House Passes HR 3354 – FY 2018 Spending

This afternoon the House passed a much-amended HR 3354 by a very partisan 211 to 198 vote. The vote was closer than the party membership numbers would indicate in part because of the 14 Republicans that voted Nay, but also because of the 25 members (16 Republicans and 9 Democrats) that did not vote (probably due to early flight times for their weekends at home).

The large ‘Nay’ vote just about guarantees that the Senate will not take up this version of the bill. I expect that we will see a Senate bill omnibus bill introduced (or possibly a substitute language amendment to this bill) that will then be amended in a lengthy floor process. The resulting bill will be harder to reconcile with this House passed measure in a form that both houses will be able to pass. Fortunately, we have until December 8^th.

NOTE: Just a reminder, the three amendments that I had identified as being of potential specific interest to readers of this blog were all approved early in the amendment process.

Committee Hearings – Week of 09-10-17

Both the House and Senate are in town this week with most focus being on floor activities in both houses. There will be two hearings this week that may be of particular interest to readers of this blog; one on energy reliability and one on self-driving trucks.

Energy Reliability

On Tuesday the Energy Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee will be holding a hearing on “Powering America: Defining Reliability in a Transforming Electricity Industry”. The witness list includes:

• Paul Bailey, American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity;

• Gerry Cauley, North American Electric Reliability Corporation;

• Neil Chatterjee, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission;

• Kyle Davis, Enel Green Power North America, Inc;

• Marty Durbin, American Petroleum Institute;

• Patricia Hoffman, U.S. Department of Energy;

• Tom Kiernan  American Wind Energy Association;

• Maria G. Korsnick, Nuclear Energy Institute;

• Kelly Speakes-Backman, Energy Storage Association;

• Susan F. Tierney, Analysis Group, Inc.; and

• Steve Wright, Chelan Public Utility District

This hearing is on system reliability and ensuring the flow of electricity to customers. Interestingly, there is no mention in the background memo on this hearing on how this reliability may be effected by cybersecurity concerns. Admittedly, the reliability topic is complicated enough without considering cybersecurity, but it will be interesting to see if it is mentioned in the testimony and questioning.

Self-Driving Trucks

On Wednesday the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee will be holding a hearing to look at “Transportation Innovation: Automated Trucks and Our Nation's Highways”. The witness list includes:

• Scott G. Hernandez, Colorado State Patrol
• Troy Clarke, Navistar

• Ken Hall, International Brotherhood of Teamsters

• Deborah Hersman, National Safety Council
• Chris Spear, the American Trucking Associations

While I have focused on cybersecurity issues associated with automated driving systems, this hearing reminds us that there are other concerns that are also going to have to be faced with this next stage of industrial automation; jobs.

On the Floor

I have already mentioned the two big bills seeing floor action this week, HR 3354 in the House and HR 2810 in the Senate.

There really is not much else happening on the floor of either house this week of specific interest, but you always have to be careful saying that. The Senate calendar is always up in the air with all sorts of jockeying for position and both intra-party and inter-party wrangling keeping the schedule very flexible. The House is usually much easier to predict since the Majority Leader actually publishes a weekly schedule.

But even the staid House throws up the occasional odd-ball scheduling change now and again. Today was a good case in point. This was supposed to be a speechifying day with no votes scheduled; at least that is what the Majority Leader’s schedules said. This is typical on Monday’s as it allows for some travel flexibility for members coming back to Washington from their districts. But then, at 4:23 pm EDT, Rep. Reichert (R,MN) asked unanimous consent that HR 3732 be discharged from committee and be considered on the floor of the House. With no debate and no vote, the bill was passed.

Interestingly this bill was introduced today (probably by Reichert, but I cannot tell until tomorrow for sure until the Library of Congress prints the list of bills introduced today) with broad title of “To amend section 1113 of the Social Security Act [42 USC 1313] to provide authority for increased fiscal year 2017 and 2018 payments for temporary assistance to United States citizens returned from foreign countries”. I suspect that a connected constituent was getting a run-around from the Social Security Administration and this bill was designed to remove a funding excuse for that runaround.

There were probably very few people on the floor of the House when this matter came up. The consideration of this bill was a mere formality (and it may die a slow death waiting in the Senate for action), but there was almost certainly no legislative trickery involved. Both parties keep at least one ‘responsible’ (to the leadership) member on the floor to object to any skullduggery being played under the guise of ‘unanimous consent’; a single voice crying from the back of the chamber would have killed the consideration of this bill. So, the leadership of both parties consented to this bill being passed, and no one has raised a stink about it. That means that the bill would almost certainly have passed if it had been considered under regular order.

