Review - HR 8998 Introduced – FY 2025 IER Spending

Earlier this month, Rep Simpson (R,ID) introduced HR 8898, the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies [IER] Appropriations Act, 2024. The House Appropriations Committee published their Report on the bill. There is no specific cybersecurity funding mentioned in the bill. The bill does contain reduced funding for the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) and one chemical safety funding restriction. The Report discusses one cybersecurity spending issue and several chemical safety initiatives.

Moving Forward

This very partisan spending bill is scheduled to be considered this week. There will be no Democrats voting to support this bill, so the leadership will need nearly every Republican vote to pass the bill. The question is, will the radical wing of the party think that the bill goes far enough to castrate the operations of the EPA. If their answer is no, this bill will not pass.

 

For more details about the provisions of this legislation, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-8998-introduced - subscription required.

Review - House Began Consideration of HR 4821 – FY 2023 IER Spending – 11-2-23

Yesterday, the House began consideration of HR 4821, the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies [IER] Appropriations Act, 2024. The House completed consideration of 75 amendments, passing 52. One of the passed amendments was an en bloc amendment including 47 of the amendments listed in Part A of H Rept 118-261. None of the amendments were of specific interest here.

Moving Forward

The House resumed consideration of the bill today and ended up passing it by a near party-line vote of 213 to 203, with 17 members (6 Republicans and 11 Democrats) not voting. I may have more details about today’s actions on the bill before the final vote after I get a chance to look at the Congressional Record and Congress.gov for today’s activities.

In any case, once the bill gets to the Senate, all of these program cuts and spending reductions will be forgotten while the Senate considers a substitute language amendment based up on the language of the Senate’s version of the spending bill (S 2605, removed from paywall). Once (if) the Senate passes their bill, the two versions will go to a conference committee for reconciliation of the two versions. As I have mentioned a couple of times, this year that reconciliation will be more difficult, and subsequent action in the House will require Democratic votes to offset intransigent Republican votes.

 

For more details about the amendments considered, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/house-began-consideration-of-hr-4821 - subscription required.

Committee Hearings – Week of 10-29-23

This week, with both the House and Senate in Washington, there is a very light hearing schedule. There is one hearing in the Senate of potential interest on threats to the Homeland.

Homeland Security

On Tuesday, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affair Committee will hold a hearing on “Threats to the Homeland”. The witness list includes:

• Alejandro N. Mayorkas, DHS, and

• Christopher A. Wray, FBI,

• Christine Abizaid, Director of National Intelligence

With these witnesses, this will be a high-level overview of the potential threats facing the US. Their will be some level of discussion about cybersecurity issues. I would not be surprised to hear at least one question from Committee members about the effects of the termination of the CFATS program.

On the Floor

This is going to be a busy week for spending bills. The Senate will continue to work on amendments to HR 4366, the MilCon spending bill. The House is currently scheduled to take up three spending bills this week:

HR 4364 – Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2024,

HR 4821 – Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies (IER) Appropriations Act, and

HR 4820 – Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies (THUD) Appropriations Act, 2024

With a short work week (just three-days; Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday) the House will have to fly through these bills, probably with a number of en bloc amendment considerations. Friday sessions tend to end early so that members can catch flights home. It will be interesting to see what happens this coming Friday.

It was an interesting move by the leadership to take up HR 4820. The Senate is already considering the THUD spending in their substitute language for HR 4366. While they could have let this one slide in order to get spending bills complete (a priority for Republicans this year), passing this bill will provide a list of provisions that could be included in the conference report on HR 4366.

Review - S 2605 Introduced – FY 2024 IER Spending

Back in July, Sen Merkley (D,OR) introduced S 2605, the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies (IER) Appropriations Act, 2024. The Senate Appropriations Committee published their Report on the bill. Like the House bill (HR 4821), the two cybersecurity mentions in the bill are buried in other funding, and there are two cybersecurity mentions in the Report. CSB funding is increased. And the Report includes two chemical safety discussions of note.

Moving Forward

The Senate typically waits for the House to pass a spending bill and then begins its consideration of that bill by substituting language from their version of the spending bill. This year the Senate has tried a new tact by taking a single passed House bill (HR 4366) and adding Senate language from two other spending bills. This has the benefit of speeding up the consideration of spending bills. That could be important as the November 17^th deadline for spending bills approaches.

But spending bill process problems still exist. See my post “Coming FY 2024 Spending Bill Logjams”.

 

For more details about the provisions in the bill and the discussions in the Report, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/s-2605-introduced - subscription required.

Review - HR 4821 Introduced – FY 2024 IER Spending

Back in July, Rep Simpson (R,ID) introduced HR 4821, the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies [IER] Appropriations Act, 2024. The House Appropriations Committee published their Report on the bill. There is no specific cybersecurity funding mentioned in the bill. The bill does contain reduced funding for the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB). The Report discusses several chemical safety initiatives.

Proposed Amendments

Back on September 22^nd,  the House Rules Committee solicited amendment proposals for HR 4821, There have been 258 amendments submitted to the Committee. None of those amendments deal with cybersecurity issues or chemical safety issues. Interestingly, 22 separate amendments were proposed reducing the salary of various agencies’ executives to $1.

Moving Forward

The House Rules Committee had been scheduled to hold a rule hearing in this bill on Tuesday when the House was reduced to chaos by the vacation (okay that is not the real word that applies, but it came to mind, and it sounds good) of the Speakership. Sometime after the House votes in a new Speaker (and some Chairs get shuffled, maybe), this hearing will get heard. Unfortunately, those changes will not address the underlying problems that I outlined in June in my ‘Coming FY 2024 Spending Bill Logjams’ post. In fact, I suspect that they have just gotten worse as there will be less incentive for the new Republican leadership to compromise with the Democrats on conference versions of the bill.

 

For more details about the provisions of the bill and the discussions in the Report, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-4821-introduced - subscription required.

Bills Introduced – 7-24-23

Yesterday, with the House meeting in pro forma session, there were 22 bills introduced. Two of those bills will receive additional attention in this blog:

HR 4820 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024 Cole, Tom [Rep.-R-OK-4]

HR 4821 Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024 Simpson, Michael K. [Rep.-R-ID-2]