House Concurs in Senate Amendment to HR 7148

Earlier this afternoon, the House took up the Senate Amendment to HR 7148, that removed Division H, DHS spending, from HR 7148 and provided a two-week continuing resolution for that sole remaining unapproved FY 2026 spending bill. At 11:42 am EST the House began their vote of H Res 1032, the rule for the consideration of the Senate Amendment to HR 7148. That resolution was approved by a near party-line vote of 212 to 210; Rep Rose (R,TN) voted Nay and five representatives from each party did not vote. After a one-hour debate the House concurred in the amendment by a more complex vote of 217 to 214; 21 members from each party crossed party line and only Rep Crenshaw (R,TX).

HR 7148 goes to the President who is expected to sign it tonight, with the government being fully re-opened tomorrow. The two appropriations committees will start working in earnest on negotiating a version of the DHS spending bill that will have some sort of chance of passing in both houses. That bill will have to be passed by February 13^th, 2026 or DHS will face another shutdown.

HR 7148 Fails Cloture Vote – Last FY 2026 Minibus

Yesterday the Senate continued their efforts to pass HR 7148, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026. The Senate voted on the first cloture vote to “to proceed to consideration of H.R. 7148”, the first of potentially three such votes before the bill would actually be voted upon. That vote, as many people expected, failed by a vote of 45 to 55. All of the Democrats voted Nay as did eight Republican; Thune changed his vote to Nay hen the original vote failed as a procedural move.

The Democrats, including Sen Fetterman (D,OH) who had earlier vowed to vote for the bill, expressing their concerns about recent immigration related actions in Minnesota. The seven Republican opposed the bill on entirely separate, fiscally related grounds. It is not clear that they would have voted against the bill if ten Democrats had voted for the bill, allowing for the 60-votes necessary for passage of the bill.

It appears that a deal has been worked out to approve five of the six spending bills included in HR 7148 and to provide a to eek continuing resolution for the DHS portion of the bill. That would allow the Senate and House to iron out ICE/CBP reform language to be included in the final DHS spending bill.

One last roadblock was thrown up last night. Sen Graham (R,SC) vowed to block unanimous consent to bypass the remaining cloture votes (essentially shutting down consideration in the Senate) over a provision the House included in the bill to disallow Senators from suing DOJ over their wiretaps on Senator’s phones. A deal is still being worked out to overcome that problem. A reconsideration vote for that cloture motion is scheduled for 11:00 am EDT.

If the Senate approves an amended version of HR 7148 today, the government will still technically shut down at midnight since the House is not expected to take up that version of the bill until Monday. While the President has signaled his support for the change, it is not yet clear that the revised bill can pass in the House.

Rule Hearing for Last Minibus and DHS Spending Bills

This afternoon the House Rules Committee announced that it would hold a rule hearing tomorrow on two spending bills; HR 7148 - Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026, and HR 7147 - Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2026. HR 7148 is the 4^th FY 2026 minibus and includes DOD, LHH, and THUD spending bills. HR 7147 is an attempt at crafting a bipartisan DHS Spending bill.

As with the three earlier minibus bills that have passed in the House, the Rules Committee page includes an explanatory statement for each of the bill’s divisions.

Division A - Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2026,

Division B - Departments of Labor, Health And Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2026, and

Division D - Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2026,

According to the ‘Front Matters’ explanatory statement, there was a Division C - Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2026, but it was moved to HR 7147. Apparently, the leadership decided that they did not want to chance that concerns about immigration theatrics endangering the passage of the three remaining spending bills in HR 7148.

The rule hearing is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon and it is likely to run late into the evening. The Housse should vote on both bills on Thursday. This would give the Senate a chance to squeeze all three spending bills into floor votes before midnight on January 30^th, 2026, the deadline for the current spending bill.

There are questions about whether there is a chance that this DHS spending bill (or any DHS spending bill in the current environment) can pass in the Senate. A press release from Sen Murray (D,WA), Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, makes the following point:

““What we have seen from Kristi Noem’s Department of Homeland Security is frankly sick and un-American. ICE is out-of-control, terrorizing people, including American citizens, and actively making our communities less safe. ICE must be reined in, and unfortunately, neither a CR nor a shutdown would do anything to restrain it, because, thanks to Republicans, ICE is now sitting on a massive slush fund it can tap whether or not we pass a funding bill. The suggestion that a shutdown in this moment might curb the lawlessness of this administration is not rooted in reality: under a CR and in a shutdown, this administration can do everything they are already doing—but without any of the critical guardrails and constraints imposed by a full-year funding bill.”

