Review – Committee Hearings – Week of 4-26-26

 This week, with both the House and Senate in Washington, there is an almost moderately busy hearing schedule. Budget hearings are a large part of the load (some of interest here) and the House Appropriations Committee continues to work on spending bills. There is a CISA SMRA hearing in the House (with a touch of Space Geek thrown in) and a space defense hearing. 

Cybersecurity Hearings  

On Wednesday, the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection of the House Homeland Security Committee will hold a hearing on “Data Centers, Telecommunications Networks, and Space-Based Systems: Modernizing DHS’s SRMA [Sector Risk Management Agency] Role for the Communications and IT Sectors”. 

Space Defense Hearings  

On Wednesday the Subcommittee on Europe of the House Foreign Affairs Committee will hold a hearing on “Orbits of Influence: Emerging Threats to U.S. Space Security and Foreign Policy Implications”.   

For more information on these hearings, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/committee-hearings-week-of-4-26-26 - subscription required. 

Review – Committee Hearings – Week of 4-19-26

 This week, with both the House and the Senate in Washington, there is a moderately busy hearing schedule. Budget hearings (both House and Senate) and spending bill markups (in the House) continue. There are also two Space Geek related hearings in the House. 

Spending Bill Hearings  

House  

Tuesday - Fiscal Year 2027 Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Bill, Fiscal Year 2027 Financial Services and General Government Bill, and Interim Subcommittee Allocations, 

Wednesday - Continuation Of Full Committee Markup Of Fiscal Year 2027 Financial Services And General Government Bill,  

Thursday - Subcommittee Markup Of Fiscal Year 2027 National Security, Department Of State, And Related Programs Bill And Fiscal Year 2027 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food And Drug Administration, And Related Agencies Bill. 

Space Geek Hearings 

On Tuesday, the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology of the House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on “SAT Streamlining Act: Modernizing Satellite Licensing for the Final Frontier”.  

On Wednesday, the House Foreign Affairs Committee will hold a business meeting to consider 22 bills, including HR 8321, the Artemis Accords Authorization Act. 

For more information on these hearings, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/committee-hearings-week-of-4-19-26 - subscription required.

Rule for HR 7148 Senate Amendment – Consolidated Appropriations

 This evening the House Rules Committee held a rule hearing for three bills that ill be considered under a rule, that includes the Senate Amendment to HR 7148 that removes the DHS spending portion of the bill and substitutes continuing resolution language for that Division. The Committee approved a closed rule to concur with the Senate Amendment by a party-line vote of 8 to 4. This means that there will be just one hour of debate on the Amendment, no amendments to be offered, and a single vote on passage.

A large portion of the federal government remains under shutdown since Friday midnight because the Senate amended the last minibus spending bill on Friday, the last day of the latest continuing resolution. If the House concurs with the Senate Amendment tomorrow, as is mostly expected, the completed bill goes to the President for signature. There remains a chance that the bill will fail in House tomorrow; House Democrats are not expected to vote for the Senate Amendment as an expression of their concerns about recent lethal immigration enforcement activities by ICE and CBP. If more than two Republicans also vote Nay on the bill because of underlying spending issues, then the bill would fail. Of course, each Democrat that did vote in favor of the Senate Amendment would provide legislative cover for an additional Republican to vote their fiscal concerns.

The House is expected to vote on the rule at about 11:30 am EST. If the rule passes a vote on the Senate Amendment is expected at about 1:00 pm EST.

Review – HR 7147 and HR 7148 Passed in House

Yesterday the House took up the last two spending bills, HR 7147 and HR 7148. After passing the rule for the consideration of the two bills (H Ress 1014) by an expected party-line vote of 214 to 213, they first considered HR 7148, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026 (covering DOD, LHH, and THUD spending). After rejecting the two proposed amendments authorized by the rule, the House passed HR 7148 by a bipartisan vote of 341 to 88 (24 Republicans and 64 Democrats voting Nay). The House then took up HR 7147, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2026. They passed that bill by a near party-line vote of 220 to 207 (1 Republican voting Nay and 7 Democrats voting Yeah).

