HR 3011 Introduced – TSA Authorization

Somehow I missed reporting on the introduction of HR 3011, the Transportation Security Administration Authorization Act of 2011, at the end of September. As is usual with most TSA related legislation, the bulk of the bill deals with air security efforts. Given the history of attacks against air transportation this is probably understandable. There are, however, significant portions of the bill that deal with Surface Transportation Issues.

Streamlining Threat Assessments for Credentials

Subtitle A of Title III of the bill deals with security identification documents, specifically harmonizing the background checks requirements and procedures for the many different credentials currently required. This section of the bill is almost identical to HR 1690 that was reported out by the Subcommittee on Transportation Security (whose Chair, Mike Rogers (R,AL), introduced this bill) of the House Homeland Security Committee.

I reported earlier on the markup of that bill in Roger’s Subcommittee. The failure of the whole committee to take up that bill is probably (hopefully) explained by its inclusion in this TSA authorization bill.

Freight Rail Security

Section 323 of this bill would require the Assistant Secretary (head of the TSA) to “conduct a demonstration project in a freight rail system to test and assess the feasibility and effectiveness of technologies to strengthen the security of freight rail systems against terrorist attacks involving the use of improvised explosive devices and tampering with infrastructure to cause a derailment” {§323(a)}. There is no specific description of the types of technologies to be included in the project beyond the generic “detect improvised explosive devices on bridges and in tunnels” {§323(a)(1)} and “defeat improvised explosive devices left on rail tracks” {§323(a)(2)}.

Pipeline Security

Section 325 would require the Comptroller General to conduct a study to consider the relative responsibilities for DHS and DOT (under their current Memorandum of Understanding) for pipeline security activities including

• Protecting against intentional pipeline breaches;

• Responding to intentional pipeline breaches; and

• Planning for the recovery from intentional pipeline breaches.

It would be interesting to see how the subsequent report differentiates the responsibilities for the response and recovery for ‘intentional breaches’ and accidental releases. It would seem to me that much of the response responsibility and almost all of the recovery responsibility would lie with FEMA rather than TSA.

HAZMAT Tracking Requirements

Section 326 of the bill is a very short and overlookable part of the bill that would repeal 6 USC 1204(d). This provision could have significant effects on the trucking industry. Section 1204 (which came from the Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007) mandated that the Secretary, in consultation with DOT would “develop a program to facilitate the tracking of motor carrier shipments of security-sensitive materials”. Section 1204(d) clarified that the program would not “mandate the installation or utilization of a technology described under this section without additional congressional authority provided after August 3, 2007”.

Presumably this section is a backdoor way of providing that ‘additional congressional authority’, though it certainly doesn’t require the Secretary to put into place any rules requiring the installation of such devices. Given the TSA’s slow movement in any area of surface transportation security mandates (driven by the lack of clear authority and the shortage of enforcement manpower, to be sure) it would be surprising if any new regulations came into being because of this provision in this bill. It would, however, provide some political cover for Congress in the event of a successful attack on a hazmat truck.

Surface Transportation Advisory Committee

Section 341 of this bill would authorize the formation of the Surface Transportation Advisory Committee. This section has essentially been taken from HR 1900, the Surface Transportation and Mass Transit Security Act of 2011 which was introduced by Rep. Jackson-Lee (D,TX), the Ranking Member of Roger’s Subcommittee. I discussed this provision in an earlier blog posting on that bill.

Please note that while plagiarism is bad form in academia and reporting, in Congress it is high-art and a common method of acquiring support for a measure. Ms. Jackson-Lee will hardly complain about the inclusion of this provision in this bill.

Information Sharing

The final two sections in this bill deal with information sharing. Section 342 requires the development of a plan “to improve intelligence information sharing with State and local transportation entities” {§342(a)} while §343 requires the Secretary, within 180 days of the enactment of this bill, to “establish a mechanism to share with State and local transportation entities best practices from across the law enforcement spectrum” {§343(a)}.

Sadly lacking in either section is any mention of sharing information with the people that have primary responsibility for surface transportation security; the owners of surface transportation assets. The vast majority of surface transportation assets are in the private sector as are the bulk of security personnel.

The failure to share intelligence information with the asset owners is bordering on criminal neglect. Granted, there are intelligence security concerns, but those must be worked out. There is no way that the government at any level can afford to assume total responsibility for protecting surface transportation assets. And private security needs to have access to intelligence information to be effective.

Movement Forward

This bill was referred to both the Homeland Security Committee and the Judiciary Committee for action back on September 22^nd. There is no indication that it was further farmed out to subcommittees in either of those bodies. This doesn’t bode well for quick consideration of the bill, particularly the failure to refer the bill to the Transportation Security Subcommittee of the Homeland Security Committee.

