HR 2055 – The [New] Consolidated Appropriations Act 2012

The 112^th Congress is getting to be the experts in last minute deals. Apparently the Senate was not interested in the new language in HR 3671 that the House drafted. A deal was then brokered on language more acceptable to the Senate and still reasonably acceptable to the House. So to make it easy to get it passed in both houses of Congress they had the Conference Committee for HR 2055, the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2012, substitute the new appropriations language for the Senate amendment to HR 2055. Who says that there are no creative people in Congress (well more likely their staffs)?

As with HR 3671, the two divisions of this bill (out of a total of 9) that will probably contain provisions of the most interest to the chemical- and cyber-security communities are Division A (DOD) and Division D (DHS). This bill has an identical Division D, Title V, §540 that would extend the CFATS authorization until October 4, 2012.

NOTE: I have never understood why Congress doesn’t just change that date to reflect the end of the fiscal year like almost everything else in the appropriations bills. It would result in a four-days-less-than-a-year extension when they did it, but those four days are meaningless without the appropriations that take effect on October 1^st.

I’m glad I didn’t waste any time today (waste in hindsight) reviewing the details of HR 3671 as it is now dead in the dusty files of the Library of Congress.

As I write this the House Rules Committee is finishing up their rule hearing, which started at 11:45 pm EDT. The rule is a closed rule (as with the standard post-Conference Committee rule), but it includes a couple of interesting details which I’m not sure that I understood from the part of the discussion that I heard. It will be interesting to read the rule.

In any case Chairman Drier (R,CA) noted that he expected the debate on the rule on the House floor to begin at about 10:00 am EST tomorrow morning.

House Consideration of HR 3671

With tomorrow being the current deadline for funding the government for the remainder of the year, there isn’t much time to consider HR 3671 in ‘regular order’. The House Rule Committee web site early this morning added the bill to the list of legislation that is ‘likely to be considered pursuant to a rule’ this week, but no hearing has yet been set to formulate that rule.

NOTE: There ‘appears’ to be a typo on that listing. It says that the bill was added to the site on “12/14/2011 at 12:37 AM”. I’m sure that it should read “12/15/2011 at 12:37 AM” as I was checking the site last night at 11:00 pm EST.

The rule hearing will almost certainly be held this afternoon, allowing for a vote on Friday. The is an alternative procedure that the leadership could use to bring this measure to the floor and that is to consider it under a ‘suspension of the rules’ which requires a 2/3 majority vote instead of a simple majority. Usually this is not allowed under House Rules on Thursdays and Fridays {Clause 1(c) of rule XV}, but a provision of H Res 493, the rule for the consideration of HR 1540, allows the ‘suspension of the rules’ provision to be used on any day for the remainder of the first session of the 112^th Congress.

I would suspect that the leadership will use a closed rule to consider this bill so as to limit debate and the amendment process. It would be very difficult (but not impossible) to be assured of a 2/3 vote for a final spending bill in this Congress. Of course since the initial vote on suspension of the rules is not actually a vote on the bill, if it fails to achieve a 2/3 majority the bill can still be brought up again in ‘regular order’.

There is still a possibility that we might see a short (1 week) continuing resolution to allow for a more extended debate/amendment process on the bill. It is unlikely since this bill was worked out between the Senate and House Appropriations Committees and any significant amendments may make passage more complicated (possible conference committee requirements for instance).

HR 3671 Introduced – Consolidated Appropriations FY 2012

Yesterday Rep. Rogers (R,KY), the Chair of the House Appropriations Committee, introduced HR 3671, the Consolidated Appropriations Act 2012. This bill is the spending bill for the remainder of the federal government for this fiscal year. The GPO does not yet have a copy of the bill available, but a Committee press release contains links to the drafts of the various ‘Divisions’ of the bill.

Division A (DOD) and Division D (DHS) are the two primary parts of the bill that will be of potential interest to the cyber security and chemical security communities. Needless to say I have not yet had time to peruse either of these sections in detail. I can tell you however that §540 of Title D does provide the standard extension of the CFATS program through October 4, 2012.

More info to follow.