3rd FY 2026 Minibus Announced – FinServices and State

Yesterday the two appropriations committees separately (Senate and House)announced the proposed language for the third minibus spending bill for FY 2026, covering Financial Services and General Government, and National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs. The House Rules Committee also announced that they would hold a rule hearing on Tuesday that would include the new spending bill. The bill will be introduced later today and be assigned an HR number at that time. There is an interesting ‘minority view’ of the bill from the Senate Democrats.

The proposed bill consists of three divisions:

DIVISION A – Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, 2026,

DIVISION B – National  Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2026, and

DIVISION C – Other  Matters

The ‘other matters’ division is relatively short. It would prohibit funding for United Nations Relief and Works Agency. I suspect that it was added as a separate division instead of being combined with Division B, so that a separate vote could be held on this provision. This would have been included in the bill as an enticement for the spending hawks.

As with HR 6938, this bill will be treated as a conference bill, with Joint Explanatory Statements available for each division. Again, I would not be surprised to see separate votes on retaining each of the three divisions.

If this bill is passed, and I expect that it will, there will be just three spending bills left to consider:

Homeland Security,

Labor-HHS-Education, and

Transportation-HUD.

These three bills would contain the most controversial programs and spending topics and will be the most difficult to produce a consensus version which could pass in both the House and Senate. It is very likely that Congress will have to resort to a continuing resolution with current funding continuing through September 30^th, 2026.

HR 6398 Passed in House – FY 2026 2nd Minibus

After holding a one-hour debate earlier in the day, the House today passed HR 6398, the Commerce, Justice, Science; Energy and Water Development; and Interior and Environment Appropriations Act, 2026, by a final bipartisan vote of 397-28. Earlier the two procedural votes to retain Division A (CJS spending), and Divisions B (EWR) C (IER) passed by similar votes.

The bill will probably be considered next week in the Senate, where similar levels of support are expected. Having said that, there are means of delaying consideration of the bill in the Senate that could delay a final vote.

HR 4016 to be Considered in Senate – DOD Spending bill

On Tuesday and Wednesday of last week the Congressional Record noted that the “Senate began consideration of the motion to proceed to consideration of H.R. 4016, making appropriations for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2026.” No amendments were listed as having been submitted on either day. The Senate had started to consider the bill back in October, going so far as the filing of a cloture motion to proceed to consideration of the bill, but the cloture vote never happened.

On Thursday Sen Collins submitted SA 3951 as substitute language that the Senate would consider as the first amendment to HR 4016. That amendment would include language from the following Senate bills:

S 2752 (Div A), DOD spending,

S 2354 (Div B), CJS spending,

S 2431 (Div C), IER spending,

S 2587 (Div D), LHH spending, and

S 2465 (Div E), THUD spending.

NOTE: the bills listed above without links have yet to be covered in detail in this blog. I will look at them in the coming week before the Senate comes back to Washington in December.

There is still a lot of political posing, wrangling, and deal making before the Senate gets to a final vote on HR 4016. And then the bill will have to go back to the House where Johnson will require votes from Democrats to pass any language that would meet the minimal bipartisan requirements of the Senate. More likely, the House would insist on their single-bill language and the Senate version would disappear in conference until it was brought back in whole cloth in the January 30^th version of a spending bill/CR.

House Passes HR 1968 – FY 2025 Spending Bill

Earlier today, the House took up HR 1968, the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2025, under a rule. After an hour of debate, the House passed the bill by a near party-line vote of 217 to 213 (one Republican voted nay and one Democrat voted yeah). The bill now goes to the Senate where the Republican leadership needs to pull seven Democrats into voting for the bill. That vote could come Thursday.

Johnson has pulled together his fractious caucus for two key votes early in the 119^th Congress. While Johnson deserves much credit, it is clear that it was the pressure exerted by President Trump on the potential holdouts that kept this bill alive. More important than merely passing this spending bill is that today’s vote is going to have to change the political calculus of the 119^th Congress. Today, it looks like the Johnson and his team (with  more than a little help from the White House) may actually be able to get some of their agenda to the President’s desk.

Cloture will remain a problem in the Senate, at least until it upsets the President enough to push for a change in the Senate’s rules.

Committee Hearings – Week of 2-25-24

This week with both the House and Senate back in Washington, there is a very light hearing schedule (only one day of hearings in the House). There is one cybersecurity hearing in the House

Cybersecurity

On Thursday the Subcommittee on Transportation and Maritime Security of the House Homeland Security Committee will hold a hearing on “Port Cybersecurity: The Insidious Threat to U.S. Maritime Ports”. The witness list includes:

• Rear Admiral Wayne R. Arguin Jr., CG,

• Rear Admiral John Vann, CG,

• Rear Admiral Derek Trinque, CG, and

• Christa Brzozowski, DHS

The recent Executive Order on maritime cybersecurity is certain to be a topic.