Transportation Security Subcommittee to Markup TSA Authorization Bill

The House Homeland Security Committee announced yesterday that its Transportation Security Subcommittee will be holding a markup hearing this tomorrow on an as yet unpublished ‘TSA Authorization Act’. Since this is an ‘open markup’ it is expected that this will be a multiple day hearing.

Ranking Member Jackson-Lee has introduced a bill (HR 1900) that would specifically authorize ground transportation security measures for TSA. Provisions from that bill might be included in the bill being marked up in this hearing or may be added as amendments to Chairman Rogers’ (R,AL) bill.

Congressional Hearings – Week of 07-11-11

Two weeks in a row that both Houses are actually meeting in Washington. Will wonders never cease? There are only three hearings scheduled this week that will be of interest to the chemical security community and nothing of interest on cyber security. Only two topics will be covered in these three hearings; TSA and pipelines.

TSA Authorization

The Transportation Security Subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee will be meeting tomorrow to look at industry perspectives of authorizing TSA. It is very encouraging to see that not only will there be surface transportation industry representatives present for this hearing, but that they will form the first of two panels to testify. That panel will include transit, railroad, trucking, and pipeline industry representatives as well as a union rep. This should be an interesting panel to hear from.

The second panel will deal will air security issues, and I guess that those may be important too (reluctant sarcasm).

Pipeline Security

Subcommittees from two different House committees will take a look at pipeline safety this week. Thursday the Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will hold a hearing; no details are currently available.

On Friday the Energy and Power Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing looking at their draft bill; “Pipeline Infrastructure and Community Protection Act of 2011”. No witness list is yet available for this hearing. Hopefully I’ll have a chance to review their draft bill before the hearing.

Congressional Hearings Week of 5-30-11

The Senate is taking a week off from their busy debate schedule (technically they’ll meet Tuesday and Friday in ‘pro forma’ sessions) so we only have to keep track of the House this week. Even so we have three hearings currently scheduled this week that might be of interest to the chemical security community, a cyber security related hearing, a TSA authorization hearing and probably most importantly the FY 2011 DHS budget bill HR 2017.

Cyber Security

The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will be holding a hearing on Wednesday looking at “Cybersecurity: Assessing the Nation’s Ability to Address the Growing Cyber Threat”. No details about witnesses are yet available on the Committee web site, but this is supposed to be part of a series of ‘in depth’ hearings by this Committee on cyber security related issues. There could always be a mention or two about control system security.

TSA Authorization

The Homeland Security Committee’s Transportation Security Subcommittee will be holding a hearing on authorizing the Transportation Security Administration of DHS. This hearing was postponed from last week. There is no TSA authorization bill currently available for review, but I would not be surprised to see one published this week.

HR 2017

As I mentioned earlier this week HR 2017, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2012, was introduced last week and is scheduled for a Rules Committee hearing on Tuesday. This hearing will establish the rule for the floor consideration of this bill later this week. There are, as of yet, no proposed amendments listed on the Rules Committee web site, but I would expect that to change during the day Tuesday.

Lame Duck Congress

While many pundits are focused on prognostication about the 112th Congress that will start in January, next week the 111th Congress will return to finish out the last month and a half of their term. The same people will be in charge and the same issues have to be addressed. The big difference is that many won’t be returning, so they won’t need to worry about what the voters think while others know that they will have more power to persevere in the next Congress. These two facts will color what can be done.

Chemical Security Legislation

The current CFATS authority expires on December 3rd. Congress will take some sort of action on legislation to continue that program. The most likely effort will be a one year extension in the DHS budget bill. If an actual budget doesn’t pass (a very real possibility if the Democrats try to stuff a budget bill with last minute attempts to add programs that won’t have a chance in the upcoming Republican controlled House) any continuing resolution will contain a CFATS extension for the length of the CR. I won’t be surprised to see a couple of short term continuing resolutions to give the 111th more time to pass their budget bill (probably a single, huge bill).

There are a number of bills that specifically address CFATS ranging from HR 2477 (which makes the current program permanent), thru HR 2868 (which slightly modifies and extends CFATS for three years), to S 2996 (which extends CFATS for five years). The only one that has any chance of passage is HR 2868 and I’ve discussed a number of possible scenarios that might result in passage in earlier blogs (most recently), but I won’t waste any money on betting on passage.

Adding chemical security requirements to water treatment facility security requirements is currently only addressed by one bill (the Senate version of HR 2868 removed the House provisions that included this), S 3598. The Senate has held only one hearing on this bill and the Environment and Public Works Committee is unlikely to report this bill. If it does, the Democrats are unlikely to be able to muster 60 votes (because of the current IST provisions in the bill) to force a vote on this bill. If it does get to a floor vote, it would almost certainly pass and could be taken up and passed in the House if the Senate vote comes early enough. Needless to say that Greenpeace is pushing for this bill to be passed.

