Committee Hearings – Week of 06-21-15

Both the House and Senate will be in Washington this week and having a fairly normal hearing schedule. Only five hearings of potential specific interest to readers of this blog; two on the OPM hack, one cybersecurity markup, a hearing on vehicle-to-vehicle communications and the Senate version of the THUD spending bill.

OPM Hack

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will be holding part 2 of their hearing on the OPM hack on Wednesday. No witness list has been made available yet.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will look at the OPM hack and the larger issue of Federal cybersecurity on Thursday.

Vehicle-to- Vehicle Communications

On Thursday the Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee will be meeting on Thursday to look at “Vehicle to Vehicle Communications and Connected Roadways of the Future”.

Cybersecurity Markup

The Senate Homeland Security Committee will be holding a business meeting on Wednesday. One of the bills that they will be marking up in the Einstein Act (will probably be introduced today). Nothing certain yet, but it looks like it will probably deal with the Einstein cybersecurity programs being deployed across the Federal government.

FY 2016 THUD Spending Bill

The Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee will be holding a markup hearing on the FY 2015 THUD spending bill tomorrow. We did not see any crude oil train or chemical transportation safety measures in the original House bill (HR 2577) but some did make it in during the floor amendment process. We will have to wait and see what the Senate Appropriations Committee does with this bill.

On the Floor

We have a number of homeland security related bills coming to the floor of the House this week including two that I have been following in this blog; HR 2200 (CBRN Intel) and HR 1646 (Drone Assessment). I did a post yesterday on the committee report on HR 2200 and I am waiting for the GPO to publish the report on HR 1646. The bills are expected to come to the floor on Tuesday under suspension of the rules; so no amendments will be made.

OMB Receives Draft Vehicle-to-Vehicle Communications ANPRM

Yesterday the OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) announced that it had received a copy of an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) from the DOT’s National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) establishing a new Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) for vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications.

This rulemaking was not listed in the most recent Unified Agenda so it is difficult to tell what the rule will cover. I would like to think that it would include requirements for cybersecurity standards for such communications.

DOT Connected Vehicle Standards Meeting

Okay, vehicle control system security is a bit of a stretch for a chemical facility security blog, but it is my blog. Today the DOT’s Intelligent Transportation System Joint Program Office (ITS JPO) published a meeting notice in the Federal Register (79 FR 6985) announcing a public workshop to discuss candidate Connected Vehicle (CV) interfaces for standardization.

This program has always seemed to be a little futuristic and a tad bit out-there, but it is becoming obvious that this technology is quickly moving out of the Popular Science technology of the future realm into the real world. This is particularly true with yesterday’s DOT announcement of its intention to move forward with establishing vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications standards as a means to reduce accidents.

The free Connected Vehicle Reference Implementation Architecture (CVRIA) public workshop will be held on February 19^th and 20^th in San Francisco, CA. Advanced registration is encouraged as registrants will receive a preliminary draft plan in advance of the workshop.