 

For more details about these bills, including DHS extenders and legislative poison pills, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-7147-and-hr-7148-passed-in-house - subscription required. Free subscription holders will receive a delayed copy of the premium CFSN article.

Review – Bills Introduced – 1-20-26 – Bills Introduced –1-20-26

Yesterday with just the House in Washington, there were 23 bills introduced. Two of those bills will receive additional coverage in this blog:

HR 7147 Making further consolidated appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2026, and for other purposes. Cole, Tom [Rep.-R-OK-4]

HR 7148 Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026 Cole, Tom [Rep.-R-OK-4] 

I briefly discussed HR 7147 and HR 7148 yesterday. The official text for both bills (HR 7147 and HR 7148) is available.

 

For more information on these bills, including a discussion about a possible DHS shutdown, as well as a mention in passing about a USDA security ties bill, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/bills-introduced-1-20-26 - subscription required.

Review - More on New Minibus Spending Bill

Looking at the House and Senate Appropriations Committees web site, the CJS-EWR-IER spending bill I described earlier today is a joint effort of the two committees. Thus, the bill is being treated by the leadership of the two houses as a conference bill. That means that the bill will probably come to the floor in the House under a closed rule, with limited debate and no floor amendments. The Senate leadership will attempt to consider the bill under similar circumstances.

The Republican fringe could still block the Rule being considered this evening with three votes in the Rules Committee. Or they could block the rule on the floor of the House (where Democrats would be expected to vote against the rule on general principles, though that is not a requirement). In either case the bill could be brought to the floor under suspension of the rules where the supermajority requirement would be met with votes from Democrats and moderate Republicans.

Both appropriation committee web sites (House and Senate) provide background information on the bill. They provide links to bill summaries for each of the three Divisions and tables of the congressional earmarks (called ‘Community Project Funding’ on the House page and ‘Congressionally Directed Funding’ on the Senate page). The Senate page provides links to the Joint Explanatory Statement for each Division. Those statements explain the spending allocations supporting the bill, as well as the differences between the language in the Division and in the two original spending bills for the Division. The Senate Appropriations Committee also provides a press release from Sen Murray (D,WA), the Ranking Member explaining the support of the Democrats for the minibus.

 

For more information on the supporting documents, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/more-on-new-minibus-spending-bill - subscription required.

New FY 2026 Spending Minibus Rule Hearing 1-6-26

Yesterday the House Rules Committee added a new (not yet introduced) spending bill to the slate of bills to be considered in this evening’s rule hearing. The bill would combine three (CJS, EWR, and IER) of the nine outstanding spending bills in a single bill. Since the House has already passed a standalone EWR bill (HR 4553), I would assume (not yet having perused the 414 page bill in any kind of detail) that this minibus is somewhat less partisan than the three bills originally introduced in the House.

Interestingly, the two other spending bills are potentially being considered in the Senate as part of their possible minibus consideration of HR 4016.

The big question in the 119^th Congress is always going to be if a spending bill is going to bipartisan enough to pass in the Senate. If it is it will have a hard time passing in the House under a rule because of the tiny majority the Republicans have combined with the willingness of the spending hawks to vote against any thing less than a strictly partisan bill. Or we could just see the Republicans passing partisan bills and seeing them amended in the Senate to a more moderate version that would then pass in the House with Democratic support. Of course, there are just 25 days left until the current continuing resolution expires.

This bill has not yet made its way to the Majority Leader’s weekly schedule beyond the broad statement that: “Consideration of items related to FY26 Appropriations are possible.”

