Congressional Hearings – Week of 9-15-13

Actions to be taken in the House this week will determine whether or not the House will take their scheduled district work week next week, the 2014 spending bills or a continuing resolution need to be passed before October 1^st or the government will be shut down pending congressional action. With that hanging overhead there are a number of congressional hearings scheduled for the week, some of which will be of interest to the chemical safety and security and cybersecurity communities.

Terror Threat

The Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence of the House Homeland Security Committee will hold a hearing on Wednesday on "Understanding the Threat to the Homeland from AQAP". No witness list is available yet so there is no telling if they are looking at potential cyber or chemical threats or something more conventional.

Markup Hearings

On the same day the Homeland Security Committee will hold a markup hearing on two bills, HR 2952 and a bill yet to be introduced. The new bill, expected to be introduced Tuesday by Rep Clarke (D,NY), will address cybersecurity workforce issues in the federal government. A committee draft is available.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will be holding a business meeting on Monday evening. There is no agenda available yet so we don’t know which bills will be marked up or even if there will be any legislation considered.

Transportation Safety and Security

On Wednesday the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will be holding a hearing on "Implementing MAP-21's Provisions to Accelerate Project Delivery". There are no details or witness list available, so it is difficult to determine which MAP-21 provisions will be addressed in this hearing.

Spending

The House Majority Leader’s web site continues to show the consideration of a continuing resolution (CR) later in the week, but there are no indications which of the two competing resolutions (or perhaps a third one) will actually be considered. We can expect to see a Rules Committee hearing. The House Republican leadership is trying to get a consensus bill passed that has some chance of passage in the Senate or can be hammered into an acceptable bill in conference. The right-wing activist portion of the Republican majority is trying to get a CR passed that would stop all funding for ‘Obamacare’.  That would lock up in the Senate and probably bring the government to at least a short period shutdown.

PHMSA Resumption of Transportation NPRM

The Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration (PHMSA) published a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) in today’s Federal Register (78 FR 30258-30266) implementing Congressional requirements for the agency’s enhanced enforcement procedures resumption of transportation rules. These requirements were set forth in §33009 of MAP 21 (PL 112-141).

The proposed regulation would:

• Clarify the Department's position with respect to perishable hazardous material, by amending the opening of packages provision of the Department's hazardous materials procedural regulations for the opening of packages, emergency orders, and emergency recalls;

• Recognizes the special characteristics and handling requirements of perishable hazardous material by clarifying that an agent will stop or open a package containing a perishable hazardous material only after the agent has utilized appropriate alternatives;

• Codify the statutory notification requirement in HMTSIA by incorporating into the regulations the Department's current notification procedures from the operations manual that was developed in conjunction with the PHM-7 final rule; and

• Add a new provision to address appropriate equipment for inspectors.

Public comments on this NPRM are being solicited by PHMSA. Public comments may be filed via the Federal eRulemaking Portal {www.Regulations.gov; Docket #PHMSA-2012-0259 (HM-258B)}. Comments must be received by July 22^nd, 2013.

BTW: The MAP-21 requirements include a mandate for the Secretary to have these regulations finalized by July 6^th, 2013; an unrealistic requirement if there ever was one and one that will obviously not be met.