Committee Hearings – Week of 9-23-18

Both the House and Senate are in Washington this week and it is likely to be the last week the House will be in session before the election. A lot of political hearings this week but there are three hearings that may be of interest; HR 6157 conference report, a homeland security markup hearing and cybersecurity in the energy sector.

HR 6157 Conference

On Tuesday the House Rules Committee will hold a hearing on the Conference Report on HR 6157, the FY 2019 DOD and HHS spending minibus. They will formulate the rule for the floor consideration of the bill. This bill will also include new language providing for the continuing resolution (CR) for DHS spending thru December 6^th.

The Senate has already acted favorably on the Conference Report and the other two mini-busses have been sent to the White House. Congress has not come this close to finishing spending bills before the end of the fiscal year in quite some time. This may be the most important achievement of the 115^th Congress.

Homeland Security Markup

On Wednesday the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will hold a business meeting that will include the markup of a number of homeland security related bills, including:

• S 3405, Protecting and Securing Chemical Facilities from Terrorist Attacks Act of 2018;

• S 3309, OHS Cyber Incident Response Teams Act of 2018; and  

• S 594, National Cybersecurity Preparedness Consortium Act of 2017;

There will be a total of 43 bills considered during this meeting, but 21 of them are postal facility naming bills. Most of the remaining bills will be approved by unanimous consent. It will be interesting to see how many amendments are offered on S 3405. The bill did not have any cosponsors when offered and has not acquired any since then. This is unusual in a bill of this type where there is a general consensus on the need for extending the covered program (CFATS).

Unfortunately, we are unlikely to see the text of any of the offered amendments. We will see the revised version of the bill (if changes are made) when the committee report is published in the next month or so (if we are lucky).

Energy Cybersecurity

On Thursday, the Energy Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing looking at “DOE Modernization: The Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER)”. The witness list has not yet been posted, but a press release notes that the Subcommittee will hear from Assistant Secretary Karen Evens who is in charge of the CESER. The discussions here will almost certainly focus on policy level issues, but cybersecurity will certainly be the overarching topic.

On the Floor

With the mid-term election pending the House will be trying to clean up a lot of miscellaneous business this week with grandstanding and political posturing making the most news, but lots of less controversial stuff being taken care of as well. The HR 6157 Conference Report will be the most important, but the House will also be taking up 54 bills under their suspension of the rules procedure; most of these will pass with significant bipartisan support. Bills of interest here include:

• HR 6620 – Protecting Critical Infrastructure Against Drones and Emerging Threats Act; and

• HR 6229 – National Institute of Standards and Technology Reauthorization Act of 2018, as amended;

As always there will be limited debate, no floor amendments and a supermajority will be required to pass. Both of these bills will pass; no political posturing here – okay, bipartisan posturing.

Committee Hearings – Week of 09-09-18

In a much abbreviated week with both the House and Senate in Washington, there will only be a limited number of committee hearings. There will be two of potential interest to readers of this blog; one dealing with the national threat landscape (including cyber) and the other a look at the status of the implementation of positive train control (PTC) systems.

Threat Landscape

On Thursday the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will be holding a hearing looking at “Evolving Threats to the Homeland”. The witness list includes:

• Kevin Mandia, FireEye, Inc.;

• Cathy Lanier, National Football League;

• Scott McBride, Idaho National Laboratory; and

• Jennifer Bisceglie, lnteros Solutions, Inc.

It certainly looks like cybersecurity will be an issue at this hearing, just not the only one.

PTC Update

On Thursday the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will hold a hearing on “The State of Positive Train Control Implementation in the United States”. The witness list includes:

• Ronald L. Batory, Federal Railroad Administration;
• Robert Sumwalt, National Transportation Safety Board;

• Susan A. Fleming, Government Accountability Office;
• Scot Naparstek, Amtrak;
• Edward Hamberger, Association of American Railroads;
• Jeffrey D. Knueppel, Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority;

• Stacey Mortensen, Altamont Corridor Express

This hearing could get contentious with the relatively poor performance of the passenger rail lines in complying with the PTC requirements. The Committee Staff has prepared a detailed background document on the PTC program.

On the Floor

It is looking increasingly likely that the House could take up the Conference Report on HR 5895, the EWR spending bill. The Conference Committee completed their work yesterday, but a copy of the report has not yet been issued. This bill is likely to be taken up in at least the House this week. This is the first of the three mini-bus bills that has made it out of conference; HR 6147 and HR 6157 still remain to be addressed.

There is at least one news report that claims only two of the three mini-busses will be approved before the end of the month, meaning that the expected 3-department continuing resolution would have to be expanded to 6 departments. The article does not name the bill that will not make it out of conference, but I suspect that it is HR 6157. The conflict between the House and Senate there was the inclusion of the Health and Human Services spending in with the DOD bill; just too many controversies in the House version of the HHS spending.

Committee Hearings – Week of 09-02-18

This week the House and Senate will both be back in Washington with spending bills high on the priority list for the month. There is one cybersecurity hearing of potential interest this week.

