Congressional Hearings – Week of 10-20-13

The House returns to work tomorrow while the Senate remains in their States for another week of keeping in touch with voters and contributors. The House does not currently have a real heavy hearing schedule this week and only one hearing that might be of specific interest to readers of this blog, a mark-up hearing that was originally scheduled for 10-2-13.

The House Homeland Security Committee will be meeting on Thursday to consider six different bills; four of which may be of specific interest here:

• HR 1204, The Aviation Security Stakeholder Participation Act of 2013;

• HR 1791, The Medical Preparedness Allowable Use Act;

• HR 2952, The Critical Infrastructure Research and Development Advancement Act of 2013; and

• HR 3107, The Homeland Security Cybersecurity Boots-on-the-Ground Act.

Revised language will be introduced for three of these bills:

• HR 1204;

• HR 2952; and

• HR 3107

Among other things the revisions to HR 1204 would tend to re-emphasize that the TSA is to take the recommendations of the Advisory Committee very seriously; reporting to Congress when the TSA does not follow those recommendations. The changes in the language for HR 2952 are essentially non-substantive political changes. The same can be said of the proposed changes to HR 3107.