Review - HR 4754 Introduced – FY 2026 IER Spending

Back in July Rep Simpson (R,ID) introduced HR 4754, the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies [IER] Appropriations Act, 2026. The House Appropriations Committee published their Report on the bill. There is no specific cybersecurity funding mentioned in the bill. The bill does contain reduced funding for the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB).

HR 4754 is similar to HR 8998, the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies [IER] Appropriations Act, 2024, that was introduced by Simpson in July 2024. That bill was passed in the House on July 24th, 2024, in a party-line vote. No action was taken in the Senate.

Moving Forward

It is not clear at this point if this bill will make it to the floor of the House for consideration. It was hoped by the Republican leadership that a short CR would have allowed for consideration of each of the spending bills in an apparently outdated regular order. That process is wholly dependent on a CR being passed before midnight of September 30^th. A government shutdown will almost certainly ultimately lead to an agreement on another year end massive spending bill.

 

For more information on cybersecurity and CSB funding see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-4754-introduced-fy-2026-ier-spending - subscription required.

Review - S 4802 Introduced – FY 2025 IER Spending

Last month, Sen Merkley (D,OR) introduced S 4802, the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2025. The Senate Appropriations Committee published their Report on the bill. The bill contains one minor cybersecurity mention. It also includes funding for the Chemical Safety Board. The Committee Report includes two cybersecurity discussions, a discussion about the CSB, and three chemical safety issues.

The House version of this bill is HR 8998 [removed from paywall]. That bill passed in the House on July 24^th, by a straight party-line vote of 210 to 202.

Moving Forward

As noted above, the House passed HR 8998 last month. If the Senate takes up that bill (and the chances are rather slim), the language from this bill will be substituted for the House language as the starting point for the debate. While there will be sufficient bipartisan support for this language in the Senate for passage, there will be some Republicans that will attempt to stall debate.

Ultimately, the chances of any individual spending bill getting to the President’s desk this session are vanishingly small. We are most likely going to see a continuing resolution by the end of next month. With Republicans less confident in Trump's election we are likely to see an end date for that CR early in December. A positive (for the Republicans) election result will likely see a second CR pushing the final date of an omnibus (or two minibus) spending bill until next Spring. A negative result will likely see a spending bill on Biden’s desk in December.

 

For more details about the provisions in this bill and the discussions in the Committee Report, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/s-4802-introduced - subscription required.

H Res 1370 – Rule for Consideration of HR 8997 and HR 8998

Earlier today, the House Rules Committee met to formulate the rule for the consideration of HR 8997, the FY 2025 EWR spending bill, and HR 8998, the FY 2025 IER spending bill. The Committee crafted H Res 1370 to govern the consideration of the two bills. The Committee also published their Report to accompany H Res 1370.

The rule provides that both bills will be addressed separately under nearly identical structured rules. This limits debate and provides a limited number of amendments that will be considered for each bill on the floor of the House. The allowed amendments are listed in appendixes to Committee’s Report; 65 amendments for HR 8997 and 97 amendments for HR 8998. Text of the authorized amendments are included in the Report.

In my CFSN Detailed Analysis post (subscription required) for HR 8997 I identified one amendment submitted by Rep Moylan (R,Guam) that might be of interest here; that amendment was included in the list of 65 amendments to be offered on the floor – Amendment # 30 (link to original amendment submitted to the Rules Committee). That amendment proposed to increase and decreases the Department of Energy Energy Programs, Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response account to emphasize the need of Guam Power Authority for a Department of Energy assessment on the cybersecurity of Guam's energy installations.

In my CFSN Detailed Analysis post (subscription required) for HR 8997 I identified one amendment submitted by Rep DeSaulnier (D,CA) that might be of interest here; that amendment was not included in the floor package for the bill. DeSaulnier’s amendment would have increased the FY 2025 spending for the Chemical Safety Board by $1 million.

