HR 5109 Reported in House – TWIC for Felons

Yesterday, the House Homeland Security Committee reported HR 5109, a bill requiring TSA to “develop guidelines to improve returning [from incarceration] citizens’ access to the TWIC program.” A copy of the report is not currently available. The Committee held a business meeting on June 24th, 2026, that included consideration of the bill. The bill was approved by a vote of 30 to 0. 

The House is scheduled to consider the bill today under the suspension of the rules process. That process provides for limited floor debate; no amendments may be considered; and passage requires a super majority. 

Review - TSA Sends HMI Threat Assessment ICR to OMB

Yesterday, the OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) announced that it had received an extension without change of a currently approved collection from the DHS’ Transportation Security Administration for their “Security Threat Assessment for Individuals Applying for a Hazardous Materials Endorsement for a Commercial Driver's License” information collection request (ICR). The 30-day ICR notice was published earlier this week in the Federal Register (91 FR 53889-53890). The 60-day ICR notice was published on May 6th, 2026. 

The OMB reports that the following burden estimate data was provided to them by the TSA: 

Public Comments  

TSA and OIRA are soliciting public comments on the data being provided in the 30-day ICR notice that is currently being reviewed by OIRA. Comments may be submitted by going to OIRA’s Agency Submission page for this ICR and clicking on the “COMMENT” button near the top of the page. Comments should be submitted by September 21st, 2026. 

Commentary  

While not a function of the information collection process, the generally declining number of applicants and renewal requests reported by TSA for these security threat assessments for CDL hazardous materials indorsements presages an increasing problem for the chemical industry. The chemical industry can ill afford to deal with a declining number of truck drivers that are legally qualified to haul hazardous material loads. Industry is going to have to become more actively involved in recruiting truck drivers in general and HMI qualified drivers in particular. 

FAA Sends UAS BVLOS Final Rule to OMB

On Friday, the OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) announced that it had received a final rule from the DOT’s Federal Aviation Administration on “Normalizing Unmanned Aircraft Systems Beyond Visual Line of Sight Operations”. The notice of proposed rulemaking was published on August 7th, 2025. 

According to the 2026 Unified Agenda entry for this rulemaking: 

“This action proposes performance-based regulations enabling the design and operation of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) at low altitudes beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) and for third-party services, to include UAS Traffic Management (UTM), that support these operations. The FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 directs the development of this proposed rule. This proposed rule is necessary to support the integration of UAS into the national airspace system (NAS). This proposed rule is intended to provide a predictable and clear pathway for safe, routine, and scalable UAS operations that include package delivery, agriculture, aerial surveying, civic interest, operations training, demonstration, recreation, and flight testing.” 

As I noted in a CFSN Detailed Analysis post the NPRM included security language from the TSA. I reported that: “The preamble notes that: ‘While FAA and TSA are issuing a joint proposed rulemaking, the agencies intend to concurrently issue separate final rules.’” That separate rulemaking was listed in the 2026 Unified Agenda, but there has been no announcement of its being sent to OIRA at this time. 

Review - TSA Publishes Initial Insider Threat Reporting 60-day ICR Notice

Today, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) published a 60-day information collection request (ICR) in the Federal Register (91 FR 21831-21832) on “Insider Threat Incident Reporting Tool”. The Reporting Tool will support the TSA Insider Threat Program. TSA is proposing an online tool to collect this information. 

The table below provides the initial burden estimate for this ICR. 

Public Comments 

The TSA is soliciting public comments on this ICR. Comments may be submitted by email to TSAPRA@tsa.dhs.gov. Comments should be submitted by June 22nd, 2026. 

For more information on this ICR, see my artilce at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/tsa-publishes-initial-insider-threat - subscription required. 

Review - TSA Publishes Surface Cybersecurity 60-day ICR Revision Notice

 Today the Transportation Security Administration published a 60-day information collection request (ICR) revision notice in the Federal Register (91 FR 20475-20477) for their “Cybersecurity Measures for Surface Modes” ICR. The revision deals with the new reporting requirements for the appointment of a primary or alternate Cybersecurity Coordinator who is not a US citizen. 

The table below shows the proposed and existing burden estimates for this ICR. Today’s notice does not report the number of annual responses expected for the revised ICR. 

Public Comments  

TSA is soliciting public comments on this ICR revision. Comments may be emailed to TSAPRA@tsa.dhs.gov. Comments should be sent by June 15th, 2026. 

For more information on this ICR, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/tsa-publishes-surface-cybersecurity - subscription required. 

