The House and Senate return from their President’s Day
recess this week and there are three congressional hearings slated that might
be of specific interest to readers of this blog. They deal with CFATS, rail transportation
safety, and the new DHS Secretary.
DHS Secretary
The new DHS Secretary, Jeh Johnson, has been traveling
around the country learning all about the various agencies that report to him.
This week he will be traveling
to Capitol Hill to talk to the House Homeland Security Committee on
Wednesday. This will be a high-level discussion about a wide range of issues
with very little in the way of specifics mentioned. Cybersecurity will
certainly come up and perhaps chemical security, but only because of the
President’s Improving Chemical Facility Safety and Security Executive order.
Rail Transportation
Safety
The House Transportation Committee will hold an oversight
hearing on passenger and freight rail safety. According to the Staff
memo about the subject matter there will be two topics of chemical safety
interest; a review of Positive Train Control implementation, and the ever
popular crude oil train problem. The witness list includes:
• Administrator Szabo, Federal
Railroad Administration;
• Administrator Quarterman, Pipeline
and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration;
• Mr. Sumwalt, Member, National
Transportation Safety Board
• Mr. Tolman, Vice President &
National Legislative Representative, Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and
Trainmen
• Mr. Gerard, President and Chief
Executive Officer, American Petroleum Institute
• Mr. Melaniphy, President,
American Public Transportation Association
• Mr. Hamberger, President and
Chief Executive Officer, Association of American Railroads
This is a very large committee and members will be dropping
in and leaving like it was a train station. This means that there will be a lot
of repetitive questions and no one will apparently be listening to the answers.
I hope the witnesses have taken their valium.
CFATS Hearing
On Thursday the Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection and
Security Technologies Subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee
will be holding a legislative
hearing on HR 4007, a bill that would more formally authorize the current
CFATS program. There is not a witness list published yet, but the first witness
will almost certainly be ISCD Director Wulf followed by the standard industry
and activist witnesses. I would not be surprised to see another GAO CFATS report
released.
As we have come to expect over the last year and a half
there will be hard questions asked about the implementation of CFATS. Two topics
that will surely come up will be site security plan implementation and the
personnel surety program.
On the Floor
There is no legislation currently planned to come to the
floor of the House or Senate that will be of specific interest to readers of
this blog. That can certainly change, particularly in the Senate.
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