 

Review - HR 8998 Introduced – FY 2025 IER Spending

Earlier this month, Rep Simpson (R,ID) introduced HR 8898, the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies [IER] Appropriations Act, 2024. The House Appropriations Committee published their Report on the bill. There is no specific cybersecurity funding mentioned in the bill. The bill does contain reduced funding for the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) and one chemical safety funding restriction. The Report discusses one cybersecurity spending issue and several chemical safety initiatives.

Moving Forward

This very partisan spending bill is scheduled to be considered this week. There will be no Democrats voting to support this bill, so the leadership will need nearly every Republican vote to pass the bill. The question is, will the radical wing of the party think that the bill goes far enough to castrate the operations of the EPA. If their answer is no, this bill will not pass.

 

For more details about the provisions of this legislation, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-8998-introduced - subscription required.

Review - HR 4821 Introduced – FY 2024 IER Spending

Back in July, Rep Simpson (R,ID) introduced HR 4821, the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies [IER] Appropriations Act, 2024. The House Appropriations Committee published their Report on the bill. There is no specific cybersecurity funding mentioned in the bill. The bill does contain reduced funding for the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB). The Report discusses several chemical safety initiatives.

Proposed Amendments

Back on September 22^nd,  the House Rules Committee solicited amendment proposals for HR 4821, There have been 258 amendments submitted to the Committee. None of those amendments deal with cybersecurity issues or chemical safety issues. Interestingly, 22 separate amendments were proposed reducing the salary of various agencies’ executives to $1.

Moving Forward

The House Rules Committee had been scheduled to hold a rule hearing in this bill on Tuesday when the House was reduced to chaos by the vacation (okay that is not the real word that applies, but it came to mind, and it sounds good) of the Speakership. Sometime after the House votes in a new Speaker (and some Chairs get shuffled, maybe), this hearing will get heard. Unfortunately, those changes will not address the underlying problems that I outlined in June in my ‘Coming FY 2024 Spending Bill Logjams’ post. In fact, I suspect that they have just gotten worse as there will be less incentive for the new Republican leadership to compromise with the Democrats on conference versions of the bill.

 

For more details about the provisions of the bill and the discussions in the Report, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-4821-introduced - subscription required.

HR 4372 Introduced – FY 2022 IER Spending

Earlier this week Rep Pingree (D,ME) introduced HR 4372, the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2022. The House Appropriations Committee Report on the bill was also published. There were no cyber provisions in the bill (beyond agency internal cyber spending), but there are two cybersecurity ‘mentions in passing’. Continued CSB funding is included in the bill.

CSB Funding

The bill (pgs 131-2) provides FY 2022 funding for the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) at $13.4 million, this is an increase over the $12 million allocated in last year’s bill (HR 7612) and is the amount requested in the Biden Budget. This marks a change from the Trump effort to close out the Agency.

The report notes (pg 134) the fact that there is currently only one of the five authorized Board members currently approved by the Senate. Biden has nominated three more Board members, those nominations are pending in the Senate.

Cybersecurity Mentions in Passing

During the discussion about ‘marijuana on public lands’ (pg 8) the Report discusses the use of drones to conduct remote sensing surveys to identify grow sites. The Committee supports those efforts and allows for “the development of cost estimates for reclamation after concerns about [drone] cybersecurity, technology, and domestic production have been addressed.”

In the discussion of homeland security within the EPA (pg 80) the report notes:

“The Committee is aware of reports of cyber intrusions into critical water infrastructure and notes the continuing vulnerability of the water sector to cyberthreats. The Agency is directed to periodically brief the Committee on the actions it is taking to protect against this and other threats.”

Moving Forward

This bill will be brought to the floor of the House later this month. The bill will be considered under regular order with a rule establishing the length of debate and the (numerous) amendments that will be allowed to be offered on the floor. The bill should pass on a near party-line vote. If the recent pass is any predictor (and I think that it is in this case, particularly), the Senate will not get around to taking up the bill because of their inability to craft language that would get support from 60-Senators. We will see the now typical December omnibus spending bill.

