote; 370 – 28. There was only 16 minutes of debate on the bill and the only dissenting votes came from Republicans. The bill now goes to President Obama for certain signature.

Congressional Hearings – Week of 3-3-13

Both the Senate and House will be in town this week and the hearing schedule starts to get busy as budget and spending hearings move into high-gear. The subcommittees of the House Appropriations Committee will hold 15 separate hearings this week, though none will be of particular interest to the cyber and chemical communities. But there are a number of other hearings that will attract attention.

Cybersecurity

The House Homeland Security Committee will hold a hearing on Wednesday addressing DHS Cybersecurity: Roles and Responsibilities to Protect the Nation's Critical Infrastructure. Chairman McCaul’s (R,TX) statement about the hearing seems to indicate a possible emphasis on control systems, noting:

“Digital networks are now a conduit to our gas lines, power grids and transportation systems, therefore enemies throughout the world using the Internet have the potential to silently deliver a devastating cyber attack to our country.”

Unfortunately the witness list only includes one person with a potential interest in control systems, an electric utility representative. Witnesses include Secretary Napolitano and a panel of private sector witnesses including:

• Mr. Anish Bhimani, Chairman, Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center

• Mr. Gary W. Haynes, Chief Information Officer, Centerpoint Energy

• Mr. Dean Garfield, President and Chief Information Officer, Information Technology Industry Council

• Ms. Michelle Richardson, General Counsel, ACLU

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will conduct a joint hearing with the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on Thursday entitled The Cybersecurity Partnership Between the Private Sector and Our Government: Protecting Our National and Economic Security. Chairman Rockefeller’s press release makes it clearer:

“This joint hearing will examine the development and implementation of the Executive Order issued by President Obama and explore the need for comprehensive legislation to strengthen our nation’s cybersecurity.”

No witness list is provided on either Committee web site yet. One would expect Secretary Napolitano to be invited and perhaps the NIST Director. There will be the obligatory panel of private sector witnesses, hopefully at least one with a control system security background.

Rail Transportation

The Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee of the House Transportation Committee will meet on Tuesday to look at Freight and Passenger Rail in America’s Transportation System. No other details are currently available, but I suspect that there will be more than a little discussion about the pace of implementation of the Positive Train Control program.

DHS 10 Year Anniversary

Well DHS is 10 years old this week and the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will take the opportunity to hold a hearing  Wednesday to look at The Department of Homeland Security at 10 Years: A Progress Report on Management. The first panel will be Secretary Napolitano flanked by representatives from the GAO. There will be a panel of ‘lesser’ government witnesses including:

• The Honorable  Elaine C. Duke Former Under Secretary for Management of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security

• Shawn Reese Analyst in Emergency Management and Homeland Security Policy, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress

There is an outside chance that there will be a passing reference to cybersecurity or the CFATS program. I won’t hold my breath though. These have both been small dollar programs in the overall history of DHS.

FY 2013 Continuing Resolution

It is not currently on the schedule but it seems extremely likely that the House Rules Committee will be holding a hearing to establish the Rule for the consideration of an as of yet un-introduced Department of Defense, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013. At least the House Majority Leader’s web site says that the House will consider such a bill on Wednesday and Thursday, ‘subject to a rule’. The hearing will probably be late Tuesday.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, this bill takes on added importance with the sequestration in effect. Twenty-four days to go from no publicly available bill to funding the government for the remainder of the fiscal year would be impressive in a semi-cooperative year. I suspect that we might see at least one short term continuing resolution before the numbers on this are resolved.

Rocks from Space

Okay this isn’t technically security related, but it’s my blog and I think this is important, so; on Wednesday the House Science, Space and Technology Committee will hold a hearing on Threats from Space: A Review of U.S. Government Efforts to Track and Mitigate Asteroids and Meteors. This is the first in a series of hearings on the topic; inspired, no doubt, by the recent explosion of a celestial body in the atmosphere over Russia.

It can certainly be argued that we are more likely to suffer catastrophic (on a city scale level) destruction from a space rock than we are to suffer a similar scale of destruction from a terrorist attack. It is going to happen somewhere on this planet in the not too distant future unless some pretty significant technology is put into place.

The three person panel from the government includes people that would certainly be involved in the planning for that technology:

• John P. Holdren, Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy, Executive Office of the President

• Gen. William L. Shelton, Commander, U.S. Air Force Space Command

• Charles F. Bolden, Jr., Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration

On the House Floor

In addition to the previously mentioned spending bill we are going to see the House address the Senate amendment to HR 307, the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Reauthorization Act of 2013. This will be considered on Monday under suspension of the rules so a 3/5 vote will be required to accept the Senate version of the bill. I expect that it will be a much larger margin than that. In the unlikely event that it fails on that vote, it will go to a conference committee.

HR 307 Amended and Passed in Senate

Yesterday the Senate amended and adopted HR 307, the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Reauthorization Act of 2013. The measure passed by unanimous consent without discussion.

The amendment adopted was the substitute language adopted in Committee. Now that we can see the version passed by the Senate, it is clear that this is the same language that was proposed by Sen. Burr (R,NC) in S 242.

The bill will now go back to the House for reconsideration or request for conference. The differences between the two bills are very minor; the House may just adopt the Senate amendments. I do expect fairly quick action on this either way.

HR 307 Reported in Senate

Yesterday the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions reported HR 307, the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Reauthorization Act of 2013, with an amendment in the nature of a substitute. There is no record on their web site of the proceedings of the Committee meeting where the amendment was adopted, so we have no real idea yet what the amendment entailed. I suspect that it was the language from S 242 that I discussed earlier. The bill may now be taken up by the whole Senate at any time.

