Bills Introduced – 05-04-15

There were eleven bills introduced in the Senate yesterday (the House not being in session). Only one of those bills may be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

S 1180 A bill to amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to direct the Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to modernize the integrated public alert and warning system of the United... Sen. Johnson, Ron [R-WI]

This is almost certainly the bill that will be marked up in the SHSGA Committee tomorrow. Until I see the actual text, I won’t be able to tell how this bill will affect the House committee conflict on this topic.

Bills Introduced – 3-19-15

Yesterday as the House and Senate prepared to leave town on a three-day weekend a total of 106 bills were introduced. Of those, three may be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

HR 1461 - To repeal certain provisions of titles 23 and 49, United States Code, and for other purposes. Rep. Massie, Thomas [R-KY-4]

HR 1472 - To establish a modernized national Integrated Public Alert and Warning System, and for other purposes. Rep. Barletta, Lou [R-PA-11]

S 797 - A bill to amend the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act of 1976, and for other purposes. Sen. Booker, Cory A. [D-NJ]

HR 1461 may be similar to HR 1483, to amend titles 23 and 49, United States Code, to repeal wage requirements applicable to laborers and mechanics employed on Federal-aid highway and public transportation construction projects. If so, I will not mention it again.

HR 1472 may be similar to HR 3283 from last session. That bill was ordered reported by the Homeland Security Committee, but was never taken up by the Whole House.

The title to S 797 is so vague that there is no telling what it covers. If it addresses hazmat shipping issues, then it will receive future mention here.

S 2664 Introduced – Public Alert System

As I noted earlier Sen. Begich (D,AK) introduced S 2664, the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System Modernization Act of 2014. This bill appears to be very similar to HR 3283 that was ordered reported in the House back in April. It is probably a ‘companion bill’ but it is hard to tell because the House Homeland Security Committee has not yet actually reported the much amended bill, so we cannot see exactly what that bill looks like.

I don’t see anything particularly objectionable to anyone in the bill, so it would not seem that there would be any great impediment to its passage in either the House or Senate. The greatest obstacle will be convincing the leadership to actually bring the bill to the floor in the election season after the summer recess.