HR 4336 Considered in Senate – FY 2024 MilCon Spending – 9-11-23

Other than a short speech by Sen Schumer (D,NY), about the bipartisan process moving HR 4336 (the first minibus spending bill) forward, the Senate took no action on the floor on that legislation. The expected first cloture vote did not happen. This could have been due to a priorities issue in a short session, or there could be threats to the bipartisan support for the bill, that require additional negotiations. The orders for today’s session did not include any mention of HR 4336, but that is not an impediment to Senate action.

One amendment (SA 1093) was proposed for the bill, nothing of specific interest here.

Commentary

Schumer needs substantial bipartisan support for this bill to be used as a bludgeon in the inevitable conference committee to beat back the more radical elements of the House version of the bill, especially the final spending number. I expect that we will see a larger than usual number of amendments by moderate Republicans brought to the floor for successful votes in the coming days.

Committee Hearings – Week of 7-26-21

With both the House and Senate in Washington and looking forward to the summer recess, there is a full slate of hearings this week. They include two Rules Committee hearings of spending bills, NDAA markups, two other mark-up hearings, CSB Nominations, and five cybersecurity related hearings.

Spending Bill Rules

In order to get the spending bills passed in the House before the summer recess, the House is, once again, combining spending bills into minibus bills. The House Rules Committee will be meeting twice this week to formulate the rules for consideration of the first two minibus bills.

Monday – HR 4452 First Minibus (LHHS, ARD, EW, FSG, IER, MC, VA, THUD), and

Tuesday – HR 4336 2^nd Minibus ( Leg, State, CJS)

NDAA Markups

The various subcommittees of the House Armed Services Committee will be meeting this week to mark-up their respective portions of HR 4350, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022. The full Committee mark-up is currently scheduled for September 1^st, 2021. The one subcommittee hearing of note here will be the Wednesday mark-up hearing of the Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative Technologies, and Information Systems.

Other Mark-Up Hearings

On Tuesday the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee will be holding a mark-up hearing considering five bills. One of the bills may be (I have not seen the language yet) of interest here: HR 4609, the National Institute of Standards and Technology for the Future Act of 2021.

On Wednesday the House Homeland Security Committee will be holding a mark-up hearing considering ten bills. Two of those bills will be of interest here (based upon the committee prints available on the hearing web site):

HR 4611, The “DHS Software Supply Chain Risk Management Act of 2021

HR ____, The “K-12 Cybersecurity Act"

HR 4611 is a software bill-of-materials bill. I will try to review this in more detail before Wednesday. The K-12 cybersecurity bill will probably be introduced today. The committee print shows that it is very similar to S 1917 not the previously introduced house bill, HR 4005.

CSB Nominations

On Thursday, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will be holding a confirmation hearing for the three nominees for Board membership on the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigations Board.

Cybersecurity Hearings

On Tuesday the Subcommittee on National Security of the House Oversight and Reform Committee will hold a hearing on “Defending the U.S. Electric Grid Against Cyber Threats”. The witness list includes:

• Eric Goldstein, CISA,

• Puesh M. Kumar, CESER,

• Joseph H. McClelland, FERC

On Tuesday the Senate Judiciary Committee will be holding a hearing on “America Under Cyber Siege: Preventing and Responding to Ransomware Attacks”. The witness list includes:

• Richard Downing, DOJ,

• Bryan Vorndran, FBI,

• Eric Goldstein, CISA,

• Jeremy Sheridan, Secret Service

On Tuesday the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will be holding a hearing on “Resources and Authorities Needed to Protect and Secure the Homeland”. The sole witness will be Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas.

On Tuesday the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee will be holding a hearing on “Pipeline Cybersecurity: Protecting Critical Infrastructure”. The witness list includes:

• David Pekoske, TSA,

• Polly Trottenberg, DOT,

• Leslie Gordon, GAO

On Thursday the Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, & Innovation Subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee will be holding a hearing on “The Cyber Talent Pipeline: Educating a Workforce to Match Today’s Threats”. The witness list includes:

• Kevin Nolten, CYBER.ORG,

• Ralph Ley, Idaho National Laboratory,

• Tony Coulson, California State University, San Bernardino