S 3959 Passed in House – TWIC-HME Applications

This afternoon the House took up  S 3959 [removed from paywall], the Transportation Security Screening Modernization Act, under the suspension of the rules process. After nine minutes of debate, the House passed the bill by a voice vote. The legislation now goes to the President; Biden is expected to sign the bill, almost certainly before Christmas.

The bill would require the TSA to take actions (potentially including issuing an interim final rule) to streamline the procedures for individuals applying for or renewing enrollment in more than one TSA security threat assessment program, in particular, the TWIC and HAZMAT Endorsement programs. No new funding is authorized by the legislation.

Review - Committee Hearings – Week of 7-28-24

This week with just the Senate in session (the House leadership picked up their marbles and went home a week early) there is a fairly light hearing schedule with two markup hearings of interest.

Commerce Markup

The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee will hold a business meeting on Wednesday to consider 33 bills and some nominations (none of the nominations are of particular interest here). Of those bills, are of interest here:

S 3943, Accelerating Networking Cyberinfrastructure and Hardware for Oceanic Research (ANCHOR) Act, and

S 3959, Transportation Security Screening Modernization Act,

Appropriations Markup

The Senate Appropriations Committee will hold a business meeting on Thursday to complete the full committee markup of five spending bills:

• Energy and Water Development,

• Defense,

• Labor, Health, and Human Services,

• Homeland Security, and

• Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Acts

NDAA Action on the Floor

There is a remote chance that the Senate may start their consideration of the National Defense Authorization Act this week, though it is more likely that they will take up S 4638 (or the House version HR 8070) after they return in September.

InsideEPA.com is reporting that there is an industry effort being made to have the Senate take action on an amendment to the NDAA that would extend the currently expired CFATS program through October 1^st, 2026. The American Chemical Society is part of the coalition of 15 chemical organizations that sent a letter to Sen Schumer (D,NY) and Sen McConnel (R,KY). That letter references amendment SA 2502 that was submitted in the Senate on July 11^th, 2023, one of 670 amendments submitted to the NDAA on that day.

 

For more details about these hearings and the NDAA CFATS amendment, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/committee-hearings-week-of-7-28-24 - subscription required.

Review - S 3959 Introduced – TWIC-HME Applications

Last month, Sen Wicker (R,MS) introduced S 3959, the Transportation Security Screening Modernization Act. The bill would require the TSA to take actions (potentially including issuing an interim final rule) to streamline the procedures for individuals applying for or renewing enrollment in more than one TSA security threat assessment program, in particular, the TWIC and HAZMAT Endorsement programs. No new funding is authorized by the legislation.

This bill is very similar to HR 5840 that was introduced in the House on September 29^th, 2024. No action has been taken on that legislation.

Moving Forward

Wicker and two {Sen Fischer (R,NE) and Sen Tester (D,MT)} of his three cosponsors are members of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration. This means that there may be sufficient influence to see the bill considered in Committee. I do not see anything that would engender organized opposition to the bill. I suspect that if the bill were to be considered that it would receive bipartisan support. As with most bills introduced in the Senate, this legislation is not politically important enough to take up sufficient for consideration under regular order.

COMMENTARY

TSA has already implemented some of the streamlining actions. If a TWIC applicant already has an HME (or a Free and Secure Trade card) they are eligible for a reduced fee TWIC ($93 vs $125.25) and the expiration of the two will be the same (the date for the earlier assessment).

 

For more information about the provisions of the bill, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/s-3959-introduced - subscription required.

Bills Introduced – 3-14-24

Yesterday, with just the Senate in session, there were 37 bills introduced. Two of those bills will receive additional coverage here:

S 3943 A bill to require a plan to improve the cybersecurity and telecommunications of the U.S. Academic Research Fleet, and for other purposes. Padilla, Alex [Sen.-D-CA] 

S 3959 A bill to require the Transportation Security Administration to streamline the enrollment processes for individuals applying for a Transportation Security Administration security threat assessment for certain programs, including the Transportation Worker Identification Credential and Hazardous Materials Endorsement Threat Assessment programs of the Administration, and for other purposes. Wicker, Roger F. [Sen.-R-MS]