January 18, 2019

Several Congressional committees organized themselves this week and populated their subcommittees. (For coverage of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s organization, see this article.)

Appropriations. Senate Republicans, Senate Democrats, and House Democrats have named all of their subcommittee members for the 116th Congress (the joint Senate announcement is here and the House D announcement is here).

The Transportation-HUD subcommittees do not see any changes at the top – the same “four corners” (Price (NC), Diaz-Balart (FL), Collins (ME) and Reed (RI)) are still intact.

Senate Commerce. At its organizational meeting on January 16, the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee ratified the new jurisdictional structure for its subcommittees proposed by new chairman Roger Wicker (R-MS). Three of the six subcommittees touch on transportation-related issues, and their jurisdictional breakdown follows.

Jurisdiction over drones is split, with Aviation and Space having the safety aspects and Security having the security aspects. The new jurisdictional brief also separates the Coast Guard from ocean policy and moves the merchant marine and Maritime Administration out of transportation and into security, which seems to put port infrastructure away from the rest of transportation infrastructure.

As noted above, the ranking minority members for subcommittees have now been announced, with Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) ranking on Aviation and Space, Gary Peters (D-MI) Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) ranking on Transportation and Safety, and Ed Markey (D-MA) ranking on Security. (Jan. 24 edit – Gary Peters apparently had a conflict with a ranking spot on a subcommittee on Armed Services, so he dropped off the ranking slot on Transportation and Safety, replaced by Tammy Duckworth, who was then replaced as ranking on Aviation and Space by Krysten Cinema.)

House Energy and Commerce. In the last Congress, under the leadership of subcommittee chair Bob Latta (R-OH), the Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection was extremely (unusually) active, particularly on the issue of autonomous vehicles. New full committee chairman Frank Pallone (D-NJ) has renamed that subcommittee Consumer Protection and Commerce, and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) will chair it. Latta has moved over to be ranking minority member on the Communications and Technology subcommittee, and Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) will be ranking on the Consumer Protection subcommittee. The full list of Democratic members is here and the list of Republican members is here.

Ways and Means. The House Ways and Means Committee did not create an infrastructure subcommittee. But Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) was rewarded with chairmanship of its Subcommittee on Trade, which is a pretty plum job.