Cyber Security Legislation

There were a number of cyber security bills introduced in the 111th Congress. None really specifically address control system security issues. Only one has come to a floor vote, HR 4061, and it passed easily. No action has been taken in the Senate on that bill, no hearings and no committee votes. While it is unlikely to come to a floor vote, it would probably pass. It could make it to the floor at the very end of the session if the leadership really wanted to get some sort of cyber security bill passed and nothing else worked. If there were no floor amendments, this bill would not need to go back to the House for further action.

S 3480 is the Senate bill that is best positioned to come to a floor vote. As I have mentioned on a number of occasions, we have been waiting for the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee’s report on this bill since June. There is some opposition to some provisions of this bill so there would probably be a fairly extensive number of floor amendments that would be faced. This would make this a time consuming bill to pass, making it difficult in this short session. If the leadership on both sides of the aisle could agree to limit the amendment process this bill could probably pass, but not in enough time to make it through the House.

Other Legislation of Interest

HR 2200, the TSA authorization bill, has been ordered reported in the Senate (last year), so it could come to the Senate floor. New concerns about cargo screening, and passenger screening technology could lead to a large number of floor amendments, again making this a time consuming bill to pass. It would have to go back to the House, because of changes made in committee. That makes it more difficult to pass in the short session.

HR 4842, the DHS S&T authorization bill, passed in the House but has had no action taken in the Senate. This could be a sleeper bill that could slide through a floor vote in the Senate if the leadership decides to take it up.

Watch Them Closely

While many people have called the 111th a ‘do nothing’ Congress, there have actually been a significant number of things passed. We will probably see a large number of little noticed bills making their way quickly through the legislative process in the lame duck session. Most will be mainly non-controversial, but lots of stuff can get tacked onto these bills. The budget bill(s) will be particularly vulnerable to stuffing with a number of Congress Critters trying one last time to get their personal favorite idea into law. This session could get very loud and very ugly, but we’ll have to pay close attention to the quiet stuff.

HR 2200 on Fast Track – 05-22-09

I love to be able to say “I told you so”. I said that HR 2200, the TSA Authorization bill, was on a fast track for passage in the House and even I underestimated how fast. Yesterday the House Rules Committee held an ‘Emergency Hearing’ on HR 2200 and reported H.Res. 474 as a rule to expedite a hearing before the House. The full House of Representatives is scheduled to debate the bill today for one hour. A vote may be allowed to take place this afternoon or early evening depending on how long Speaker Pelosi intends to keep the House in session before it short Memorial Day Recess. I have been partially on vacation this week so I missed the publication of the Homeland Security Committee Report (Report 111-123) and the printing of the latest version of the bill, that reported by the Committee (HR 2200RH). Both are available on the GPO web site or at Thomas.loc.gov. Unfortunately, when the House Rules Committee does one of these resolutions to allow for early consideration of a bill, their report is not published or publicly available until after the debate is over. This is unfortunate since this is the only place that one would be able to find copies of the amendments that will be allowed to be discussed and/or considered in today’s debate. The only good thing is that bills considered under these rules typically require a 2/3 majority to pass. If they don’t achieve that on the day of early consideration they can be brought back up again in the course of regular consideration where they will only require a majority vote to pass. I expect that if it comes to a vote, it will pass. Sometime next week we will be able to look at what the House passes today (in all likelihood) in some detail before it is considered by the Senate. Given the interest in the Senate Homeland Security Committee to get a DHS authorization bill done this year, I would not be surprised to see this get swift consideration in that body as well. OOPS. Update a 10:25 The House is not meeting today, it recessed for the long weekend last night. That means that this bill will be considered early next week. The House is actually schedule to reconvene on Monday evening, but will probably not get to work until Tuesday.

HS Committee Passes HR 2200 in Bipartisan Vote

Yesterday the full House Homeland Security Committee marked up the version of HR 2200 reported out of the subcommittee last week and adopted the revised bill in a near unanimous vote (22-Yes, 1-present, 0-No), extending the record of bipartisan support for this bill. As early as next week the Committee Report on the bill should be reported to the full House, opening the door for a floor vote anytime there after. Because very few of the large number of amendments made to this bill in either the subcommittee or full committee hearings were read into the record we will not be able to tell for sure what HR 2200 actually contains until we see the amended version of the bill in the House Report. Most of the amendments made today were done on voice vote with little or no opposition. There were a few amendments that drew ‘perfecting’ amendments from the opposite side of the aisle. The votes on most of those issues were on the record and were closer to a party line vote. For example an amendment to require DHS to add current Gitmo Detainees to the Do Not Fly List was countered with an amendment to the effect that this should only be done after the President determines their ‘final status’. This was the most rancorous discussion during the hearing, but even that did not rise to the current level of bipartisan ‘debate’ seen on so many issues lately. This authorization bill still seems to be on the fast track for passage in the House. The broad (if some times grudging) support this bill received in these two markup hearings seems to indicate that this will have little problem passing a vote in the full House.