Congressional Hearings – Week of 06-04-12

Both the Senate and House will be in town this week. That would normally mean that there would be a decent number of hearings to pay attention to. For some reason, however, there aren’t a lot of hearings scheduled in either body and none concerning the normal topics of this blog. That doesn’t mean that we can ignore Congress this week, there are two bills scheduled to make it to the floor of the House that could affect the chemical security or cybersecurity folks that read this blog; both are funding bills.

HR 5325

The first bill on the agenda (the House actually started consideration last week) is the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2013. I haven’t mentioned this bill yet as it doesn’t have anything in the bill or the Committee Report that mentions cybersecurity. It is being considered under an open rule so that just about anything can be proposed as an amendment from the floor. I’ll be watching for anything cyber-related.

HR 5855

The big bill for this blog is the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2013. I’ve discussed the CFATS related issues in the bill’s Report. This will also be considered under an open rule so we can expect to see more in both chemical security and cybersecurity introduced on the floor. Other possible amendment topics of potential interest include port security and surface transportation security mentions.

The Majority Leader’s web site says that this bill may possibly be considered this week so we probably won’t see any action until the end of the week and it almost certainly won’t have a final vote this week. This will be well worth watching though so expect updates during the week as proposed amendments are published in the Congressional Record.

Congressional Hearings – Week of 5-29-12

The House took off the week before the Memorial Day Weekend and the Senate is taking the week after off. So we only have to worry about hearings in the House this week. Those will include a hearing on the TSA Surface Security program and a rules hearing on a number of spending bills. Additionally the House is scheduled to consider a WMD bill on the floor.

TSA Hearing

The Transportation Security Subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee will be holding a hearing on “TSA’s Surface Inspection Program: Strengthening Security or Squandering Scant Resources?” on Thursday. The only surface security regulations really in place deal with rail security for hazardous chemicals. Perhaps Chairman Rogers (R,AL) will ask about the status of the long overdue regulations for security of truck transportation of the same chemicals.

No witness list is currently available. We can expect that there will be at least one witness from TSA.

Spending Bills

The House Rules Committee will be holding a hearing on Wednesday to formulate the rule for a number of appropriations bills; three of which may address issues of interest to the chemical security and cybersecurity communities. The one bill of certain interest will be H.R. 5855, Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2013; I’ve addressed this bill in some detail at the committee print stage. Three other bills will also be addressed at that hearing; the two of potential interest will be:

• H.R. 5743 — Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013

• H.R. 5325—Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2013

I’ll be looking at each of these bills in more detail as the week progresses.

Floor of the House

According to the House Majority Leader’s web site the House is currently scheduled to consider HR 2764, the WMD Intelligence and Information Sharing Act of 2011 under suspension of the rules this week; this means it will require a 3/5 majority to pass. Scheduling it in this manner means that the leadership believes that this bill will pass without significant opposition.

Three of the four bills being considered by the House Rules Committee this week may make it to the floor on Thursday. The one not currently on the schedule is the DHS appropriations bill.

House Passes HR 5326 – DOC, Justice and Science Spending

Today the House finished up three days of debates and votes on HR 5326, the spending bill for Commerce, Justice, Science and related agencies. The final vote on the bill was 247-163 on a very nearly party-line vote (8 Republican defections and 23 Democrats).

A large number of amendments were considered during the first two days of the floor debate. Most took the form of adding and subtracting funding for various programs (each increase had to be offset by a corresponding decrease in some other program). Others added sections to the General Provisions title of the bill that prohibit funds being spent on a pet target of the author.

I could find nothing in any of the amendments that would have any specific effect on cybersecurity efforts so we are left with the increased funding for FBI cybersecurity efforts that I noted in an earlier blog post. I guess that we should be satisfied with that.