On the Floor

With the first spending bill deadline approaching at the end of the week, all eyes will be watching the Hill to see if some sort of spending bill actually make it to the President’s desk before Friday midnight. There has still not been an announcement of a compromise spending bill being ready to come to the floor. It is looking increasingly like another CR will be required if a partial shutdown is to be averted.

Amendment Announcement for HR 5893 and HR 5894 – FY 2024 CSJ and LHH Spending

Yesterday, the House Rules Committee announced the amendment deadlines for two additional spending bills:

• HR 5893, the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations (CJS) Act, 2024, and

• HR 5894, the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations (LHH) Act, 2024

The amendment deadline for HR 5893 is Monday, November 6^th and the deadline for HR 5894 is Friday, November 3^rd.

These were the last two appropriations bills introduced in the House (on October 6^th). Neither bill has been marked up in Committee, so no report is available. Technically, the two bills were just referred to the Appropriations Committee for consideration last week. Typically, appropriations bills are ‘written’ by the Committee with hearings by the appropriate subcommittee and the full Appropriations Committee. They are usually first published as reported versions of the bill with the committee report published at the same time. That process was not followed in the case of these two bills.

I will have brief reports on the two pieces of legislation later this week.

The Rules Committee also published a meeting notice for tomorrow to formulate the rule for the consideration of three other spending bills, HR 4820 – THUD, HR 4821- IER spending, and an as of yet unnumbered spending supplemental for Israeli security.

Another Added Spending Bill Markup – EWD

The House Appropriations Committee announced today that the Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies would hold a markup hearing on Thursday. The Committee Draft of the bill is not available.

Committee Hearings – Week of 7-18-21

This week with both the House and Senate meeting in Washington, there will be a full slate of committee hearings. Hearings of interest include the markup of the Senate version of the FY 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, three cybersecurity hearings and the start of the consideration process for FY 2022 spending bills. And we will have an interesting slate of cybersecurity legislation being considered on the floor of the House.

NDAA Markup in Senate

The Senate Armed Services Committee will be marking up their version of the FY 2022 NDAA. Each subcommittee will be meeting to markup their portions of the NDAA on Monday and Tuesday. Then the full Committee will meet Wednesday and probably Thursday to complete the markup process. The subcommittee markups of interest here include:

• Monday - Subcommittee on Cybersecurity. CLOSED

• Tuesday - Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities. CLOSED.

Cybersecurity Hearings

On Tuesday the House Small Business Committee will be holding a hearing on “Strengthening the Cybersecurity Posture of America’s Small Business Community”. This hearing is unlikely to specifically address control system security issues. The witness list will include:

• Tasha Cornish, Cybersecurity Association of Maryland, Inc.,

• Sharon Nichols, Mississippi Small Business Development Center,

• Kiersten Todt, Cyber Readiness Institute,

• Graham Dufault, The App Association,

On Tuesday the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce will be holding a hearing on "Stopping Digital Thieves: The Growing Threat of Ransomware". This hearing is very likely to specifically address control system security issues and could get fairly technical. The witness list includes:

• Kemba Walden, Microsoft Corporation,

• Robert M. Lee, Dragos,

• Christian Dameff, M.D., M.S., Medical Director of Cybersecurity, UC San Diego Health,

• Charles Carmakal, FireEye-Mandiant

• Philip Reiner, Institute for Security and Technology

On Wednesday, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will be holding a hearing on “Addressing Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities Facing Our Nation’s Physical Infrastructure”. While the witness list is not yet available, there is a decent chance that there will be some discussion about control system cybersecurity issues. I would not be surprised to see witnesses from the water treatment sector.

Spending Bills

The House Rules Committee has announced that they are accepting amendments for the first spending bill for FY 2022. The House will be considering a minibus (multiple spending bills under one bill number), probably next week. The amendment deadline is Wednesday evening and the Committee is likely to hold their rulemaking hearing next Monday.

The slate for the first minibus is set to include:

Division A (Labor, Health and Human Services, Education),

Division B (HR 4356 – Agriculture, Rural Development),

Division C (Energy and Water Development),

Division D (HR 4345 – Financial Services and General Government),.

Division E (HR 4372 – Interior, Environment),

Division F (HR 4355 – Military Construction, Veterans Affairs),

Division G (Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development),

I do not typically review the FSG, or MCV spending bills, and the ARD bill contained nothing that I cover in this blog. The LHHS and THUD bills will probably be introduced today.

