Committee Hearings – Week of 7-16-23

This week with both the House and Senate in Washington and the summer recess looming we see a typical load of hearings scheduled for both bodies. Spending bills are being marked up by both Appropriations Committees. We have an rule hearing (FAA authorization) of interest and an energy threats hearing in the House. And there are two markup hearings of interest here in the Senate.

Spending Bills

	House	Senate
THUD	Full Committee	Full Committee
IER	Full Committee
EWD		Full Committee

FAA Authorization Rule

This afternoon the House Rules Committee will meet to formulate the rule for the consideration of HR 3935, the Securing Growth and Robust Leadership in American Aviation Act. This annual ‘must-pass’ bill includes cybersecurity and UAS provisions that may be of interest here (I am working on my analysis). There have been 356 amendments proposed to the Rules Committee as of this morning.

Note: The version of the bill being considered by the Committee actually includes two additional, related bills: HR 3559 - FAA Research and Development Act of 2023, and HR 3796 - To provide for the extension of taxes funding the Airport and Airway Trust Fund and to require the designation of certain airports as ports of entry.

Energy Threats

Tomorrow the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on “Examining Emerging Threats to Electric Energy Infrastructure”. No witness list is available. This will probably include cybersecurity threats, but could also address supply chain issues and physical security threats.

Senate Markups

On Wednesday, the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee will hold a business meeting to consider 25 bills, including S 1458, the SECURE Small Business Act.

Also on Wednesday, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will hold a business meeting to consider 21 bills, including S 2256, the Federal Cybersecurity Workforce Expansion Act. The language for that bill has not yet been printed by the GPO, so I am not sure what the provisions are.

On the Floor

As I noted above, the House will consider the FAA reauthorization bill, starting on Wednesday.

The House will take up only four bills this week under their suspension of the rules process. Again, this is a much lighter schedule of consideration of these consensus bills than we have seen in recent years.

It looks like next week will see the first spending bills coming to the floor of the House. The House Rules committee has set amendment deadlines for HR 4368 (ARD spending) and HR 4366 (Military Construction). These will be somewhat contentious debates, but both will probably pass with narrow majorities.

Review - S 1458 Introduced – SECURE Small Business Act

NOTE: Corrected bill number in title 0642 EST 5-28-23

Earlier this month, Sen Cortez-Masto introduced S 1458, the Strengthening and Enhancing Cybersecurity Usage to Reach Every (SECURE) Small Business Act. The bill would require the Small Business Administration to establish a program to assist small business concerns with purchasing cybersecurity products and services. No funding authorization is included in this legislation.

Moving Forward

While Cortez-Masto is not a member of the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration, her sole co-sponsor {Sen Risch (R,ID)} is a member. This means that there may be sufficient influence to see the bill considered in Committee. I see nothing in this bill that would engender any organized opposition. I suspect that there will be substantial bipartisan support for the bill if it were considered.

As with most bills in the Senate, this legislation is not important enough to be considered under regular order. If it were to be considered by the full Senate, it would most likely be as an amendment to an authorization or spending bill.

Commentary

The wording for the sunset provision in the bill is more than a little odd. Even if the bill were enacted next month (extremely unlikely) the SBA is given six months to establish the marketplace, which means some time in December (and few programs get established in the congressionally mandated timeframe). This means that in an unrealistic world, the program would be in existence for little more than nine months, hardly enough time to see if the program were effective, and certainly not time enough for congress to reauthorize if it were even overwhelmingly effective. These sunset provisions are not usually tied to a date certain, but rather they are typically expressed in a period of 2 to 5 years from the date of enactment.

 

For more details about the provisions of this bill, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/s-1459-introduced - subscription required.

Bills Introduced – 5-4-23

Yesterday, with just the Senate in Washington, there were 42 bills introduced. Three of those bills may receive additional coverage in this blog:

S 1443 A bill to require an interagency strategy for creating a unified posture on counter-unmanned aircraft systems (C-UAS) capabilities and protections at international borders of the United States. Lankford, James [Sen.-R-OK]

S 1458 A bill to require the Administrator of the Small Business Administration to establish a program to assist small business concerns with purchasing cybersecurity products and services, and for other purposes. Cortez Masto, Catherine [Sen.-D-NV]

S 1463 A bill to establish a defense industrial base advanced capabilities pilot program. Rosen, Jacky [Sen.-D-NV] 

I will be covering S 1443.

I will be watching S 1458 for definitions and language that would include control system security products in the scope of the coverage of the bill.

I will be watching S 1463 for definitions and language that would include cybersecurity within the scope of the capabilities covered by the proposed pilot program.