Cybersecurity Hearing

On Thursday two subcommittees of the House Homeland Security Committee will be holding a hearing on “Understanding Cybersecurity Threats to America’s Aviation Sector”. There is no witness list available at this time.

While aircraft cybersecurity is a very likely topic, I expect that the main focus will be on cybersecurity for FAA systems, including airspace management systems.

On the Floor

We have two bills that will be considered in the House this week under their suspension of the rules process that may be of interest to readers of this blog. Again, this process calls for limited debate, no floor amendments and a super-majority to pass; generally speaking these are non-controversial bills. The two bills of interest this week are:

• Today - HR 6438 – DHS Countering Unmanned Aircraft Systems Coordinator Act;

• Wednesday - HR 5576 – Cyber Deterrence and Response Act of 2018

There are two spending bills from the Senate that may see some action this week. First is the motion to go to conference on HR 6157, Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2019 and Democrat Motion to Instruct Conferees; this is mainly a proforma vote, though there is a remote (very remote) possibility that the House could accept the Senate amendments. That vote is expected today. Next is the expected conference report on HR 5895 – Energy and Water, Legislative Branch, and Military Construction and Veterans Affairs. This vote will come possibly later this week or next.

Senate Passes HR 6157, FY 2019 DOD Spending

Last Thursday the Senate passed HR 6157, the Department of Defense and Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Act, 2019 by a strongly bipartisan vote of 85 to 7. While the base bill did not contain any language of specific interest to readers of this blog, one amendment passed during the closing debate might be of interest.

Cyber Solarium Commission

Amendment SA 3710 (pg S5698) submitted by Sen. Sasse (R,NE) was included in a block of amendments referred to as ‘the manager’s package’ that were agreed to under the unanimous consent process (no vote, no discussion). The amendment allocated $4 million from the existing Operation and

Maintenance, Defense-Wide account to fund the Cyber Solarium Commission established by §1652 of the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2019.

I discussed the Solarium Commission in an earlier post, but it would essentially establish a commission to look at strategic concepts to defend cyber space.

As is becoming typical for Congress, this is not new money for the Commission, nor does it make any hard decisions about where the money will come from. It places that burden on DOD. Granted, $4 million is just a minor blip in the DOD budget, but some other program(s) will have to cut back operations to provide that money.

Moving Forward

Since this is a wholesale rewrite of the House bill, the bill heads back to the House for approval. The House will almost certainly ‘insist’ on their language forcing the bill to a conference committee. There is a decent chance that bill will make it back to the floor of the House and Senate before October 1^st.

Commentary

As is becoming typical for Congress, this is not new money for the Commission, nor does it make any hard decisions about where the money will come from. It places that burden on DOD. Granted, $4 million is just a minor blip in the DOD budget, but some other program(s) will have to cut back operations to provide that money.

I do want to mention in passing another amendment that was included in the manager’s package along with Solarium Commission amendment; SA 3835 (pg 5774) submitted by Sen. Flake (R,AZ). Flake’s amendment would have prohibited DOD from spending any money on the “the development of a beerbot or other robot bartender”. There have been some semi-serious press discussions about this boondoggle spending targeted by Flake’s amendment (see here and here for example), but if you dig down through the links and then read the paper on the MIT research project that started this whole thing, you can see that the research provides a detailed look at how to coordinate complex activities by cooperating robots which have applications far beyond beerbots. I suspect that the research will continue, but using some other sort of application; how about locating and disarming land mines? Of course, that research would have to be classified.

Committee Hearings – Week of 08-19-18

With just the Senate in session this week there will be three cybersecurity related hearings. They will address blockchain, critical infrastructure protection and election security.

Blockchain

On Tuesday the Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing on “Energy Efficiency of Blockchain and Similar Technologies”. The witness list includes:

• Paul Skare, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory;

• Thomas Golden, Electric Power Research Institute;

• Claire Henly, Energy Web Foundation;

• Arvind Narayanan, Princeton University; and

• Robert Kahn, Corporation for National Research Initiatives

As with any technical topic like this, it will be interesting to see during the questioning period how well the staff has prepped the Committee Members.

Critical Infrastructure Protection

On Tuesday the Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on “Cyber Threats to Our Nation’s Critical Infrastructure”. The witness list includes:

• Sujit Raman, DOJ

• Michael J. Moss, Office of the Director of National Intelligence;

• Robert Kolasky, NPPD, DHS;

• Thomas A. Fanning, Southern Company; and

• James A. Lewis, Center for Strategic and International Studies

I certainly expect that control system security, at least in the energy sector, will receive some attention during this hearing.

Election Cybersecurity

On Wednesday the Rules and Administration Committee will hold a mark-up hearing on S 2593, the Secure Elections Act. Substitute language will be considered. I have not covered this bill here and am only mentioning this hearing in passing.

On the Floor

The Senate will continue working on HR 6157 the DOD spending bill that is being expanded to include Health, Human Services and Education in the substitute language being considered in the Senate. A final vote on this bill is possible this week. No cybersecurity related amendments have been offered to date.

