HR 8998 Introduced
FY 2025 IER Spending
Earlier this month, Rep Simpson (R,ID) introduced HR 8898, the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies [IER] Appropriations Act, 2024. The House Appropriations Committee published their Report on the bill. There is no specific cybersecurity funding mentioned in the bill. The bill does contain reduced funding for the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) and one chemical safety funding restriction. The Report discusses one cybersecurity spending issue and several chemical safety initiatives.
Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity spending in the legislation is lumped into operational spending accounts and is only mentioned in passing. For example, on page 53 under the heading of ‘Working Capital Fund’ for the Department of the Interior, the bill explains:
“For the operation and maintenance of a departmental financial and business management system, data management, information technology improvements of general benefit to the Department, cybersecurity, and the consolidation of facilities and operations throughout the Department, $99,453,000, to remain available until expended….”
Note: That is an increase of almost $9.7 million over that proposed in the FY 2024 IER spending bill (HR 4821)
In the Committee’s Report, there is one specific discussion (pgs 65) about cybersecurity research under the heading of ‘Research: National Priorities’:
“The bill provides $2,475,000 for advancing full scale applied research and testing capabilities to address threats to drinking water and drinking water infrastructure, including cybersecurity research, weatherization equipment, SCADA control systems, and water tanks at Water Security Test Bed facilities. Specifically, funding is provided for continuing and ongoing operations as well as the Agency’s proposed Phase 1 and Phase 2 projects to expand capabilities to support cybersecurity research at the Water Security Test Bed facility.”
Note: Similarly, this is an increase of $1.0 million over that proposed by the Committee last year.
CSB Spending
The Chemical Safety Board spending is listed as a separate item in the bill on page 121, setting the budget for the Board in 2024 at $13,824,000. Page 96 of the Report compares that spending to both the President’s budget request for the Board and the amount authorized for FY 2023:
Budget request - $17,400,000
FY 2023 Enacted - $14,400,000
HR 4821 Introduced - $12,960,000
So, the bill reduces the amount of funding for the CSB from the amount enacted last year, and substantially less than requested by the Biden Administration. Still, this is more than proposed by the Committee last year. The only comment in the report on that the funding level is for ‘Salaries and Expenses’. So, it does not look like this spending reduction is the result of any specific animus, but rather part of the overall spending reduction efforts of Republican leadership.
Chemical Safety
There is one chemical safety issue addressed in the bill. Section 482 (pg 221) prohibits any funding being used to “implement, administer, or enforce the final rule titled ‘Accidental Release Prevention Requirements: Risk Management Programs Under the Clean Air Act; Safer Communities by Chemical Accident Prevention’” (89 FR 17622).
The report discusses (pg 74) this section, noting that the “Committee is aware of concerns that the rule requires overreaching requirements for hazard evaluations, emergency preparedness, and chemical information disclosure, which could result in substantial costs to refineries and could disrupt risk reduction efforts by diverting resources from proven accident prevention initiatives.”
TSCA Discussion – There is a lengthy discussion (pgs 65-7) in the report about the Committee’s concerns with the EPA’s administration of the chemical review portion of the TSCA program, a well-known philosophical disagreement between even the mainstream Republicans and Democrats. The Committee lists changes that it encourages the EPA to make in its TSCA implementation.
There are two additional chemical safety discussions in the report:
Chloroprene PBPK study (pg 67), and
IRIS program integrity (pg 67)
Amendments Proposed
The House Rules Committee is scheduled to meet today to formulate the rule for the consideration this week of four spending bills including HR 8998. There have been 193 amendments submitted to the Committee for their possible inclusion in the rule for that consideration. One of those amendments is of potential interest here:
Amendment 123 submitted by Rep DeSaulnier (D,CA): Increases funding for the funding for the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board by $1 million to support activities authorized under the Clean Air Act.
Interestingly, there has been no amendment submitted that would strike §482, the provision that would prohibit funding for the EPA’s recent risk management rule.
Moving Forward
This very partisan spending bill is scheduled to be considered this week. There will be no Democrats voting to support this bill, so the leadership will need nearly every Republican vote to pass the bill. The question is, will the radical wing of the party think that the bill goes far enough to castrate the operations of the EPA. If their answer is no, this bill will not pass.