HR 5371 Back in the House – FY 2026 CR and Spending Bills

Early this morning the House Rules Committee completed their consideration of the Senate Amendments to HR 5371, the Continuing Appropriations, Agriculture, Legislative Branch, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Extensions Act, 2026. After rejecting 10 Democratic amendments to the Senate Amendments (all by the expected party-line 4 to 8 votes), the Committee voted to approve the Rule for the consideration of the bill on the floor of the House later today, again by an 8 to 4 vote.

According to the Committee’s website the rule:

• Provides for consideration of the Senate amendment to H.R. 5371.

• Makes in order a motion offered by the chair of the Committee on Appropriations or his designee that the House concur in the Senate amendment to H.R. 5371.

• Waives all points of order against consideration of the motion and the Senate amendment.

Provides that the Senate amendment and the motion shall be considered as read.

• Provides one hour of debate on the motion equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations or their respective designees.

The House is scheduled to meet at noon today with votes starting at 5:10 pm EST. All three of the fringe Republicans on the Rules Committee voted for the rule, so I expect that the rule and the bill will have sufficient votes to pass this evening, even if all the Democrats vote against them.

HR 5371 Rule Approved – FY 2026 CR

Today the House Rules Committee completed action on preparing a rule for HR 5371 [Committee Print], the ‘Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2026. This is a relatively clean, short-term CR. It would continue existing funding rates for the federal government through November 21^st, 2025. The rule would provide for a ‘closed-rule’ (limited debate, no amendments) for HR 5371. Vote on the rule (H Res 722) is scheduled for tomorrow; the vote on the bill will probably happen on Thursday. The House vote is taking place this week because the House and Senate are scheduled for a District Work period the following week.

The CR contains a whole slew of date extenders for various federal programs that are set to expire on midnight September 30^th, 2025. For the most part, those dates are extended to November 21^st. Programs of special interest here include:

6 USC 124n – Protection of certain facilities and assets from unmanned aircraft,

6 USC 1525 – Federal Cybersecurity Enhancement,

6 USC 1510 – Cybersecurity Information Sharing, and

6 USC 665g - State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program

Moving Forward

Democratic appropriators have been demanding a role in negotiating the terms of the CR, and have apparently had no part in the crafting of this bill. They have been insisting on a variety of healthcare spending provisions that were not included in this bill. This means that there is little chance of seeing Democrats voting for this bill, putting the onus on the Republican to pass the bill. But this bill does not contain any significant spending cuts, so there may be some Radical Republican opposition to the bill.

The first thing to watch is the vote on the Rule tomorrow. This is probably why H Res 719, theHonoring the life and legacy of Charles “Charlie” James Kirk, resolution was added to this bill. The same Republicans that might vote against the rule for the CR, would have a hard time explaining a vote against the Kirk resolution. Almost any Republican votes against the Rule (the Republicans now only have a working majority of 2) will signal problems for the CR.

Review – Committee Hearings – Week of 7-6-25

With both the House and Senate back in Washington, hopefully recovered from their marathon sessions last week, there is a moderately busy hearing schedule. It looks like the Senate Armed Services Committee will begin their subcommittee markup of the 2026 NDAA. The appropriations committees continue to work on spending bills. There is also a pipeline safety hearing in the House and a medical cybersecurity hearing in the Senate.

Spending Bills

According to the House Appropriations Committee web site, there are no markup hearings scheduled this week, but the House.gov Committee Repository site shows a subcommittee hearing today for “Markup of Fiscal Year 2026 Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Bill”. That bill is not on the list of the markups scheduled for next week according to the Committee site.

On Thursday, the Senate Appropriations Committee will meet to markup three spending bills:

Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS),

Agriculture, Rural Development, FDA (ARD), and

Legislative Branch

Pipeline Safety

On Tuesday, the Subcommittee on Energy of the House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on “Strengthening American Energy: A Review of Pipeline Safety Policy”.

Cybersecurity

On Wednesday, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee will hold a hearing on “Securing the Future of Health Care: Enhancing Cybersecurity and Protecting Americans’ Privacy”.

