HR 4091 Reported in House – ARPA-E Reauthorization

Last week the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee published their report on HR 4091, the ARPA-E Reauthorization Act of 2019. The Committee hearing on this bill was held on October 17^th, 2020 where the bill was amended and adopted by a voice vote.

A look at the ‘Cosponsors’ page for this bill on Congress.gov shows exactly how politically successful the changes were that were made by Chair Johnson in the substitute language for the bill. Principally, those changes were a reduction in the large increase in annual spending authorization through 2024. Republicans had objected to the very-large proposed increase and were threatening to withhold support for the bill. The reductions found in the substitute language were significant enough that 24 Republicans have since signed on as cosponsors of the bill.

This new support ensures that this bill could be considered under the suspension of rules procedure in the House and indicate that there might be enough support in the Senate to have this bill added to Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies spending bill if/when that is introduced. This bill is not important enough to be considered in the Senate on its own (particularly in a COVID-19 affected election year) and there is still enough Republican opposition to the revised spending increase to ensure that it could not be considered under the Senate’s unanimous consent rule.

S 2714 Introduced – ARPA-E Reauthorization

Last week Sen Van Hollen (D,MD) introduced S 2714, the ARPA–E Reauthorization Act of 2019. The bill is very similar to HR 4091 that was adopted in Committee last month.

The Senate version of the bill does not include the radioactive waste addition to the ARPA-E goals (42 USC 16538(c) that was included in the House version, but it did include the broad ‘security’ provision that I discussed in my post about the introduction of HR 4091.

Most of the other changes to §16538 made by this version of the bill are similar to those made in the House version. The spending authorizations are the same as were included in the managers amendment to HR 4091 that was included in the Committee’s approval of that bill.

Moving Forward

Van Hollen is not a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration. His one cosponsor, Sen Alexander (R,TN), is, however, so it is reasonable to suspect that this bill could be considered in Committee. I would suspect that it would receive the same bipartisan support as was seen in the House for HR 4091.

As I noted earlier today, this bill was included in the list of bills that will be addressed tomorrow in a legislative hearing before the Committee. That does not mean that the bill will automatically be considered in a markup, but it is very likely.

HR 4091 Amended and Adopted in Committee – ARPA-E Reauthorization

Yesterday the House Science, Space and Technology Committee marked up HR 4091, the ARPA–E Reauthorization Act of 2019. Two amendments were offered, one was adopted, and the bill was adopted by a voice vote.

Amendments

Rep Foster (D,IL) proposed an amendment creating the position of Chief Evaluation Officer. The amendment was withdrawn.

Rep. Johnson (D,TX) proposed a manager’s amendment that made three relatively minor changes to the bill:

• Added a provision to the annual report requirement;

• Amended the ‘Coordination and Non-Duplication; requirements of 42 USC 16538(i)(1); and

• Decreased the authorized ARPA-E spending for 20210 thru 2024.

Moving Forward

Once the Committee Report for the bill is published, this bill will almost certainly move to the floor of the House under the suspension of the rules process. There would be limited floor debate, no amendments from the floor and a super-majority would be required for passage. The bill will receive sufficient bipartisan support to pass in the House.

Committee Hearings – Week of 10-13-19

This week both the House and Senate will be in session. Spending bills are being worked on behind closed doors. We do have one cybersecurity related hearing and a markup hearing of the ARPA-E Reauthorization bill.

Supply Chain Security

On Wednesday the House Homeland Security Committee will hold a hearing on “Public-Private Initiatives to Secure the Supply Chain”. The witness list includes:

• Robert Kolasky, CISA;

• Robert Mayer, U.S. Telecom; and

• John Miller, Information and Technology Industry Council

Markup Hearing

On Thursday the House Science, Space and Technology Committee will hold a markup hearing on three bills; including HR 4091, the ARPA-E Reauthorization Act of 2019.

HR 4091 Introduced – ARPA-E Reauthorization

Last month Rep. Johnson (D,TX) introduced HR 4091, the ARPA–E Reauthorization Act of 2019. In addition to reauthorizing the DOE Advanced Research Projects Agency—Energy, it expands the goals of ARPA-E to include security.

Security Goal

The bill would amend 42 USC 16538(c)(1)(A) by adding a new subparagraph (v):

(v) improve the resilience, reliability, and security of infrastructure to produce, deliver, and store energy; and

There is no other discussion of ‘security’ within the bill and no definitions are provided.

Moving Forward

Johnson is the Chair of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration. There are 29 cosponsors to the bill; only two of those are Republicans and neither are on the Committee.

The bill was considered by the Energy Subcommittee yesterday and ordered reported favorably to the full Committee by a voice vote. One amendment was considered; a Republican amendment to reduce the amounts of monies authorized for Energy Transformation Acceleration Fund. The amendment failed on a voice vote.

Commentary

It would make some sense to me that when adding a goal to an agency mission one should ensure that the purpose of that goal is clearly defined. With that in mind, I would like to propose the addition of the following definition to §16538:

Section 16538(a) is amended by adding subparagraph (4):

“(4) Security – The term ‘security’ means measures undertaken to prevent, identify or respond to:

(i) unauthorized physical access to facilities;

(ii) the unauthorized application of force against, or direction of energy at, a facility with the intent to disrupt operations of the facility; or

(iii) to protect against cybersecurity threats as that term is defined in 6 USC 1501.

This definition would make it clear that AREPA-E funded investigations could address the full range of security measure to protect energy product, storage or transmission facilities, including measures to prevent/mitigate cyberattacks and electromagnetic pulse attacks.

Bills Introduced – 07-30-19

On Tuesday with the Senate in Washington and the House meeting in proforma session, there were 94 bills introduced. Three of those bills may receive additional coverage here in this blog:

HR 4091 To amend the America COMPETES Act to reauthorize the ARPA-E program, and for other purposes. Rep. Johnson, Eddie Bernice [D-TX-30]

S 2318 A bill to amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to authorize the Secretary of Homeland Security to establish a continuous diagnostics and mitigation program in the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency of the Department of Homeland Security, and for other purposes. Sen. Cornyn, John [R-TX]

S 2333 A bill to provide for enhanced energy grid security. Sen. Cantwell, Maria [D-WA] 

I will be watching HR 4091 to see if it includes language specifically authorizing grid cybersecurity research programs.

I will be watching S 2318 to see if it includes authorization to provide CDM coverage to private sector critical infrastructure facilities.