[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 102 (Monday, July 25, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8832-S8833]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SENATE RESOLUTION 209--TO STRENGTHEN FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY BY IMPROVING
SENATE CONSIDERATION OF CONFERENCE REPORTS
Mr. CONRAD (for himself and Mr. McCain) submitted the following
resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Rules and
Administration:
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I am pleased that Senator McCain is
joining me today in submitting a bipartisan Senate resolution to
strengthen fiscal responsibility and restore some common sense to the
consideration of conference reports in the Senate.
Last November the Senate received an omnibus appropriations
conference report that totaled 3,646 pages. It included nine different
appropriations bills, seven of which had never been debated, amended or
voted on by the Senate. It spent more than $388 billion. And it also
included a miscellaneous title with several extraneous provisions that
had nothing to do with appropriations. Like the appropriations titles,
many of these non-appropriations items had never been considered in the
Senate.
Even though the vast majority of the Senate had never had a chance to
review these provisions, the conference report was rushed to the Senate
floor just hours after a handful of members and their staff had
finished their work putting it together behind closed doors.
Throughout the day, I and several members of my staff read and
analyzed the provisions of this bill. During the examination, we
discovered a particularly egregious provision. It would have allowed an
agent of the Chairman of the House or Senate Appropriations Committee
to look at the tax return of anyone in America. And, further, it would
have allowed them to release the private information contained in those
returns without any civil or criminal penalty. That would have created
the opportunity for an abuse of power almost unprecedented in our
history.
Thankfully, my staff and I were able to catch this, and after
strenuous debate the provision was nullified. But this is an indication
of how completely flawed this process has become. None of us could know
when the time came to vote, just a few hours after the bill was
released, what other inappropriate provisions it contained. There
simply had not been enough time to thoroughly scour the more than 3,600
pages in this bill.
Unfortunately, this is not an isolated example. Over the past several
years, we have seen increased abuses of the conference process. There
has been a trend toward a handful of members writing legislation in
secret, without full opportunity for minority participation or thorough
debate in the Senate. In addition to the omnibus appropriations bills
we have seen in the past several years, there are several other
examples of this trend.
Last year, for example, the majority leadership was unwilling or
unable to move a bill through the Senate to extend expiring tax
provisions. Apparently, the leadership did not want to vote on
amendments to pay for these provisions, and it did not want to debate
the fiscal irresponsibility of its tax policy.
So what did the leadership do? It took a modest tax relief measure
aimed at making the child tax credit more useful to low- and middle-
income families that had languished in conference for over a year, and
turned it into a $146 billion revenue loser that extended the 2001 tax
cuts relating to the child credit, marriage penalty, and the 10 percent
marginal rate bracket through 2010. The conferees also tacked on
traditional extenders, R&D, work opportunity tax credit, etc., added a
year of AMT relief, and dropped the revenue offsets that had covered
all but about $250 million of the original cost. No Democrats
participated in the conference, and the Senate had no opportunity to
debate the merits of these individual provisions or offer amendments to
offset their costs.
But it is not just tax and appropriations bills that have been
hijacked in conference. On issue after issue, we have had conferences
where the minority was excluded so that the majority could ram through
unpopular provisions as part of an un-amendable conference report.
That is not right. We should not be writing brand new legislation in
conference in order to bypass Senate consideration. We should not be
bundling together 3,646 page conference reports in the middle of the
night and asking Senators to vote on them without the opportunity for
thorough review and debate. It is clear to me the conference process is
broken. Former President Ronald Reagan in his 1988 State of the Union
Address told us we should not do business this way, in omnibus
conference reports that no Senator has an opportunity to fully
understand before they are voted on. He was right.
The Conrad-McCain resolution would address these problems. It would
improve Senate consideration of conference reports in five simple,
common-sense ways.
First, our resolution would require conference reports to be filed
and made available for at least 48 hours prior to Senate consideration.
Under our resolution, all Senators would have the opportunity to know
what is in each and every conference report that comes before this
body.
Second, our resolution would require a written cost estimate or table
by the Congressional Budget Office prior to Senate consideration of any
conference report. Senators desereve to know before they vote on a bill
how much it will cost.
Third, our resolution would require that a bill coming out of
conference be primarily in the jurisdiction of the same committee, or
appropriations subcommittee, as the Senate-passed bill that was
submitted to conference. We should not be sending a $19 billion foreign
operations appropriations bill to conference and having it come back as
a close-to $400 billion bill that includes Labor-Health and Human
Services and other domestic spending. This will help ensure that the
Senate considers each bill before it comes back from conference.
If any of those three conditions are not met, our resolution would
allow any Senator to raise a point of order
[[Page S8833]]
against the conference report. That point of order be waived only with
a vote of 60 Senators.
In addition, the Conrad-McCain resolution would strengthen current
rules that are designed to prohibit extraneous provisions in conference
reports. Extraneous provisions are those that are either outside the
scope of the bills that the House and Senate sent to conference, or in
the jurisdiction of some other committee.