Bills Introduced – 09-26-19

Yesterday with both the House and Senate preparing to leave Washington for a two-week recess, there were 114 bills introduced. Four of these bills may see additional coverage in this blog:

S 2556 A bill to amend the Federal Power Act to provide energy cybersecurity investment incentives, to establish a grant and technical assistance program for cybersecurity investments, and for other purposes. Sen. Murkowski, Lisa [R-AK]

S 2580 An original bill making appropriations for the Department of the Interior, environment, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2020, and for other purposes. Sen. Murkowski, Lisa [R-AK]

S 2582 An original bill making appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2020, and for other purposes. Sen. Capito, Shelley Moore [R-WV]

S 2584 An original bill making appropriations for the Departments of Commerce and Justice, Science, and Related Agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2020, and for other purposes. Sen. Moran, Jerry [R-KS]

Bills Introduced – 06-03-19

Yesterday with both the House and Senate in session, there were 24 bills introduced. Three of those bills are likely to see additional coverage in this blog:

HR 3052 Making appropriations for the Department of the Interior, environment, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2020, and for other purposes. Rep. McCollum, Betty [D-MN-4] 

HR 3055 Making appropriations for the Departments of Commerce and Justice, Science, and Related Agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2020, and for other purposes. Rep. Serrano, Jose E. [D-NY-15]

HR 3060 To provide for reform and reorganization of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and for other purposes. Rep. Jackson Lee, Sheila [D-TX-18] 

As usual, I will be watching the spending bills for cybersecurity language (particularly for industrial control systems) and chemical safety provisions.

HR 3060 may be interesting. I suspect that it will mainly deal with hurricane response issues, but I will but could include language making changes to grant programs and there is a remote chance that emergency response planning (both for chemical and cyber incidents) may be covered.

HR 6147 Passed in House

Yesterday the House passed HR 6147, the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2019 by a strongly partisan vote of 217 to 199 (15 Republicans did note Nay). The floor amendment process took three days, but none of the amendments were of specific interest to readers of this blog.

The Senate is scheduled to start consideration of this bill on Monday after the vote on the Wilke nomination at 5:30 pm EDT. No amendments have been proposed yet in the Senate (that will start on Monday as well), but one of the first will be substitute language taken from S 3073. That bill would also include full funding for the Chemical Safety Board, but at $11 million dollar (FY 2018 level) instead of the $12 million in the House bill.

Committee Hearings – Week of 07-15-18

With both the House and Senate in Washington there will be a fairly active committee schedule, but little of specific interest to readers of this bill. There will be a rules hearing on a spending bill that will be considered this week in the House.

HR 6147 – IER Spending

Today the House Rules Committee will hold a rules hearing to establish a structured rule for the consideration of HR 6147, Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2019. Actually, this will be another mini-bus consideration as HR 6258, the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, 2019, is being added to the bill for consideration in the House.

The Committee has received 170 amendments for the IER portion of the bill, but none of them are of specific interest to readers of this blog. The Committee will select a portion of those (and of the 85 offered for the HR 6258 portion of the bill) to be considered on the floor of the House later this week.

On the Floor

As noted above, HR 6147 will come to the House floor either Tuesday or Wednesday of this week. It will pass, but there is little likelihood that the bill will receive substantial bipartisan support.

We have seen substantial progress this year on spending bills in the House but have yet to see any real action in the Senate. Part of this is due to the backlog of nominations that still plagues the Senate and the procedural delays in the consideration of those nominations. Another part of the problem is an unintended consequence of the decision to reduce the length of the summer recess in the Senate. This has reduced some of the pressure on the Senate to act early on the spending bills that have passed in the House.

Unfortunately, this could backfire on the leadership. The House has not announced a reduction in their summer recess schedule. This means that they will likely be recess when the Senate completes action on at least some of the spending bills. This means that a vote to go to conference will likely be delayed on those bills until the House comes back to Washington in September.

There is a way out of that dilemma, but it would require a great deal of cooperation and trust between Ryan and Pelosi. Since the House will meet in pro forma session throughout their recess there could be unanimous consent votes on going to conference during the proforma sessions. With no one calling for role call votes, the two representatives representing the Speaker and the Minority Leader could go through the procedural dance of initiating the conference committees. Unfortunately, with pressure of both Ryan and Pelosi from their party’s more radical elements, this is unlikely to take place.