But, it does just go to show that the politicos in Congress can get things done when they really want to, so we must keep a close eye on them.

House Continues Consideration of HR 3354 – FY 2018 Spending

This week the House will continue with its consideration of HR 3354, the FY 2018 spending bill. Friday the House continued their work on the bill under a second structured rule that added an additional 225 amendments to be considered during the floor debate.

None of the new amendments look to be of specific interest to readers of this blog. The three amendments that I mentioned last week passed by voice votes last week. Two of those (#21 and #37) were considered on their own and #67 was considered as part of en block amendment #3.

With the continuing resolution in place extending current spending until December 8^th, this bill, if it is considered in the Senate, will certainly be amended. As a result, a conference committee will almost certainly be required to craft a final version of the bill. The CR provides some time for that process to work out the details.

House Passes FY 2018 Continuing Resolution

This morning the House agreed to the Senate amendment to HR 601 after adding an additional amendment that provided for continued funding for the federal government through December 8^th, 2017. Yesterday’s amendment to HR 601 in the Senate had added a similar short-term extension of the debt limit as well as funding for the response to Hurricane Harvey. The Senate is expected to take up the much-amended bill early next week. This removes the near-term deadline of September 30th for all three of these potential problems.

The vote in the House was a significantly bipartisan vote of 316 to 90. In line with the agreement reached earlier this week between President Trump and the Democratic leaders in the House and Senate, all 183 Democrats in the House voted for the bill, more than offsetting the 90 Republicans that voted against the measure.

After the morning vote, the House continued to work on the floor action to amend and pass HR 3354, the omnibus spending bill that it has been working on since Wednesday. With the end-of-month deadline erased, the House did not find it necessary to stay late today to finish work on the measure. A final vote is expected Wednesday.

While the expected passage of HR 601 in the Senate next week is expected to obviate the short term need to pass HR 3354, a spending bill does need to be crafted to be signed by the President by December 8^th. Passage of this bill would allow for consideration and amendment in the Senate and allow a conference committee time to work out the differences between the two houses of Congress in something approaching regular order.

Rule for Consideration of HR 3354 – FY 2018 Spending Bill

Last night the House Rules Committee completed their work on the rule for the consideration of HR 3354, the FY 2018 combined spending bill. This will be a structured rule with only 117 amendments that may be submitted during the debate of the bill; a huge decrease from the number submitted. There were only three of those amendments that may be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

Amendments of Interest

The three amendments of potential specific interest are:

21. Lipinski (D,IL): Decreases the Office of the Secretary of Transportation Salaries and Expenses account by $9,000,000 and increases the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Salaries and Expenses account by the same amount for the purpose of expanding NHTSA's connected and automated vehicles oversight and regulatory capabilities;

37. Carbajal (D,CA): Provides $1,000,000 to PHMSA for the finalization of an automatic valve shut-off safety rule; and

67. Delaney (D,MD), Donovan (R,NY): Funds the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center, Chemical Security Analysis Center, and National Urban Security Technology Laboratory and is offset by a reduction in Management Directorate, Operations and Support account.

There are no specific provisions in these amendments beyond the simple addition (and co-equal subtraction) of funds in the appropriate places in the proposed bill. All funding changes have to be funding neutral; funds being added to a program have to be specifically taken from somewhere else. That somewhere else in these cases are from management accounts, not specific programs.

Moving Forward

The consideration of the bill is scheduled to begin today with a vote on the resolution (the rule for the consideration of the bill) and will probably conclude tomorrow. The bill is likely (but NOT guaranteed) to pass. If it does pass the important thing to be watching for is a significant bipartisan vote with a substantial majority; anything less will mean that the bill will not be considered in the Senate.

It is not likely that this bill will reach the President’s desk or even make it to a conference committee. It is becoming increasingly likely that there will be a continuing resolution to continue funding for the government through sometime in December.

Committee Hearings – Week of 09-04-17

Yes, the House and Senate have actually returned to Washington; it must be September. Spending (including Harvey Relief) and debt limits are the big items that will have to be addressed before the end of the month. But, this week, in addition to the spending bill hearing this evening, there are two cybersecurity hearings scheduled and one cybersecurity bill on the floor of the House that may be of interest to readers of this blog.

