Bills Introduced – 07-09-15

Yesterday there were 62 bills introduced in the House and Senate. Only two of those bills may be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

HR 3000 To require the Administrator for General Services to obtain an antivirus product to make available to Federal agencies in order to provide the product to individuals whose personally identifiable... Rep. Cartwright, Matt [D-PA-17]

S 1732 A bill to authorize elements of the Department of Transportation, and for other purposes. Sen. Thune, John [R-SD]

I can’t wait to see the actual language of HR 3000. It currently looks like it is in the running for the most humorous bill introduced this session.

S 1732 looks like it will be the Senate version of a long-term transportation authorization bill, though it could end up being just another short term stop-gap while Congress still tries to figure out how to fund transportation infrastructure spending. In any case I will be watching it for hazmat issues and now control system issues.

Committee Hearings – Week of 06-21-15

Both the House and Senate will be in Washington this week and having a fairly normal hearing schedule. Only five hearings of potential specific interest to readers of this blog; two on the OPM hack, one cybersecurity markup, a hearing on vehicle-to-vehicle communications and the Senate version of the THUD spending bill.

OPM Hack

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will be holding part 2 of their hearing on the OPM hack on Wednesday. No witness list has been made available yet.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will look at the OPM hack and the larger issue of Federal cybersecurity on Thursday.

Vehicle-to- Vehicle Communications

On Thursday the Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee will be meeting on Thursday to look at “Vehicle to Vehicle Communications and Connected Roadways of the Future”.

Cybersecurity Markup

The Senate Homeland Security Committee will be holding a business meeting on Wednesday. One of the bills that they will be marking up in the Einstein Act (will probably be introduced today). Nothing certain yet, but it looks like it will probably deal with the Einstein cybersecurity programs being deployed across the Federal government.

FY 2016 THUD Spending Bill

The Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee will be holding a markup hearing on the FY 2015 THUD spending bill tomorrow. We did not see any crude oil train or chemical transportation safety measures in the original House bill (HR 2577) but some did make it in during the floor amendment process. We will have to wait and see what the Senate Appropriations Committee does with this bill.

On the Floor

We have a number of homeland security related bills coming to the floor of the House this week including two that I have been following in this blog; HR 2200 (CBRN Intel) and HR 1646 (Drone Assessment). I did a post yesterday on the committee report on HR 2200 and I am waiting for the GPO to publish the report on HR 1646. The bills are expected to come to the floor on Tuesday under suspension of the rules; so no amendments will be made.