On the Floor

The House will be spreading their 27 bills considered under suspension of the rules over two days this week. The list includes seven cybersecurity bills:

• Monday

◦ HR 2931 – Enhancing Grid Security through Public-Private Partnerships Act,

◦ HR 2928 – Cyber Sense Act of 2021

• Tuesday

◦ HR 1871 – Transportation Security Transparency Improvement Act,

◦ HR 3138 – State and Local Cybersecurity Improvement Act, as amended,

◦ HR 1833 – DHS Industrial Control Systems Capabilities Enhancement Act of 2021, as amended,

◦ HR 2980 – Cybersecurity Vulnerability Remediation Act, as amended,

◦ HR 3223 – CISA Cyber Exercise Act

Republicans have been forcing recorded votes on the suspension bills. Democrats have responded by voting on some and including the remainder in the vote on the language of the rule for consideration of bills under regular order. This may make reporting passage of these bills somewhat piece meal.

Committee Hearings – Week of 7-11-21

This week the Senate is meeting in Washington and the House will be conducting remote hearings. We will see a number of markups of FY 2022 spending bills, two cybersecurity related markup hearings and two DHS oversight hearings.

Spending Bills

7-12-21 Energy and Water Development, and Related Agencies - Subcommittee

7-12-21 Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies - Full Committee

7-12-21 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and Related Agencies Subcommittee

7-13-21 Homeland and Defense - Subcommittee

7-16-21 Energy and Water Development, and Related Agencies, and Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies – Full Committee

Cybersecurity Markups

On Wednesday the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will hold a business meeting. They will consider 15 pieces of legislation including the following cybersecurity related bills.

• S 1917, K-12 Cybersecurity Act of 2021, and

• S 1324, Civilian Cyber Security Reserve Act,

On Wednesday the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a business meeting on a new bill, the Energy Infrastructure Act, to invest in the energy and outdoor infrastructure of the United States to deploy new and innovative technologies, update existing infrastructure to be reliable and resilient, and secure energy infrastructure against physical and cyber threats, and for other purposes. I will try to complete at least a brief review of that bill before the hearing.

DHS Oversight

On Thursday the House Homeland Security Committee will hold a hearing on “Securing the Homeland: Reforming DHS to Meet Today's Threats”. This hearing is related to the recent introduction of HR 4357. The witness list includes:

• Tom Warrick, Atlantic Council,

• Carrie Cordero, Center for a New American Security, and

• Katrina Mulligan, Center for American Progress

On Friday the  Emergency Preparedness, Response, & Recovery Subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee will hold a hearing on “Examining the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office”. The witness list includes:

• Gary Rasicot, DHS, and

• Christopher P. Currie, GAO

Committee Hearings – Week of 11-29-20

With both the House and Senate back in Washington for the Lame Duck Session there are a limited number of hearings scheduled. One of those hearings deals with cybersecurity and COVID-19.

Cybersecurity Hearing

On Wednesday the Federal Spending Oversight and Emergency Management Subcommittee of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will hold a hearing on “State and Local Cybersecurity: Defending Our Communities from Cyber Threats amid COVID-19”. The witness list includes:

• Brandon Wales, CISA,

• Denis Goulet, New Hampshire Department of Information Technology,

• Leslie Torres-Rodriguez, Hartford Public Schools,

• John Riggi, American Hospital Association, and

• Bill Siegel, Coveware, Inc.

Pending Legislation

The House has a series of bills that it is scheduled to consider under the Suspension of Rules process, but none are of specific interest here. The Senate is continuing to approve appointments made by President Trump.

There are two pieces of legislation that the 116^th Congress still needs to send to the President. The first (and arguably most important) is the FY 2021 spending bill. Negotiations are ongoing between the House and Senate Appropriations folks. The current spending authorization ends on December 11^th, 2020. The President needs to sign either a final spending bill or another continuing resolution by midnight of that date or the Federal government will shut down. While significant differences remain between the Republican and Democratic negotiators, the bigger question this year is probably will the lame duck President sign the bill agreed to by the negotiators? This bill (either solution) will probably not see the light of public scrutiny this week.

The other ‘must pass’ legislation is the FY 2021 National Defense Authorization Act which is likely to include intelligence authorization language. Again, negotiations are ongoing. There will not be any catastrophic results (like a government shutdown) if this bill is not taken up this year. It could be taken up in the 117^th Congress, but it would cause all sorts of problems for continuity in DOD (and Intelligence) operations. Again, the big question is would LD Trump sign or veto a bill passed by Congress.