 

For more information on these hearings, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/committee-hearings-week-of-7-6-25 - subscription required.

HR 1968 Passed in Senate – FY 2025 Year End Spending

Yesterday the Senate completed consideration of HR 1968, the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act. After rejecting four amendments and voting to close debate, the bill passed by a vote of 54 to 46. Sen Paul (R,KY) voted against the bill, while Sen King (I,ME) and Sen Shaheen (D,NH) voted for the bill. The bill has been presented to the President and Trump signed it today, so the federal government was technically shutdown for a few hours.

The following amendments were considered:

• Merkley Amendment No 1273 (vote of 47 to 53),

• Duckworth Amendment No 1274 (vote of 47 to 53),

• Van Hollen Amendment No 1272 (vote of 48 to 52), and

• Paul Amendment No 1266 (vote of 27 to 73)

Next CR Dropped 9-22-24

Yesterday, the House Rules Committee published a copy of the next version of the FY 2025 continuing resolution that the House will try to pass this week. The Committee will meet this afternoon to craft the rule (almost certainly a closed rule; 1 hour debate, and no floor amendments) for the consideration of the bill (which will be formally introduced today). This is a relatively clean CR through December 20^th, 2024 {§106(3)}.

Division A is a mainly formulaic continuation of current (FY 2024) spending through that date. It does include some additional funding for a variety of relatively non-controversial programs. The one that may draw some attention is §136, this provides additional funding for the Secret Service “for operations necessary to carry out protective operations including the 2024 Presidential Campaign and National Special Security Events”. Access to this additional funding is predicated on the delivery to Congress of the Secret Service’s “Mission Assurance Report” on the first Trump assassination attempt. A summary of that report was made public on Friday.

Division B provides extension of various authorities that expire with the fiscal year. This list keeps on growing larger every year. No the CFATS program is not included in this list.

There are three votes on the House Rules Committee that are ‘controlled’ by House Freedom Caucus. In general, members of that Caucus object to the use of continuing resolutions and omnibus spending bills. It is not clear that these three members will vote with their fellow Republicans on this Rule. If they vote with the Democrats (as they have done on similar measures), that would kill the Rule. Then Speaker Johnson will be forced to bring the CR to the floor under the suspension of the rules process. Sufficient Democrats (most actually) would be expected to support this ‘clean’ CR for the bill to pass, but Johnson would pay a political price for that move. How severe that price would be remains to be seen.

I would not be surprised to see one or more of the Caucus members to abstain (or be physically absent) from this afternoon’s vote on the rule. This would allow them to claim that they opposed the CR, but would not derail its consideration under a rule. Even if all three abstained, the Republicans would have a one vote majority for the consideration of the rule.

2nd FY 2024 Spending Minibus Published – 3-20-24

Late last night the House Appropriations Committee published the 2^nd FY 2024 spending minibus. As with the earlier spending bill, this takes the form of a House Resolution (not yet numbered as it will be introduced today) providing a House amendment to the Senate amendment to a previously passed House bill (HR 2882, the Udall Foundation Reauthorization Act of 2023). A committee print of the resolution is available.

There is no mention of an extension/reinstatement of the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program in the text of the bill. There is, however, an odd comment about the program in the Division C (DHS) Joint Explanatory Statement (pg 38):

“The agreement includes $15,077,000 below the request for Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) due to cost savings within the program.”

Since the Appropriations Committee Report (H Rept 118-123) provided $41 million for ‘Chemical Security’ (table on page 170), it looks like this bill will continue some level of funding for the program through the end of September. So the program may yet be resurrectable.

It is unlikely that the resolution will be brought to the floor of the House today (it is not listed on the Majority Leader’s schedule for today) and only slightly more likely for tomorrow. This means that another short-term continuing resolution will be required to stop a government shutdown on Saturday.

