The U.S. House Homeland Security Committee approved legislation to build up America’s protections against weapons of mass destruction (WMD), a bill introduced by U.S. Rep. Dan Donovan (R-NY), chairman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Communications.
“Threats facing our homeland continue to change and evolve. Government has a responsibility to protect the American people, and my legislation alongside the several other bills passed today will improve our defenses and mitigate the dangers we face,” said Rep. Donovan following the committee’s unanimous passage of the Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Act of 2018, H.R. 6198.
The bill, which Rep. Donovan unveiled on June 22, would fully equip the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to counter WMD by amending the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to establish the Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction (CWMD) Office, among other purposes, according to the text of the bill in the congressional record.
H.R. 6198 also would incorporate language from Rep. Donovan’s Securing the Cities Act of 2017, H.R. 655, which would permanently authorize resources for the Securing the Cities program for federal, state and local governments to detect and prevent nuclear and radiological attacks in high-risk urban areas around the country. The U.S. House approved H.R. 655 on Jan. 31, 2017 and the bill is under consideration by the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) is the original cosponsor of H.R. 6198, which is also under consideration by the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee.
During the Homeland Security Committee’s full markup of H.R. 6198 on July 24, several other related bills advanced, including five measures cosponsored by Rep. Donovan: the Maritime Border Security Review Act, H.R. 5869; the United States Ports of Entry Threat and Operational Review Act, H.R. 6400; the Securing the Homeland Security Supply Chain Act of 2018, H.R. 6430; the Biometric Identification Transnational Migration Alert Program (BITMAP) Authorization Act of 2018, H.R. 6439; and the Advancing Cybersecurity Diagnostics and Mitigation Act, H.R. 6443.
“The House Homeland Security Committee continues to advance bipartisan legislation to improve security and preparedness efforts, and it’s imperative that they are brought to the floor swiftly,” Rep. Donovan added.