Committee Hearings – Week of 12-04-16

The House and the Senate are both in Washington for what could be the last week of the 114^th Congress. As you would suspect, the hearing schedule is light, but there is one hearing on transportation security that might be of interest to readers of this blog.

Transportation Security

The Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety, and Security Subcommittee of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee will be holding a hearing on Wednesday on “Assessing the Security of Our Critical Transportation Infrastructure”. This hearing will focus on surface transportation. The witness list includes:

• John Roth, Inspector General, DHS;

• Chief Neil Trugman, Interim Chief of Police, Amtrak

• Mr. Chris Spear, President and CEO, American Trucking Association

• Mr. Tony Straquadine, Manager of Commercial and Government Affairs, Alliance Pipeline;

• Mr. Tom Belfiore, Chief Security Officer, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey

Obviously, nothing will come of this hearing this session, but the information will carry over to help shape how the staff deals with transportation security issues in the next session. As is usual, watching the questions is more important than listening to the testimony.

On the Floor

The only thing currently of specific interest to readers of this blog to be scheduled to be voted on in the House and Senate this week is the Continuing Resolution to continue funding the government past the current FY 2017 funding that expires on December 9^th. The current ‘plan’ is to pass a short-term measure to carry the current funding rate some time past the Trump inauguration to allow the new President to have input on the final FY 2017 spending bill.

The House Majority Leader does note that the current schedule of items to be considered under suspension of the rules may not be complete. We will have to watch for changes on a daily basis. I half expect HR 6381, the DHS ‘improvement’ bill, to be added to the list.

HR 6381 Introduced – Homeland Security Improvements

Earlier in the lame duck session Rep. McCaul (R,TX) introduced HR 6381, the ‘DHS Reform and Improvement Act. This is essentially a DHS authorization bill, except that it only specifically authorizes funds for some of the programs described in the bill, not for the Department as a whole. The bill has been cobbled together from a wide variety of previously introduced (and in some cases amended) bills.

The bill is as wide ranging as is the coverage of DHS. Sections within this bill that may be of specific interest to readers of this blog include:

Sec. 101. Drone assessment and analysis;

Sec. 212. Transportation Worker Identification Credential waiver and appeals process;

Sec. 533. Medical Countermeasures Program;

Sec. 601. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection Agency;

Sec. 701. Improving cybersecurity risk assessments, information sharing, and Coordination;

Sec. 702. Cybersecurity enhancements to maritime security activities;

Sec. 703. Vulnerability assessments and security plans;

Sec. 801. Authorization of the National Computer Forensics Institute of the Department of Homeland Security;

Sec. 901. CBRNE Office;

Sec. 902. Chemical Division;

Sec. 1901. [Cybersecurity] Information sharing;

Sec. 1902. Homeland security [cybersecurity] grants;

Sec. 2101. Cybersecurity research and development projects;

Sec. 3001. State and local coordination on cybersecurity with the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center;

Sec. 3231. Surface Transportation Inspectors; and

Sec. 3234. Security training for frontline transportation workers;

I am not going to attempt to describe the provisions of all of the above sections; I’ve dealt with each of them in discussing their source legislation. Suffice to say there is nothing new here and I have not been able to find any significant changes in any of the provisions.

It looks like McCaul is making one last attempt to get Congress to address all of these homeland security issues. Addressing the individual bills piecemeal in the lame duck session is simply not possible, even under suspension of the rules. There is a remote chance that this bill could be considered, but first McCaul has to convince nine other Committee Chairs to sign-off on the bill before it comes to the floor.

I suspect that the bill could pass with some bipartisan support. The question is whether or not there is enough bipartisan support to allow the bill to be considered under suspension of the rules. If not, the bill is unlikely to be considered in the House and would never be considered in the Senate before the end of the session.

Bills Introduced – 11-18-16

Yesterday with only the House in a very short session there were 12 bills introduced. One of those bills may be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

HR 6381 To provide for certain homeland security improvements, and for other purposes. Rep. McCaul, Michael T. [R-TX-10]

This looks like it could be a very wide ranging bill as it was referred to ten committees for consideration. This could be interesting.