S 4802 Introduced - FY 2025 IER Spending

Last month, Sen Merkley (D,OR) introduced S 4802, the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2025. The Senate Appropriations Committee published their Report on the bill. The bill contains one minor cybersecurity mention. It also includes funding for the Chemical Safety Board. The Committee Report includes two cybersecurity discussions, a discussion about the CSB, and three chemical safety issues.

The House version of this bill is HR 8998 [removed from paywall]. That bill passed in the House on July 24^th, by a straight party-line vote of 210 to 202.

Cybersecurity in the Bill

As I noted in my post on HR 8998, 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, this 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, $108,311,000, to remain available until expended….”

The table below shows a comparison in the amounts included in this bill, HR 8998, and S 2605 (the FY 2024 IER spending bill).

The spending is down from last year’s Senate bill, but it is still larger than the amount the House Appropriations Committee allocated for the fund.

Cybersecurity in the Report

On page 85, under the heading ‘Homeland Security, the Committee urges the EPA to prioritize water system cybersecurity, noting that:

“The Committee is concerned by public reports of cyberattacks on water systems across the world and provides additional funding for the Agency to prevent cyber threats in coordination with other Federal agencies and partners.”

On page 166, in the Congressional earmarks table, there is a line item for $1.1 million for the City of Tulare for Cybersecurity for Wastewater Treatment Plant. This earmark was requested by Sen Butler (D,CA) and Sen Padilla (D,CA). House rules do not currently allow earmarked spending.

Chemical Safety Board

On page 143 in the bill, the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation board (commonly known as the Chemical Safety Board or CSB) spending for FY 2025 is allocated at $14.6 million dollars. The table below shows the comparison of that amount to the current House bill and last year’s Senate bill.

The current bill’s level is slightly higher than last year and a tad bit higher than proposed in the House bill.

In the Report, on page 130, the Committee discusses the importance of the CSB mission:

“The Board has the important responsibility of independently investigating industrial chemical accidents and sharing safety lessons that can prevent future catastrophic incidents. The Board’s mission has become only more important as climate chaos and increasingly extreme weather events threaten chemical facilities and communities. The Committee urges the Board to address long-standing management challenges so that it can effectively and fully accomplish its critical mission.”

Chemical Safety in Report

There are three chemical safety discussions in the Report. The first is the allocation of $128,374,000 for Research: Chemical Safety and Sustainability, under the heading of EPA Science and Technology. This is reported on page 85.

As did the House Committee, the Senate Appropriations Committee had comments on TSCA chemical submission testing. On page 94, under new chemical submissions the Report notes:

“The Committee directs the Agency develop and then implement an improvement plan to the New Chemicals program with the goal of improving the time frame for new chemical reviews to be completed and determinations made given the 90-day statutory deadline. The Agency is directed to submit and brief the Committee on the plan within 120 days of enactment of this act. Further, the Agency is directed to enhance communication, improve the transparency of the process, and communicate status of submissions with new chemicals submitters. EPA is encouraged to accommodate pre-consultation meetings prior to submission and improve transparency for submitters of the status of their submissions in the review process. The Agency is directed to brief the Committee within 120 days of enactment of this act on these efforts.”

Finally, the Committee repeats a comment from last year’s IER spending bill:

“The Committee continues the direction contained in Senate Report 118–83 [pg 95, link added] as it remains concerned about the growth of pyrolysis and gasification of plastic waste and notes current law provides the Agency with the authority to continue to regulate these facilities.”

Moving Forward

As noted above, the House passed HR 8998 last month. If the Senate takes up that bill (and the chances are rather slim), the language from this bill will be substituted for the House language as the starting point for the debate. While there will be sufficient bipartisan support for this language in the Senate for passage, there will be some Republicans that will attempt to stall debate.

Ultimately, the chances of any individual spending bill getting to the President’s desk this session are vanishingly small. We are most likely going to see a continuing resolution by the end of next month. With Republicans less confident in Trumps election we are likely to see an end date for that CR early in December. A positive (for the Republicans) election result will likely see a second CR pushing the final date of an omnibus (or two minibus) spending bill until next Spring. A negative result will likely see a spending bill on Biden’s desk in December.