Review - OMB Receives TSA Pipeline Security ICR Revision Request – 1-2-26

On Friday the OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) announced that it had received a 30-day information collection request (ICR) revision notice from the TSA on “Pipeline Corporate Security Reviews and TSA Security Directive Pipeline– 2021–02 Series”. The ICR revision notice was published in the Federal Register (91 FR 149-150) on January 2^nd, 2026. In addition to changing the name of the ICR, TSA is modifying their burden estimate.

The table below shows the proposed change in the burden estimate:

Public Comments

TSA is soliciting public comments on this ICR revision. Comments may be submitted to OIRA by clicking the comment box on the OIRA notice for this revision. Comments should be submitted by February 2^nd, 2026.

 

For more information on the changes being sought in this ICR revision, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/omb-receives-tsa-pipeline-security - subscription required.

Review – HR 5062 Introduced – Pipeline Security

Last month Rep Johnson (D,TX) introduced HR 5062, the Pipeline Security Act. The bill would amend the Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007 by adding a new §1559, Pipeline Security. It would require the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to take actions to regulate the cybersecurity protection of hazardous material pipelines. No new funding is authorized.

The bill is similar in intent to HR 9469, the Pipeline Security Act, that was introduced by Rep Garcia (D,CA) in September 2024. The House Homeland Security Committee held a business meeting on September 25^th, 2024 where the bill was considered. The bill was amended and passed on a voice vote. No report was published nor was a revised version of the bill published. No further action was taken in the House. The earlier bill would have amended 49 USC 114 to specifically add pipeline cybersecurity to the list of responsibilities of the Transportation Security Administration.

Moving Forward

On September 3^rd, 2025 the House Homeland Security Committee held a business meeting that included the consideration of HR 5062. By a vote of 22 to 0 the Committee, the bill was ordered reported favorably without amendment. That bipartisan support would indicate that the bill could be considered in the House under the suspension of the rules process, where the bill should pass with significant bipartisan support.

Commentary

The reality is that this bill is going to codify responsibility for actions that TSA is already taking. Bills such as this, however, are important in that they provide a legal backstop for charges that the agency has exceeded its authority. The current authority under 49 USC 114 is broadly written and could be argued to support the agency’s security directives and current rulemaking process.

 

For more information on the provisions of this bill, including additional commentary, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-5062-introduced-pipeline-security - subscription required.

Review – TSA Portion of FAA BVLOS NPRM

 Today, the DOT’s Federal Aviation Administration published a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) in the Federal Register (90 FR 38212) on “Normalizing Unmanned Aircraft Systems Beyond Visual Line of Sight [BVLOS] Operations”. In an unusual move this rulemaking contains provisions from the DHS’ Transportation Security Administration (TSA) designed to “make complementary changes to its regulations to ensure it can continue to impose security measures on these operations under its current regulatory structure for civil aviation.” The preamble notes that: “While FAA and TSA are issuing a joint proposed rulemaking, the agencies intend to concurrently issue separate final rules.”

In this rulemaking the TSA is proposing to make changes to:

49 CFR 1540, Civil Aviation Security: General Rules, and

49 CFR 1544, Aircraft Operator Security: Air Carriers and Commercial Operators

Public Comments

The FAA and TSA are soliciting public comments on this NPRM. Comments may be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal (www.Regulations.gov; Docket #FAA-2025-1908). Comments should be submitted by October 6^th, 2025. This rulemaking is under an EO 14307 §4(a) deadline: “A final rule shall be published within 240 days of the date of this order [June 11^th, 2025], as appropriate.” That means that the final rule should be published by February 6^th, 2026. Note: Presidential deadlines are only slightly more enforceable that Congressional deadlines.

 

For more details about the provisions of this rulemaking, including a look at potential additional TSA security requirements, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/tsa-portion-of-faa-bvlos-nprm - subscription required

Review – TSA Publishes Pipeline Safety 60-day ICR Revision

Yesterday, the TSA published a 60-day information collection request (ICR) revision notice in the Federal Register (90 FR 36446-36447) for their Critical Facility Information From the Top 100 Most Critical Pipeline Operators. The changes proposed include a minor revision of the title and removing one of the three current information collections.

The table below shows both the old (current) and new (proposed) burden estimates for this ICR.

Public Comments

The TSA is soliciting public comments on this ICR notice. Comments may be submitted via a button on the Federal Register page for this notice or by email to the TSA (TSAPRA@dhs.gov). Comments should be submitted by October 3^rd, 2025.

Commentary

Readers of this blog will certainly be aware of my history of negative comments about the adequacy of ICR notices from TSA. None of those comments apply here. TSA has done a good job of laying out the information that someone would need to provide useable comments about the burden estimates in this notice. Covered pipeline organizations should review the data and take the opportunity to let TSA and OMB about the adequacy of those burden estimates.

 

For more information about the details of the burden estimate, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/tsa-publishes-pipeline-safety-60 - subscription required.