Senate Version of Health Preparedness Bill Available

As I mentioned last week, Sen. Burr (R,NC) introduced S 242, the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Reauthorization Act of 2013, and it is now available through the GPO. I have had a quick chance to review the bill and it is not identical to HR 307 that passed in the House in January, but the differences are more in wording than in actual substance.

Public Health Assistance

The one exception to that that I see is found in §201 that amends §319 of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 247d). The section deals with public health emergencies and both bills add a paragraph that allows for federally funded personnel to assist State and Indian Tribes in responding to such emergencies. The House bill calls this assistance ‘temporary redeployment’ and this bill calls it temporary reassignment. This hardly an earth shaking difference, but it could have some sort of personnel consequences that I am not aware of.

The major difference is buried down in §319(e)(3), “Voluntary Nature of Temporary Reassignment of State and Local Personnel”. This paragraph in the Senate bill makes it clear that the temporary reassignment is voluntary unless otherwise specified by State or Tribal law. There is no such provision in the House bill.

Still, there is not much here to get really worked up about in the difference between the two bills.

Moving Forward

I’m not sure what is going to happen here. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on HR 307 tomorrow. It’s going to be a busy hearing with lots of other things going on, so I don’t expect much time to be spent on HR 307. Having said that, Sen. Burr is a member of the Committee and the language from this bill may be offered as an amendment in the nature of a substitute.

If that amendment is adopted by the Committee (and I haven’t followed these folks closely enough to be able to offer an educated opinion on the likelihood of that happening) then it will be approved by the full Senate in one of those unanimous consent moves that attracts so little attention. Then it will be up to a Conference Committee to hash out the differences.

Bills Introduced 02-07-13

Yesterday, with only the Senate in session (the House was only in town for a short week) there were 38 pieces of legislation introduced. One of those was of potential interest to readers of this blog; S 242, bill to reauthorize certain programs under the Public Health Service Act and the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act with respect to public health security and all-hazards preparedness and response, and for other purposes. This bill was introduced by Sen. Burr (R,NC).

This bill looks like it may be similar to HR 307, the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Reauthorization Act of 2013, that was passed last month in the House.  It would make little sense to introduce a companion bill when the House bill has already been referred to the Senate, so this may include some alternative language. Still that could have been handled with an amendment to the House bill, so we will have to wait and see what the bill actually says when it is published by the GPO.

Again, I would like to see it include a requirement for high-risk chemical facilities to notify local health agencies and hospitals of significant quantities of toxic inhalation chemicals used at those facilities so that there medical response community could be properly prepared for a mass casualty event if there were a large release of such materials either due to an accidental release or a terrorist attack.

House Passes HR 307 – Medical Preparedness

This afternoon the House passed HR 307, the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Reauthorization Act of 2013, by a bipartisan vote of 395 to 29. In fact, the 29 votes against were all Republicans. The forty minutes allocated for debate only took 17 minutes. I expect that when it comes to a vote in the Senate, it will pass with similar results.

Unfortunately, this consensus on the current language will insure that there will be no attempt to amend the bill to correct the lack of a requirement for chemical facilities with reportable quantities of toxic inhalation hazard (TIH) chemicals to report those chemicals to local medical treatment facilities. It would only be through such reporting that the medical staffs could be prepared to treat mass casualties in the event of a terrorist attack or accident that resulted in a catastrophic release of those chemicals into the community.

BTW: Apparently PETA and other animal rights groups have still not noticed the animal testing provisions included in the bill.

Congressional Hearings – Week of 01-20-13

The House and Senate will both be in town this week in honor of the inauguration of President Obama. There will be some work done this week, but it will be mostly organizational. Three House committees of interest to readers of this blog will hold their organizational meetings. Since two of the three have new chairmen, this could be interesting (probably not though). Those three committees are:

Committee on Energy and Commerce

Committee on Science, Space, and Technology

Committee on Homeland Security

Health System Preparedness

According to the House Majority Leader’s web site there are only two bills on the agenda for this week to be considered on the floor. One of those will be of peripheral interest to readers of this blog, HR 307, the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Reauthorization Act of 2013. An official copy of this bill is not yet available through the GPO, but the House Rules Committee web site does have a link to the draft submitted by Rep. Rogers (R, MI) who authored the bill.

This bill was virtually identical to HR 6672 that was passed in the House last month. I discussed the chemical preparedness provisions of that bill then and they still apply to the current bill, so I won’t belabor the point other than it would have been nice to see a requirement for chemical facilities containing reportable quantities of toxic inhalation hazard chemicals to report those chemicals to local treatment facilities that would respond to a mass casualty event due to a release at the covered facility. That would be the only way those medical facilities would have a chance to be prepared to effectively treat those casualties.

The only significant change in the current version of the bill (other than the ‘2013’ in the title) is found in § 402. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. Section 402(e) was changed to add §402(e)(2):

“EFFECTIVE DATE.—This subsection shall take effect as if enacted on December 17 [should probably read 19], 2012.”

This was necessary because the limited anti-trust exemption provided in §405(b) of the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act (42 U.S.C. 247d-6a) expired on December 19^th 2012. Without this new provision, any covered actions taken between that date and the date the bill is signed (if passed; not a completely forgone conclusion) would not be protected by that exemption.

I really do expect that this bill will pass in both Houses this week with the same bipartisan support seen last month in the House.