Congressional Hearings – Week of 7-27-14

This is the start of the last week currently scheduled for the House and Senate to be in Washington until after the Labor Day Weekend. There is only one hearing currently scheduled that is of specific interest to readers of this blog; a Senate markup hearing that looks at a number of interesting bills including CFATS.

Senate Markup Hearing

On Wednesday the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will hold a business meeting to cover a wide range of nominations and legislation. Included in the list of bills to be addressed are:

• HR 4007, the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards Program Authorization and Accountability Act of 2014;

• S 2547, the RESPONSE Act of 2014; and

• S 2664, a public alert and warning system bill yet to be published.

HR 4007 is, of course, the bill of biggest interest here. The Committee leadership has been talking about writing their own bill since the first of the year, but has failed to reach a consensus on that language. There has been recent talk about Chairman Carper (D,DE) wanting to see language added that would allow Tier 4 facilities to ‘self-certify’ compliance with the site security plan requirements. That amendment would probably be acceptable to the House. Anything more complicated than that might derail passage of this bill.

House Floor

Today the House will consider a number of bills under suspension of rules. Four of them will be of interest to readers of this blog:

• HR 2952 - The Critical Infrastructure Research and Development Act;

• HR 3107 - The Homeland Security Cybersecurity Boots-on-the-Ground Act;

• HR 3202 - The Essential Transportation Worker Identification Credential Assessment Act; and

• HR 3696 - The National Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure Protection Act.

The House leadership has determined that these bills have enough bipartisan support to ensure their passage with a 2/3 vote. I’m kind of surprised that HR 3696 made that cut considering the number of organizations that still have problems with privacy issues in the bill. We will see if they get surprised on this vote; it does happen periodically.

S 2547 Introduced – RR Emergency Response

As I noted earlier Sen. Heitkamp (D,ND) introduced S 2547, the RESPONSE Act of 2014. The bill would amend 6 USC 318 and establish a new subcommittee of the National Advisory Council, an independent federal advisory committee that provides emergency response and planning advise to the NPPD Deputy Administrator for FEMA. The new subcommittee, the Railroad Emergency Services Preparedness, Operational Needs, and Safety Evaluation (RESPONSE) Subcommittee would provide recommendations on emergency responder training and resources relating to hazardous materials incidents involving railroads.

The RESPONSE Subcommittee

This is a ‘subcommittee’ in name only as most of its members would not come from the National Advisory Council (NAC). Statutory members would include {§318(d)(2)}:

• NPPD Deputy Administrator for FEMA (Chair);

• Director of the Office of Emergency Communications, DHS;

• NTSB Director for the Office of Railroad, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Investigations;

• FRA Associate Administrator for Railroad Safety;

• TSA Assistant Administrator for Security Policy and Industry Engagement;

• Coast Guard Assistant Commandant for Response Policy;

• EPA Assistant Administrator for the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response;

• PHMSA Associate Administrator for Hazardous Materials Safety;

• FMCSA Chief Safety Officer and Assistant Administrator;

Appropriate members of the NAC would be appointed to the RESPONSE sub-committee as would other personnel from the oil, railroad and communications industries.

RESPONSE Recommendations

The bill would require the RESPONSE Subcommittee to develop recommendations to improve emergency responder training and resource allocation. The following areas are to be specifically addressed {§318(d)(6)}:

• Quality and application of training for local emergency first responders related to rail hazardous materials incidents;

• Effectiveness of funding levels related to training local emergency responders for rail hazardous materials incidents;

• Strategy for integration of commodity flow studies, mapping, and access platforms for local emergency responders;

• The lack of emergency response plans for rail, similar to existing law related to maritime and stationary facility emergency response plans;

• Development of a train incident database;

• Increasing access to relevant, useful, and timely information for the local emergency responder; and

• Determination of the most efficient agencies and offices for the implementation of the Subcommittee’s recommendations.

The problem with this bill is that it brings too many people to the table. Legitimately, the people listed in the bill all have something to contribute; but there are too many folks to effectively get anything done. The tasking probably should have been given to FEMA who then would have been directed to ‘consult with’ the agencies listed. As it is the Assistant Administrator for FEMA will have to try to herd all of the cats listed instead of actually trying to solve the problem.

Moving Forward

I suspect that this bill would have no problems passing in the Senate or the House; it is after all another pass-the-buck-to-a-committee bill that effectively costs nothing. The problem will be that this late in the session, it will be difficult for the bill to find its way to the floor for a vote. If it is considered in the Senate before the election (almost certainly after the summer recess at best) it will probably be one of those bills brought to the floor at the end of the day and considered by ‘unanimous consent’. In the House it will be considered on a Monday or Tuesday under ‘suspension of the rules’ provisions. The key to passage will be convincing the leadership to bring it to the floor.

Bills Introduced – 6-26-14

In their last day before taking a week off for the 4^th of July the House and Senate introduced 81 bills. Two of those bills may be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

S 2534 Latest Title: An original bill making appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2015, and for other purposes. Sponsor: Sen Landrieu, Mary L. (D,LA)

S 2547 Latest Title: A bill to establish the Railroad Emergency Services Preparedness, Operational Needs, and Safety Evaluation (RESPONSE) Subcommittee under the Federal Emergency Management Agency's National Advisory Council to provide recommendations on emergency responder training and resources relating to hazardous materials incidents involving railroads, and for other purposes. Sponsor: Sen Heitkamp, Heidi (D,ND)

As is usual I will expect that the report accompanying the DHS spending bill to be more interesting than the bill itself. The Senate will pass it’s bill and the House theirs and then the Conference Committee will work out the differences. Most of the ‘requirements’ in the report however will stand.

It is interesting that Heitkamp’s advisory committee will actually only be a subcommittee of an already existing AC. I’m looking forward to seeing what requirements are laid upon that subcommittee.