Senate to Take Up HR 6157 – FY 2019 DOD Spending

Yesterday the Senate returned from the first part of their abbreviated summer recess as part of their August agenda it was announced that they would take up HR 6157, the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2019. There are at least two nominations that will be dealt with before the consideration process begins on that bill.

The amendment process began yesterday with three amendments being offered. The most important will be SA 3695 (pg S5622-59) being offered by Sen. Shelby (R,AL). This is the substitute language that will be considered instead of the House language on the bill. This language was generally taken from S 3159 (the Senate version of the bill), but also includes language from S 3158, the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2019. Neither bill has been reviewed here as I found little of specific interest to readers of this blog.

House Continues Debate on Amendments to HR 6157 – FY 2019 DOD Spending

Yesterday the House continued debate on HR 6157, the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2019. Both cyber workforce amendments that I discussed earlier were passed by voice votes. Debate was closed on all 29 additional amendments, but votes remain on five of those amendments and a debate on the final bill. Those votes are expected today.

Rules Committee Okays Additional Amendments for HR 6157, FY 2019 DOD Spending

Yesterday the House Rules Committee set the rule for today’s consideration of additional amendments to HR 6157, Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2019. Two cyber related amendments from the list I described last week were added to the total of 29 amendments to be considered today.

The two amendments were:

• #4 from Rep. Hastings (D,FL); it would add $5 million dollars for training and retention of cybersecurity personnel DOD wide (it was #31 on the original list); and

• #21 from Rep. Langevin (D,RI); it would add $10 million to the existing Cyber Scholarship program (it was #57 on the original list)

Both amendments are likely to be approved by voice votes.

Rules Committee Approves Structured Rule for HR 6157, FY 2019 DOD Spending

This evening the House Rules Committee adopted a structured rule for the consideration of HR 6157, the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2019. The rule provides for floor action on a short-list of 24 of the 139 amendments submitted to the Committee last week. Additional amendments will be considered in an additional rule to be developed by the Committee tomorrow.

None of the nine amendments that I discussed briefly on Saturday were included in the initial 24 amendments included in this rule.

The House will probably start debate on this bill tomorrow afternoon.

HR 6157 Introduced – FY 2019 DOD Spending

Last week Rep. Granger (R,TX) introduced HR 6157, the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2019. As expected there is no specific cybersecurity language in the bill, even though Congress continues to require DOD to provide specific cybersecurity spending documentation in the President’s budget request.

There are a number of cyber mentions in the Committee Report that deserve at least passing mention. They include:

• Cloud Computing (pg 9);

• Quarterly Cyber Operations Briefing (pg 10);

• Cybersecurity and Supply Chain Risk Management (pg 233);

• Cyber and Electronic Warfare for the Dismounted Soldier (pg 237); and

• Unmanned Aircraft Systems (pg 287)

Moving Forward

The House Rules Committee accepted proposed amendments through last Thursday to possibly be included in the floor debate of this bill. As of today, there have been 131 amendments proposed. Nine of those amendments maybe of specific interest to readers of this blog:

• Rep. Garamendi (D,CA) #24 Provides $5 million for the purposes of carrying out a GPS backup technology demonstration;

• Rep. Hasting (D,FL) (5; #s 29, 30, 31, 32, and 33) adding $10 million to each of five separate accounts for “funding for the training and retention of cybersecurity professionals.

• Rep. Langevin (D,RI) #57 Provides $10 million to be used for the DOD Cyber Scholarship Program within the Information Systems Security Program;

• Rep. Castro (D,TX) #69 Increases funding by $3m to the RDT&E account to develop and evaluate unique combined sensor for detection and suppression of altered GPS signals in adversarial environments;

• Rep. DeSantis (R,FL) #78 Ensures none of the funds made available by this Act may be used for international cooperation in cybersecurity with the Russian Federation or the People’s Republic of China

The Rules Committee will meet on Monday and Tuesday to formulate the rule for the consideration of HR 6157 and determine which amendments will be authorized to be proposed on the floor of the House during the debate (probably Tuesday and Wednesday).

The Appropriations Committee adopted HR 6157 by a strongly bipartisan vote of 48 to 4. This will probably be reflected in strong bipartisan support for the bill on the floor of the House. The Senate Appropriations Committee is scheduled to complete their work on their version of the bill next week. That language will be substituted for the House language in HR 6157. Passage of the Senate version will necessitate a conference committee to work out the differences between the two bills.

Bills Introduced – 06-20-18

Yesterday with both the House and Senate in session there were 36 bills introduced. Of these, two may be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

HR 6157 Making appropriations for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2019, and for other purposes. Rep. Granger, Kay [R-TX-12]

S 3094 A bill to restrict the department in which the Coast Guard is operating from implementing any rule requiring the use of biometric readers for biometric transportation security cards until after submission to Congress of the results of an assessment of the effectiveness of the transportation security card program. Sen. Sullivan, Dan [R-AK]

I suspect that S 3094 is a companion bill to HR 5729. The OMB has approved the Coast Guard’s rule (but the CG has not yet published the rule) for a limited delay of the TWIC Reader Rule, but it does not appear that that delay is related to what these two bills are attempting to accomplish.