Update on Chemical Facility Security Hearing

The House Homeland Security Committee web site now has a listing of witnesses scheduled to appear before the Friday hearing that I described in yesterday’s blog. As we would expect, Under Secretary Beers will be providing an update on the CFATS implementation.

Private sector witnesses will include:

● Mr. Timothy J. Scott, Chief Security Officer & Global Director of Emergency Services & Security, Dow Chemical Company

● Dr. M. Sam Mannan, PhD, PE, CSP, Director, Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center, Chemical Engineering Department, Texas A&M University

● Mr. George Hawkins, General Manager, D.C. Water

It is interesting to see Dr. Mannan and Mr. Hawkins on the witness list. It would not have been surprising to see them in the last session of Congress. Dr. Mannan would be expected to talk about inherently safer technology and Mr. Hawkins would address chemical security issues at water treatment plants. Since both of those topics are supposedly off of the agenda for the new leadership of the House Homeland Security Committee, their attendance is unexpected. I am certainly looking forward to hearing their testimony and listening to the questions they receive from the Committee.

The other interesting thing about the witness list is the question of who, if anyone, will sit at Sec. Beers side at the witness table. At every other chemical security hearing that he has participated in he has been accompanied by Sue Armstrong as the subject matter expert he relied upon to answer detailed questions about he CFATS implementation. Since it now appears that Ms. Armstrong has been permanently moved up and out of ISCD and the hiring process is on-going for a permanent director (and assistant director) for that organization, it will be interesting to see who fields the detailed questions for Mr. Beers on Friday.

112th House Homeland Security Subcommittee Chairs

The HomelandSecurityNewswire.com web site reported yesterday that Rep. King (R, NY), the Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee in the 112th Congress, announced the sub-committee chair for that committee. Additionally, the Sub-Committee names have apparently been changed to reflect a slightly different focus. The Chair and revised sub-committee names are:

• Rep. Candice Miller (Michigan)[Corrected 8:48 pm 12-23-10], chairman, Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security (Formerly - Subcommittee on Border, Maritime and Global Counterterrorism)

• Rep. Patrick Meehan (Pennsylvania), chairman, Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence (Formerly - Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment)

• Rep. Dan Lungren (California), chairman, Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Security Technologies (Formerly - Subcommittee on Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity, and Science and Technology)

• Rep. Gus Bilirakis (Florida), chairman, Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Communications (Formerly - Subcommittee on Emergency Communications, Preparedness, and Response)

• Rep. Michael T. McCaul (Texas), chairman, Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Management (Formerly - Subcommittee on Management, Investigations, and Oversight)

• Rep. Mike Rogers (Alabama), chairman, Subcommittee on Transportation Security (Formerly Subcommittee on Transportation Security and Infrastructure Protection)

There is a fairly substantial re-working of sub-committee assignments reflected in the new list of Chairs. Only two of the newly appointed Chair (Miller and Lungren) served as Ranking Member in the same Sub-Committee in the 111th Congress. The remaining Chair listed were not even members of the respective Sub-Committee in the current Congress.

All of these sub-committees will have some coverage of issues of interest to the chemical security community. The two major sub-committees for chemical security legislation, however, will be the subcommittees chaired by Rep. Lungren and Rep. Rogers.

Homeland Security Reorganization

I have been wondering why there has been so much inaction on the part of the House Homeland Security Committee; no hearings have been held since Congress convened last month. Last Thursda, an article on HLSWatch.com provided part of the answer, there was a major shuffle of the Democratic membership of the committee. Changing Membership According to the article seven (of eighteen) of last session’s members were removed from the committee and replaced with eight new Democrats. The extra seat (actually one of two extra seats, the other remains empty) for the Democrats reflects their gains in the last election. All of the out-going committee members were re-elected and remain in the Congress. Changes in committee membership are not that unusual. Large changes like these frequently occur at the start of a new session. Some of the changes are due to members requesting committee assignments that are more important to their district. Others may reflect increasing status in another committee that will require more of their time. And, of course, some may reflect demotions directed by the Speaker for a variety of potential political shortcomings. Reorganization According to Friday’s Congressional Record, the House Homeland Security Committee will be holding a re-organization meeting today. Such re-organization is to be expected at the start of any session. There will be a re-shuffling of the assignments to the various sub-committees. There has been no advance indication that there will be any changes in chairmanships. This meeting was not announced on the Committee web site. In fact, there have been no changes made to the web site since the session began. Even the Chairman’s Greeting page is still the same as it was for the last session; welcoming visitors to the 110th Congress. I am more than mildly surprised because Chairman Thompson made very effective use of this web site during the last session. Hopefully, with this re-organization complete, we will see the Committee start to work on a variety of important issue. From the perspective of this blog, the most important issue will be the re-authorization of the CFATS program. No bill has been introduced yet. It will be interesting to see if Chairman Thompson re-submits the HR 5377 bill written last session, or starts over with a new bill.