HR 3819 Passes in Senate – STA Extension

Yesterday the Senate passed HR 3819, Surface Transportation Extension Act of 2015, on a voice vote. The bill passed the day before in the House, also by a voice vote. The bill extends the authorization for various surface transportation programs from tonight until November 13^th. This was done to provide additional time for Congress to pass a longer term authorization bill.

There was minimal debate in the House (20 minutes) and no debate in the Senate. Just what you would expect with a short term extension for a fast expiring program that seems to finally be moving forward to resolution. One odd thing in the Senate. This was passed at the close of the session when we normally see non-controversial bills pass ‘without objection’. In that process the voice of a single Senator can derail passage. In this case a voice vote was used instead allowing the President Pro Tempore to decide if there were more voices in the almost empty chamber for or against. I’m not saying that there was anything underhanded in the passage of this bill, but this is how you would slip one by if you were so inclined (and willing to take the heat from the opposition the next day).

OOOPS. I never did take a close look at this bill. These short term extensions are typically pretty vanilla so as not to attract any undue objections to their passage. Now I wish I had. Someone mentioned last night that the Senate had passed an extension of the PTC deadline; oh yes it was a tweet from @SOCMA. It didn’t make sense when I saw it late last night, but I checked this morning, and sure enough, §1302 of HR 3819 is the “Positive Train Control Enforcement and Implementation Act of 2015”. This is virtually identical to §7014 of the most recent House STA bill, HR 3763.

The bill is on its way to the President for signature. There has been no specific word on whether or not he will sign it. There had been suggestions during the summer after the previous STA extension had been signed, that the President did not want to sign another short term extension, but I suspect that this will be quietly signed as it looks like there is some movement to consider HR 22 in the House.

Committee Hearings – Week of 10-25-15

Both the House and Senate will be in Washington this week. There is only one hearing currently scheduled this week that may be (okay a little bit of a stretch) of interest to readers of this blog; an oversight hearing of DHS S&T.

S&T Oversight

The House Science, Space and Technology Committee will be holding a hearing on Tuesday on a “A Review of Progress by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Science and Technology Directorate”. The sole witness will be Under Secretary Brothers.

On the Floor

There will be two bills of potential interest this week that will be considered under suspension of the rules (limited debate, no amendments and 3/5^th majority):

• Concur in the Senate Amendment to HR 623 – DHS Social Media Improvement Act of 2015; and

• HR 3819 – Surface Transportation Extension Act of 2015

The Senate will continue working on S 754 the CISA. I am not going to try to keep up on the details of the amendment process in the Senate with its amendments to amendments processes. I’ll report on the final wording of the bill when it is passed (probably) on Tuesday.

Bills Introduced – 10-23-15

With just the House in session on Friday there were 15 bills introduced. Of those four may be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

HR 3815 To deter terrorism, provide justice for victims, and for other purposes. Rep. King, Peter T. [R-NY-2]

HR 3819 To provide an extension of Federal-aid highway, highway safety, motor carrier safety, transit, and other programs funded out of the Highway Trust Fund, and for other purposes. Rep. Shuster, Bill [R-PA-9]

HR 3823 To provide for direct hire authority for positions in the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, and for other purposes. Rep. Green, Gene [D-TX-29]

HR 3825 To improve transportation safety, efficiency, and system performance through innovative technology deployment and operations. Rep. Takano, Mark [D-CA-41]

HR 3815 was added to the list just because I wanted to see what new and innovative counter-terrorism ideas that Rep. King (R,NY) has come up with since he left chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee.

HR 3819 is a bill to extend the current surface transportation authorization until November 15^th. It is being introduced as a budget reconciliation bill so that it cannot held up in the Senate by cloture. It is currently scheduled to be considered in the House under suspension of the rules onTuesday. This is being done to give Congress a chance to act on HR 3673 which indicates that action on that bill will not be as clean as I originally predicted.

HR 3823 may be of interest depending on what employee slots this will effect and the reason given. The federal hiring process is a mess and we will be seeing more of these types of bills as the Feds try to fill existing critical slots in their agencies.

HR 3825 will only be of interest here if it addresses cybersecurity issues related to intelligent transportation systems.