HR 6147 Introduced – FY 2019 IER Spending

Earlier this week Rep. Calvert (R,CA) introduced HR 6147, the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2019. The only thing of note for the purposes of this blog is that the bill continues funding for the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) and that would not be news except for continued budget suggestions from the Administration that the CSB be disbanded. Water treatment facility security is briefly addressed in the Committee Report.

CSB Funding

The bill funds the CSB at $12 million dollars. This is $1 million above last year’s spending and $3.5 million above the amount recommended in the President’s budget to close out the agency. The Committee Report notes that (pg 84):

“The Board has the responsibility of independently investigating industrial chemical accidents and collaborating with industry and professional organizations to share safety lessons that can prevent catastrophic incidents and the Committee expects this work to continue.”

Water Treatment Facility Security

There is a brief note in the Report on funding for a Water Security Test Bed. No specific funding is allocated, just the note that:

“For both fiscal year 2019 and future budget requests, the Committee recommends that EPA include adequate funding for advancing full scale applied research and testing capabilities to address threats to drinking water and drinking water infrastructure.”

Moving Forward

The Report does not include any record of the votes in Committee on this bill, but the Dissenting Views portion of the Report (pgs 217-20) makes it clear that there are serious concerns about many items included in the bill. There will not be any significant bipartisan support for this bill when it makes it to the floor of the House. With the Republicans firmly in control in the House, this will not stop the bill from moving forward.

Again, as with all spending bills this may not be an impediment to the bill’s consideration in the Senate. We have yet to see the Senate version of the bill, but if we continue to have the strong bipartisan activity that we have seen to date in the Senate Appropriations Committee, the bill coming out of that Committee (which will form the basis for substitute language for this bill) will allow the Senate to take up this bill without regard to the Democrats documented objections to this bill.

Commentary

I am certainly glad to see the Committee’s continued strong support for the CSB. The on-going effective activity of this organization is still, however, in the President’s hands. With the resignation of the CSB Chair Sutherland, the President can slow kill the agency by failing to appoint a new chair. While Dr. Kulinowski, the Interim Executive Authority, is fully capable of overseeing the day-to-day operations of the Board, the solving of endemic morale issues and the long-term growth of the Board will have to await the next Chair.

While I was encouraged to see the Committee support a Water Treatment Facility Test Bed, I was disappointed to see the lack of specific funding being earmarked for such a facility or any guidance on what type of activities the facility should target. The EPA has a history of providing support for physical security protections of water treatment facilities to protect the safety of the water quality. The history on providing support for hazardous chemical security or cybersecurity is not quite as strong. This would have been a good place for the Committee to expand the scope of water treatment facility security oversight. At the very least, I would have expected to see a requirement to report to the Committee on the progress being made on the Test Bed.

Bills Introduced – 06-19-18

Yesterday with both the House and Senate in session there were 36 bills introduced. Of those there are three that may be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

HR 6147 Making appropriations for the Department of the Interior, environment, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2019, and for other purposes. Rep. Calvert, Ken [R-CA-42] 

S 3085 A bill to establish a Federal Acquisition Security Council and to provide executive agencies with authorities relating to mitigating supply chain risks in the procurement of information technology, and for other purposes. Sen. McCaskill, Claire [D-MO]

S 3088 A bill to amend the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to require the Secretary of Energy to establish a program to prepare veterans for careers in the energy industry, including the solar, wind, cybersecurity, and other low-carbon emissions sectors or zero-emissions sectors of the energy industry, and for other purposes. Sen. Duckworth, Tammy [D-IL]

HR 6147 is one of those spending bills that I expect will not receive any additional coverage here, but you never can tell what may be slipped into the Committee Report.

I will be watching S 3085 for the definitions it uses. Hopefully, someone on the staff realizes that the Federal government is a consumer of control systems in various guises.

Depending on the definitions used here for ‘cybersecurity’ I may be watching S 3088 for its effects on cybersecurity manpower development.