Congressional Hearings Week of 9-29-13

Well the shutdown is still looming, but there are three hearings currently scheduled for this week that might be of interest to readers of this blog, if they are held. They will look at freight transportation, a committee business hearing and threats to the homeland.

Transportation

The only House hearing will be held by a special panel from the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on Tuesday. This is part of a continuing series and the public panel includes Mr. F. Edmond Johnston, III, Sustainability Manager, DuPont. This means that at least some chemical issues will be raised.

Business Meeting

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will be holding a business meeting this evening. There still is not an agenda on their web page, but I understand that the nomination of Ms. Spaulding to be Undersecretary for NPPD at DHS will be addressed.

Threats to Homeland

The same Senate committee will be holding a hearing on Thursday to look at the current status of threats to homeland security. The witness list includes:

• Rand Beers. Acting DHS Secretary;

• Matthew G. Olsen,Director, National Counterterrorism Center; and

• Sean M. Joyce, Deputy Director, FBI

I expect that this will be a fairly wide ranging but superficial look at the current threat situation. Cybersecurity will certainly come up, but I doubt that there will be any mention of threats against chemical facilities. There will be no discussion of any specific threats and general threats will be covered in only the broadest vaguest terms since this is not a classified hearing.