Cybersecurity Hearings

The House Homeland Security Committee will hold a markup hearing on Thursday with four bills under consideration. The one of specific interest here is HR 3101, the Strengthening Cybersecurity Information Sharing and Coordination in Our Ports Act of 2017. No amendments to this bill are currently listed on the Committee web site.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection Subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee will be holding an information hearing on Thursday. It will address “Challenges of Recruiting and Retaining a Cybersecurity Workforce”. The witness list is not currently available.

On the Floor

As I mentioned earlier, there is one cybersecurity related bill scheduled to be considered by the House this week; HR 3388, the SELF DRIVE Act. Additional cybersecurity provisions found in this bill are addressed here, here and here. This bill contains some of the most comprehensive cybersecurity provisions that I have seen to date and may end up having far ranging indirect impacts outside of the automotive world. This will be considered Wednesday under the suspension of the rules provisions that limit debate and require a supermajority for passage.

The bulk of the time on the floor of the House this week will be consumed with the consideration of HR 3354, the Make America Secure and Prosperous Appropriations Act, 2018. The House is taking this up early to provide time to recover if it fails in either the House or Senate. There is still a reasonable chance that we are going to end up with a last minute continuing resolution to keep the government operating at the end of the month.

Rules Committee to Meet on FY 2018 Spending Bill

The House Rules Committee will meet later today on HR 3354, the vehicle for a combined FY 2018 spending bill. There have been a couple of changes to the proposed spending bill since I originally wrote about it last month; HR 3219 (the previously House passed DOD/VA/Energy/Legislative spending bill) has been added into the bill making this a true omnibus bill; and the recision of $875 million unspent Disaster Relief Funds has been removed for fairly obvious reasons.

As I suggested in that earlier post, a large number of amendments have been proposed for this bill;

• 174 for the Interior/EPA Division;

• 50 for the Agriculture/FDA Division;

• 145 for the Commerce/Science/Justice Division;

• 150 for the Financial Services Division;

• 119 for the Homeland Security Division;

• 184 for the Labor/HHS Division;

• 89 for the State/Foreign Operations Division; and

• 89 for the Transportation/Housing and Urban Development Division

There is no way that even I am going to try to review all of those proposed amendments (unfortunately the staff of the Rules Committee does not have that option), but a quick review of the 119 DHS amendments shows that many are duplicative (or contradictory) politically motivated amendments and surprisingly there are no cybersecurity amendments included in the list.

I do expect that the meeting tonight will formulate a rule with a limited (but relatively large) number of amendments that will be authorized to be submitted from the floor later this week. The amendments will not make or break this bill, however. It will be the number of conservative talking point provisions in the bill. If the number is not high enough, the Leadership will lose enough Republican votes that they may not be able to pass the bill. Conversely, if the number is too high there will not be enough support from Democrats to counter the defecting Republicans. The Republican leadership has an interesting tightrope to walk with this bill. The problem is further magnified in the Senate because the Republican ‘control’ of that body is illusory at best. And, of course, a Presidential signature is still not a foregone conclusion this year.

Make America Secure and Prosperous Appropriations Act, 2018

The House Rules Committee announced today that is working on massive, multi-department spending bill to be considered when the House returns from summer recess. It is a move to cut short the spending process so that there may be a chance to pass a government spending bill before the September 30^th deadline. The Rules Committee is calling for submission of amendments by 10:00 am on August 25^th.

The combined bill is a complete re-write of HR 3354, the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2018. The draft language incorporates most of the language from that bill and:

HR 3268 – Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2018;

HR 3267 – Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2018;

HR 3280 – Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, 2018;

HR 3355 – Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2018;

HR 3358 – Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2018;

HR 3362 – Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2018; and

HR 3353 – Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2018

The House has already passed a combined spending bill for the other four spending bills not covered above. That bill, HR 3219, included the following spending bills:

• The Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2018;

• The Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2018;

• The Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2018; and

• The Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2018.

Combining eight spending bills into one big package could greatly reduce the amount of time required on the floor of the House for debate. I expect the Rules Committee would come up with a structured rule, with a few hundred floor amendments. The bill would almost certainly be passed in the House in a single week. The big question is whether or not the Senate would be allowed to take up the giant bill. Depending on what riders make it into the House passed version, I could almost expect to see an unusual amalgam of liberals and conservatives combining to block the moderate majority from considering and passing the bill.