Review - House Appropriations Committee Releases First FY 2024 Mini-Bus

Yesterday, the House Appropriations Committee published a committee draft of the first of two spending mini-busses that will be considered under the latest agreement between the leadership of the House and Senate and the White House for spending in the remainder of FY 2024. The bill will be introduced tomorrow when the House resumes work in Washington and will be considered under the suspension of the rules process later this week.

This proposed legislation would cover six of the twelve annual spending bills:

Division A - Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024

Division B - Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024

Division C - Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024

Division D - Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024

Division E - Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024

Division F - Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024

 

For more details about the provisions of the legislation and its associated Joint Explanatory Statements, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://tinyurl.com/53rchm44 - subscription required.

HR 2872 Considered in Senate – Vehicle for CR

Yesterday, the Senate officially began the consideration of HR 2872, which passed the House as the bill to amend the Permanent Electronic Duck Stamp Act of 2013 to allow the Secretary of the Interior to issue electronic stamps under such Act, and for other purposes. It is being considered in the Senate as the vehicle for the “Further Additional Continuing Appropriations and Other Extensions Act, 2024”. Yesterday, the Senate voted to close debate on the motion to proceed to consideration of HR 2872, by a vote of 68 to 13. Weather problems delayed the vote and still 19 members did not get to the Chamber to vote, most of them (16) Republicans.

The substitute language amendment (SA 1381) that I had mentioned on Monday, was officially proposed yesterday. It would provide additional time (through March 8^th) for Congress to work on passing some sort of spending legislation. The Senate resumes consideration today; still waiting to see if some Republican Senators work to delay consideration and force additional cloture votes.

House Actually Moves on Spending Bills

This evening the House took up H Res 723 [link is to a Rules Committee print of the bill], the rule for the consideration of four spending bills this week. The rule was adopted by a near party-line vote of 216 to 212. The sole dissenting Republican vote was Rep Greene (GA). This is the first positive vote on a spending bill in the House since they passed HR 4366, the MilCon spending bill in July.

The House then moved to begin consideration of HR 4368, the ARD spending bill. Debates and votes on amendments will begin later. No telling how late the House will working tonight. If they intend to get all four bills considered this week, they will be voting until the wee hours of the morning.

Commentary

This does nothing to deal with the impending Saturday midnight deadline for funding the government, but after the last two weeks of Republican legislative-ineptitude, it is good to see some movement on spending bills. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Hill, the Senate voted 77 to 19 to close debate on the motion to consider debate on HR 4395, the FAA authorization bill. That bill will be the vehicle for a bipartisan, relatively clean, continuing resolution. More on that tomorrow when the Congressional Record is published.

Committee Hearings – Week of 5-24-21

With the Senate in Washington and the House conducting a Hearing Week, there will be a full slate of committee hearings this week. The FY 2022 spending development process continues this week with three hearings of interest here. There are also one cybersecurity hearing and a DHS oversight hearing on the schedule.

FY 2022 Spending

The first year of any new administration is always a bit confused in the development of budget and spending proposals, especially when the change is as abrupt and complicated as this one. But spending bills are still ‘expected’ to be published in the House before the end of next month, we will see. This week we will see three department level hearing in the appropriate subcommittees of the two appropriations committees:

• DHS – 5-26-21, Senate, DHS Subcommittee

• DOD – 5-27-21, House, Defense Subcommittee, and

• DOC – 5-26-21, Senate, CJS Subcommittee

Cybersecurity Hearing

On Tuesday two subcommittees of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee will hold a joint hearing on “SolarWinds and Beyond: Improving the Cybersecurity of Software Supply Chains”. The witness list includes:

• Matthew Scholl, National Institute of Standards and Technology,

• Trey Herr, Atlantic Council,

• Katie Moussouris, Luta Security, and

• Vijay D’Souza, Government Accountability Office.

