Senate Chemical Security Committee Reports

There have been a number of pieces of legislation in the 111th Congress that have been of some potential concern to the chemical security community that have stalled in the Senate after the appropriate committee ordered the bill to be reported favorably. After months of seeming inactivity, the following such bills were reported last week:

• HR 2868 – Chemical and Water Security Act of 2009
• S 773 – Cybersecurity Act of 2009
• S 1274 – A bill to amend title 46, United States Code, to ensure that the prohibition on disclosure of maritime transportation security information is not used inappropriately to shield certain other information from public disclosure, and for other purposes.
• S 1649 – Weapons of Mass Destruction Prevention and Preparedness Act
• S 3480 – Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010

Amendment in form of Substitute

Each of these bills was passed in committee with bipartisan support. They were also amended with a significant re-write of the wording of the legislation in what is called an “amendment in the form of a substitute”. In each case there was no public record of the final form of that proposed legislative wording; that public disclosure is typically made in the report the committee files on the bill. That report also contains a detailed explanation of what the committee expects that legislation to accomplish; what is known as ‘congressional intent’.

In the three bills reported by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HR 2868, S 1649, and S 3480), the bills were reported with a Senate Report number provided, though as of this morning, there is no copy of that report available through the Government Printing Office. The two remaining bills (S 773 and S 1274) were reported by the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee without a written report. In other words, starting the final week of the 111th Congress, we still don’t know what the final amended versions of these bills looks like.

No Further Action Expected

While each of these bills passed in committee with bipartisan support, they were controversial enough in their provisions to have garnered significant opposition; enough opposition that, in all but one case, there was little chance of the bill actually making it to a floor vote in the Senate. This was part of the reason for the delay in the reports being filed; there were significant behind the scenes negotiations being made to find accommodations that could be made to allow the bills to be passed.

The exception in this list is S 1274. This bill, as long time readers will remember, was introduced by Senators Rockefeller and Byrd, both from West Virginia. It was introduced in reaction to the disclosed efforts made by Bayer CropScience to hide information about a fatal chemical accident at their Institute, WV from the Chemical Safety Board by declaring the information to be protected from disclosure by the Maritime Transportation Security Act (MTSA). Wording effectively similar to this bill was successfully included in the FY 2010 DHS appropriations bill.

At this late date, no further action is expected on any of these bills. The filing of these reports just officially closes out the committee action on these bills. The Homeland Security Committee reports will eventually be printed by the GPO to become part of the historical record. When the Senate adjourns for the last time later this week, any future action on these legislative efforts will have to start all over again in the 112th Congress, and most of them will probably re-appear in early 2011.

S 3480 Passes in Committee

The cyber security bill, S 3480, that I mentioned earlier this week, was ordered reported favorably out of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Thursday. As I expected it was amended with substitute wording on a voice vote, and the details are not available. There were no indications that there was the addition of any significant ICS security measures. As I mentioned in my earlier blog we will just have to wait for the bill to actually be reported and that could take a while; we are still waiting for the report on the Lieberman-Collins WMD bill (S 1649) that was ordered reported back in November.

At the same hearing the Committee also ordered reported favorably the nomination of Nomination of John S. Pistole to be an Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security (TSA). That report (a much less formal document) was acted upon by the Senate today when they confirmed Pistole to be the head of TSA.

Congressional Hearings Week of 11-02-09

While Congress is fast reaching the end of the Second Session, there are still new bills being introduced and Congressional Hearings being held. This week there are four hearings currently scheduled that look like they may be of interest to the chemical security community. Both Homeland Security Committees, the Rules Committee and the Committee on Science and Technology in the House will be conducting these hearings. Two of the hearings have been discussed previously. The Rules Committee hearing on Tuesday at 3:00 pm EST will establish the rule for the consideration of HR 2868, the newly renamed Chemical and Water Security Act of 2009. The Senate Homeland Security Committee will complete their business meeting on November 4th at 10:00 am EST; this will include the markup of S 1649, the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Prevention and Preparedness Act of 2009, and HR 553, the Reducing Over-Classification Act of 2009 which I discussed last week. The Subcommittee on Emergency Communications, Preparedness and Response, of the House Homeland Security Committee will be marking up two bills affecting support for first responders. High-risk chemical facilities will normally rely heavily on first responders for major portions of their emergency response to terrorist attacks, so they should be very interested in federal support for such agencies. I haven’t seen one of the two bills they are marking up, First Responder Anti-Terrorism Resources Act, but it certainly sounds like it should fall into that category. This hearing will be held on November 3rd at 10:00 am EST. The final hearing of note is another unseen bill markup, this time by the House Science and Technology Committee’s Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation. They will be marking up the Cybersecurity Coordination and Awareness Act. Since this bill has not been submitted, there is no copy publicly available. If this has anything to do with the control system security, the chemical security community will certainly be interested, but even a purely IT security bill should be of some interest.

Hearings Week of 10-26-09

There is only one Congressional hearing currently scheduled this week that will be of interest to the chemical security community. This is a business meeting of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Operations community to be held on Wednesday, 10-28-09, at 10:00 am EDT. The agenda looks like it will be a lengthy meeting with a number of nominations and bills naming post offices to be considered. There will be two bills (among a number of others) that will be marked up; S 1649, the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Prevention and Preparedness Act of 2009, and HR 553, the Reducing Over-Classification Act of 2009. I have covered the Senate bill briefly in an earlier blog. HR 553 was pushed quickly through the House in February and I didn’t get a chance to take a good look at it, but it is very similar to a bill that was introduced by Rep Harmon (D, CA) last year. It would require the Secretary of Homeland Security to develop a strategy to prevent the over-classification of homeland security information and encourage the sharing of that information; both could ultimately affect CFATS information sharing. I’ll take a closer look at it after the Senate hearing. HR 2868 No word yet when the Rules Committee will hold their hearing on HR 2868. I would expect that we will see a hearing later this week or early next week. This hearing would be important because it could spell out how the House will deal with the competing versions of the bill being reported. More on that later.

S 1649 Hearing

Earlier this week the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee held their first hearing for S 1649, the WMD Prevention and Preparedness Act of 2009. The Chair and Vice-Chair of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism testified as did Gregory D. Kutz of the Government Accountability Office. As I noted in an earlier blog this bill is mainly targeted at biological weapons not chemical or nuclear weapons of mass destruction, though it does address some issues related to all three types of weapons. This hearing carried that emphasis on biological weapons even further. The GAO testimony dealt entirely with security at labs that handle the most dangerous organisms. Senator’s Graham and Talent acknowledged that their commission dealt with biological and nuclear WMD, but their testimony was focused on bio-weapons. No mention was made of chemical WMD in any of the prepared testimony. A Committee press release posted after the hearing noted that Senator Lieberman “hoped to move the legislation through the Committee next month”. While this hearing had nothing substantive to say about chemical security issues, there are provisions in the bill that will affect positively affect responses to intentional or accidental releases of toxic chemicals.