Provisions that are either outside the scope of conference or in
another committee's jurisdiction could be stricken from the conference
report on a point of order made by any Senator. That point of order
could be waived only with a vote of 60 Senators. Importantly, the point
of order would not bring down the entire conference report. Instead, it
will only remove the extraneous matter, leaving the rest of the
conference report intact. This change--similar to the application of
the Byrd rule on reconciliation bills--will remove a significant
impediment to challenging attempts to push unpopular riders through the
Senate on unrelated but otherwise popular legislation.
This common-sense legislation is long overdue. Our political process
has become too bogged down with bloated spending bills and special-
interest tax break legislation. Too often, it is not until after a
conference report has passed that its true cost comes to light. Massive
and unwieldy bills have become almost routine in the Senate. This has
to stop.
Our resolution would improve the legislative process while
strengthening fiscal responsibility in a way that is simple,
straightforward, and reasonable. I urge my colleagues to support it.
S. Res. 209
SECTION 1. CONFERENCE REPORTS OUT OF ORDER.
(a) Availability.--It shall not be in order to consider a
report of a committee of conference under paragraph 1 of rule
XXVIII of the Standing Rules of the Senate unless such report
is filed and made available 48 hours prior to presentation.
(b) Cost Estimate or Table.--It shall not be in order to
consider a report of a committee of conference under
paragraph 1 of rule XXVIII of the Standing Rules of the
Senate unless an official written cost estimate or table by
the Congressional Budget Office is available at the time of
consideration.
(c) Jurisdiction.--It shall not be in order to consider a
report of a committee of conference under paragraph 1 of rule
XXVIII of the Standing Rules of the Senate if the
preponderance of matter in the conference report is not in
the jurisdiction of the committee (or Appropriations
subcommittee for one of the regular appropriation bills) that
had jurisdiction of the Senate passed bill submitted to
conference.
(d) Supermajority Waiver and Appeal.--This section may be
waived or suspended in the Senate only by an affirmative vote
of \3/5\ of the Members, duly chosen and sworn. An
affirmative vote of \3/5\ of the Members of the Senate, duly
chosen and sworn, shall be required in the Senate to sustain
an appeal of the ruling of the Chair on a point of order
raised under this section.
SEC. 2. EXTRANEOUS PROVISIONS OF CONFERENCE REPORTS OUT OF
ORDER.
(a) Provisions Outside Scope of Conference.--It shall not
be in order to consider a report of a committee of conference
under paragraph 1 of rule XXVIII of the Standing Rules of the
Senate if it contains extraneous material outside the scope
of conference under rule XXVIII of the Standing Rules of the
Senate.
(b) Provisions Outside Jurisdiction.--It shall not be in
order to consider a report of a committee of conference under
paragraph 1 of rule XXVIII of the Standing Rules of the
Senate if it contains extraneous material in the jurisdiction
of a committee other than a committee from whom conferees
were appointed.
(c) Form of Point of Order.--It shall be in order for a
Senator to raise a single point of order that several
provisions of a bill, resolution, amendment, motion, or
conference report violate this section. The Presiding Officer
may sustain the point of order as to some or all of the
provisions against which the Senator raised the point of
order. If the Presiding Officer so sustains the point of
order as to some of the provisions against which the Senator
raised the point of order, then only those provisions against
which the Presiding Officer sustains the point of order shall
be deemed stricken pursuant to this section. Before the
Presiding Officer rules on such a point of order, any Senator
may move to waive such a point of order as it applies to some
or all of the provisions against which the point of order was
raised. Such a motion to waive is amendable in accordance
with the rules and precedents of the Senate. After the
Presiding Officer rules on such a point of order, any Senator
may appeal the ruling of the Presiding Officer on such a
point of order as it applies to some or all of the provisions
on which the Presiding Officer ruled.
(d) Point of Order Sustained.--When the Senate is
considering a conference report, upon a point of order being
made by any Senator against extraneous material described in
subsection (a) or (b), and such point of order being
sustained, such material shall be deemed stricken as provided
in subsection (c) and the Senate shall proceed, without
intervening action or motion, to consider the question of
whether the Senate shall recede from its amendment and concur
with a further amendment, or concur in the House amendment
with a further amendment, as the case may be, which further
amendment shall consist of only that portion of the
conference report or House amendment, as the case may be, not
so stricken.
(e) No Further Amendment.--In any case in which such point
of order is sustained against a conference report (or Senate
amendment derived from such conference report by operation of
this subsection), no further amendment shall be in order.
(f) Supermajority Waiver and Appeal.--This section may be
waived or suspended in the Senate only by an affirmative vote
of \3/5\ of the Members, duly chosen and sworn. An
affirmative vote of \3/5\ of the Members of the Senate, duly
chosen and sworn, shall be required in the Senate to sustain
an appeal of the ruling of the Chair on a point of order
raised under this section.
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