DHS Oversight

On Wednesday the DHS Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee will be holding a hearing on “Department of Homeland Security Resource Management and Operational Priorities”. The sole witness will be Secretary Mayorkas. While Republicans will be focusing on border and immigration issues, I do expect that there will be significant questions about the Departments response to recent cyber incidents and their future plans to prevent and counter such attacks in the future.

On the Floor

The Senate will continue with their consideration of S 1260, the Endless Frontiers Act. More amendments will be submitted, and some will even be considered. This may take up most of the week.

Committee Hearings – Week of 6-12-16

The House and Senate are both in Washington this week, trying hard to get the important bills passed before they take their election year lengthened summer recess in mid-July. There are six hearings currently scheduled for this week that may be of interest to readers of this blog; three spending bill hearings, one cybersecurity, and one Coast Guard and one pipeline safety hearing.

Spending Bills

The House Rules Committee is holding a hearing as I write this blog to determine the rule for the consideration of HR 5293, the FY 2017 DOD spending bill. The Republicans are going to be backing off of open rules for these spending bills to ensure that Democrats don’t add poison pill amendments that will prevent the bills from passing (help pass a moderately liberal amendment that draws the ire of the hardcore conservatives and then vote against the final bill). We will only see some amendments in today’s rule.

Tomorrow the Rules Committee will hold their second hearing on HR 5293 to set out the remainder of the amendments that will be considered on the floor of the House.

The House Appropriations Committee will be meeting Tuesday to markup the FY 2017 DHS spending bill.

Coast Guard Hearing

The Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will be meeting Tuesday to look at “Coast Guard Mission Needs and Resources Allocation”. The hearing will probably not address chemical transportation safety or security issues. The witness list is short:

• Admiral Michel, United States Coast Guard; and

• Jennifer Grover, US GAO

Cybersecurity

The House Homeland Security Committee will be holding a hearing on Wednesday to look at “The Cybersecurity Act of 2015: Industry Perspectives”. The witness list includes:

• Matthew J. Eggers, U.S. Chamber of Commerce

• Robert H. Mayer, United States Telecom Association

• Mark Clancy, Soltra

• Mordecai Rosen, CA Technologies

• Ola Sage, e-management

Pipeline Safety

The Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee will be holding a hearing on Tuesday to “Examine oil and gas pipeline infrastructure and the economic, safety, environmental, permitting, construction, and maintenance considerations associated with that infrastructure.” The witness list includes:

• Andrew Black, Association of Oil Pipe Lines;

• Sean McGarvey, North America's Building Trades Unions;

• Paul W. Parfomak, Congressional Research Service;

• N. Jonathan Peress, Environmental Defense Fund

On the Floor

Earlier this afternoon the House considered HR 5312, the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Modernization Act of 2016. A vote will take place later this evening or tomorrow. Later this week the House will consider HR 5293 described above.

The Senate will be finishing up consideration of S 2943, the FY 2017 National Defense Authorization Act. As of this morning none of the amendments that have been mentioned in this blog have been considered and there is no telling if any will make it to the floor. After action is completed on S 2943, the Senate will take up S 2837, the FY 2017 Commerce, Justice and Science spending bill.

Committee Hearings – Week of 7-14-13

It looks like the hearing list is getting shorter as the summer recess approaches and we are still dominated by spending hearings, three this week in the Senate. The House only has one hearing of note for my readers, a hearing on the Cybersecurity Framework development. The House will also consider a pipeline safety bill on the floor this week.

Cybersecurity

The Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Security Technologies of the House Homeland Security Committee will hold a hearing on Thursday on "Oversight of Executive Order 13636 and Development of the Cybersecurity Framework". Calling this an ‘oversight’ hearing might be a bit of a stretch since this is the implementation of an Executive Order, not implementing a congressional mandate. No witness list is currently available, but I would suspect that NIST and NPPD will provide at least two of the witnesses.

