Committee Hearings – Week of 7-10-16

Both the House and Senate are in Washington this week, but it is scheduled to be their last week until early September. The hearing schedule is fairly light this week with only three hearings of interest to readers of this blog; two cybersecurity and one PHMSA oversight hearing.

Cybersecurity

On Wednesday the Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Security Technologies Subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee will be holding a hearing on “Value of DHS’ Vulnerability Assessments in Protecting Our Nation’s Critical Infrastructure”. This will deal with cybersecurity assessments conducted by the DHS Office of Cybersecurity and Communications (CS&C) and Office of Infrastructure Protection (presumably including assessments conducted by ICS-CERT). The witness list includes:

• Matthew J. Eggers, US Chamber of Commerce;

• Robert H. Mayer, United States Telecom Association;

• Mark Clancy, Soltra;

• Mordecai Rosen, CA Technologies; and

• Ola Sage, e-Management

On Tuesday the Energy Subcommittee of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will be holding a hearing on S 3018. The witness list includes:

• Patricia Hoffman, US Department of Energy;

• Duane D. Highley, Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corporation;

• Rob Manning, Electric Power Research Institute; and

• Brent Stacey, Idaho National Laboratory

Readers will recall that this is the bill that I called for support via a letter writing campaign.

PHMSA

On Tuesday the Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety, and Security Subcommittee of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee will be holding a hearing looking at “The FAST Act, the Economy, and Our Nation’s Transportation System”. It is not clear what portions of the FAST Act will actually be covered in this hearing. The witness list includes:

• Patrick J. Ottensmeyer, Kansas City Southern Railway Company;

• Jay Thompson, Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance
• David Eggermann, BASF
• Stephen J. Gardner, Amtrak 

On the Floor

There will be a large number of bills considered in the House this week under suspension of the rules with limited debate, no amendments, and requiring a super majority to pass the bill. Of those being considered only one is of specific (if very minor) interest to readers of this blog; HR 5639, the National Institute of Standards and Technology Improvement Act.

The Senate will take another try at starting debate on HR 5293, the FY 2017 DOD spending bill. Amendments (including one to substitute language from S 3000) will not be filed until the first cloture vote is agreed to. I’m not holding my breath, but this could possibly pass and go to conference before the summer recess.

House Passes HR 5293 – FY 2017 DOD Spending

Yesterday the House amended and passed HR 5293, the FY 2017 DOD Spending bill. The lengthy amendment process included the adoption of the one cybersecurity related amendment as part of an en bloc amendment consideration. The final tally on the bill was a partially bipartisan vote of 282 to 138.

The Senate will likely substitute language from S 3000 when it takes up the bill later this month or early next month. A conference committee will not complete work on the bill before the summer recess in mid-July. There is a distinct possibility that work will not be completed on this bill (and at least some/most other spending bills) prior to the end of the fiscal year resulting in a continuing resolution to keep the government functioning until after the election.

HR 5293 Amendment Process - FY 2017 DOD Spending

The House Rules Committee completed work on their rule for the amendment process for HR 5293, the FY 2017 DOD spending bill. As expected the rule is a structured rule that will only allow for the consideration of 75 specific amendments. Only one of those amendments is cybersecurity related, providing funding for the Information Assurance Scholarship Program for DOD personnel.

Cybersecurity Provisions in Bill

There were no specific cybersecurity provisions in the actual bill and there was only a single limited mention of cybersecurity issues in the Committee Report supporting the bill. That two paragraph mention notes that the funding in the bill provide a $992 million increase in cybersecurity related spending throughout the bill over the FY 2016 spending. The second paragraph mentioned the Committee’s concerns about recruiting and retaining a trained and qualified cyber workforce.

Cybersecurity Amendment

The one cybersecurity amendment is # 54 proposed by Rep. Aguilar (D,CA). It would take $5 million dollars out of the $32 billion Operation and Maintenance, Defense-Wide, account to provide funding for the Information Assurance Scholarship Program. The funding for this program initiated in 2012 has been hit and miss.