Pipeline Safety

According to the Majority Leader’s web site the House will consider HR 2576, the Pipelines Incorporation by Reference bill, on Tuesday. Readers will remember that this bill was introduced and reported out of committee last week so it is safe to say that the bill is on the fast track. This simple bill will almost certainly pass with nearly universal support. The only question now is if there is someone with pull in the Senate who can get this bill to the floor, it will probably pass with unanimous consent.

Senate Spending Bills

Constitutionally speaking these Senate originated spending bills are a bit of an anomaly. All spending bills must originate in the House according to §7 of the Constitution so the Senate typically considers its bill and then substitutes the final language of the Senate bill for the language in the respective House bill. The House then either concurs with the Senate changes (not often lately), revises and sends the bill back to the Senate (an even more unlikely response), or takes the bill to Conference with representative of both Houses ironing out the differences behind closed doors.

There will be three Senate hearings this week on two spending bills. There will be both a subcommittee hearing (Tuesday) and a full Appropriations Committee hearing (Thursday) for the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Fiscal Year 2014 Appropriations bill. This bill will include spending for NIST and thus the Cybersecurity Framework even if it is not specifically listed. The same full committee hearing will also look at the approval of the Homeland Security Fiscal Year 2014 Appropriations bill after a subcommittee hearing on Wednesday.

Congressional Hearings – Week of 07-07-13

Congress will be back in town this week from their long Fourth of July weekend and there is just about a month remaining before their summer break. Historically budget and spending considerations will control the news and this week we will see at least one spending bill in Committee that might be of interest. We also have a cyber-espionage hearing, two looks at recent terrorist attacks and a TSCA hearing.

Spending

The House Appropriations Committee will mark up the FY 2014 Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations Bill on Wednesday. I haven’t paid a lot of attention to this bill in the past, but cybersecurity is likely to get significant mention, so I’ll keep an eye on this.

HR 2609, the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2014 will come to the House floor this week under a rule to be adopted Monday afternoon by the House Rules Committee. Nothing of particular interest here; what is interesting is that HR 2410, the Ag spending bill is not scheduled to come to the floor this week even though a rule was written before the recess. The Republican leadership is still apparently trying to work out a deal on the authorization bill and will apparently hold this bill until that problem is disposed of.

Cyber-Espionage

The Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce will hold a hearing on Tuesday looking at “Cyber Espionage and the Theft of U.S. Intellectual Property and Technology”. I am a little concerned that the hearing is focusing solely on the intellectual property angle (very important, I know), but appears to be ignoring the problem of espionage looking for access to control systems a potentially much larger and more dangerous problem. Well, maybe that will be addressed in a subsequent hearing.

Terrorist Attack Reviews

The House Committee on Homeland Security will be holding a hearing on Wednesday looking at "Assessing Attacks on the Homeland: From Fort Hood to Boston.” Nothing specifically related to cybersecurity or chemical security is expected. The witness list is not currently available.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will be holding a hearing on Wednesday looking at “Lessons Learned from the Boston Marathon Bombings: Preparing for and Responding to the Attack”. Again I don’t expect anything specifically concerning cybersecurity or chemical security to be discussed. The witness list includes:

• Richard Serino, Federal Emergency Management Agency;

• Kurt N. Schwartz, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts

• Edward F. Davis III, the City of Boston; and

• Arthur L. Kellermann, M.D., the RAND Corporation

Learning from successful terrorist attacks is very important. Even though these attacks did not include specific cybersecurity or chemical security components, the lessons learned will still have important applications to those security areas.

TSCA

The Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce will hold a hearing on Thursday looking at “Regulation of New Chemicals, Protection of Confidential Business Information, and Innovation”. No witness list is currently available.

Possible Hearings to Come

I have been hearing some comments, public and private, about some interesting hearings that are planned for later this month. It looks like there will be a House hearing on the West Fertilizer explosion which I suspect will include some pointed questions about the Ammonium Nitrate Security Program. I am expecting at least one House hearing on the status of the CFATS program with a special emphasis on the Personnel Surety Program.