[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 32 (Wednesday, February 26, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H1947-H1950]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   TAXPAYER TRANSPARENCY ACT OF 2014

  Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the 
bill (H.R. 3308) to require a Federal agency to include language in 
certain educational and advertising materials indicating that such 
materials are produced and disseminated at taxpayer expense, as 
amended.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The text of the bill is as follows:

                               H.R. 3308

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Taxpayer Transparency Act of 
     2014''.

     SEC. 2. REQUIREMENTS FOR PRINTED MATERIALS AND ADVERTISEMENTS 
                   BY FEDERAL AGENCIES.

       (a) Requirement to Identify Funding Source for 
     Communication Funded by Federal Agency.--Each communication 
     funded by a Federal agency that is an advertisement, or that 
     provides information about any Federal Government program, 
     benefit, or service, shall clearly state--
       (1) in the case of a printed communication, including mass 
     mailings, signs, and billboards, that the communication is 
     printed or published at taxpayer expense; and
       (2) in the case of a communication transmitted through 
     radio, television, the Internet, or any means other than the 
     means referred to in paragraph (1), that the communication is 
     produced or disseminated at taxpayer expense.

[[Page H1948]]

       (b) Additional Requirements.--
       (1) Printed communication.--Any printed communication 
     described in subsection (a)(1) shall--
       (A) be of sufficient type size to be clearly readable by 
     the recipient of the communication;
       (B) to the extent feasible, be contained in a printed box 
     set apart from the other contents of the communication; and
       (C) to the extent feasible, be printed with a reasonable 
     degree of color contrast between the background and the 
     printed statement.
       (2) Radio, television, and internet communication.--
       (A) Audio communication.--Any audio communication described 
     in subsection (a)(2) shall include an audio statement that 
     communicates the information required under that subsection 
     in a clearly spoken manner.
       (B) Video communication.--Any video communication described 
     in subsection (a)(2) shall include a statement with the 
     information referred to under that subsection--
       (i) that is conveyed in a clearly spoken manner;
       (ii) that is conveyed by a voice-over or screen view of the 
     person making the statement; and
       (iii) to the extent feasible, that also appears in writing 
     at the end of the communication in a clearly readable manner 
     with a reasonable degree of color contrast between the 
     background and the printed statement, for a period of at 
     least 4 seconds.
       (C) E-mail communication.--Any e-mail communication 
     described in subsection (a)(2) shall include the information 
     required under that subsection, displayed in a manner that--
       (i) is of sufficient type size to be clearly readable by 
     the recipient of the communication;
       (ii) is set apart from the other contents of the 
     communication; and
       (iii) includes a reasonable degree of color contrast 
     between the background and the printed statement.
       (c) Identification of Other Funding Source for Certain 
     Communications.--In the case of a communication funded 
     entirely by user fees, by any other source that does not 
     include Federal funds, or by a combination of such fees or 
     other source, a Federal agency may apply the requirements of 
     subsections (a) and (b) by substituting ``by the United 
     States Government'' for ``at taxpayer expense''.
       (d) Definitions.--In this Act:
       (1) Federal agency.--The term ``Federal agency'' has the 
     meaning given the term ``Executive agency'' in section 133 of 
     title 41, United States Code.
       (2) Mass mailing.--The term ``mass mailing'' means any 
     mailing or distribution of 499 or more newsletters, 
     pamphlets, or other printed matter with substantially 
     identical content, whether such matter is deposited singly or 
     in bulk, or at the same time or different times, except that 
     such term does not include any mailing--
       (A) in direct response to a communication from a person to 
     whom the matter is mailed; or
       (B) of a news release to the communications media.
       (e) Source of Funds.--The funds used by a Federal agency to 
     carry out this Act shall be derived from amounts made 
     available to the agency for advertising, or for providing 
     information about any Federal Government program, benefit, or 
     service.
       (f) Effective Date.--This section shall apply only to 
     communications printed or otherwise produced after the date 
     of the enactment of this Act.

     SEC. 3. GUIDANCE FOR IMPLEMENTATION.

       Not later than 6 months after the date of the enactment of 
     this Act, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget 
     shall develop and issue guidance on implementing the 
     requirements of this Act.

     SEC. 4. JUDICIAL REVIEW AND ENFORCEABILITY.

       (a) Judicial Review.--There shall be no judicial review of 
     compliance or noncompliance with any provision of this Act.
       (b) Enforceability.--No provision of this Act shall be 
     construed to create any right or benefit, substantive or 
     procedural, enforceable by any administrative or judicial 
     action.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Farenthold) and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly) 
each will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas.


                             General Leave

  Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks 
and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Texas?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  I am here today to speak on H.R. 3308, which requires the Federal 
Government to disclose that advertisements and information on 
government programs and services are paid for by the taxpayer.
  Advertisements provide information, but in many instances, they are 
designed to induce people to buy or use a product or service. While we 
can debate whether individual Federal advertising campaigns are overly 
promotional, surely we can agree that the public should know that they, 
themselves, are sponsoring a government marketing piece.
  Americans deserve to know how their tax dollars are being spent, and 
H.R. 3308 adds needed transparency to the business of government by 
requiring disclosures when taxpayer dollars are spent on advertising 
and educational materials.
  This bill is designed to help people know what is going on. It is not 
intended to be a burden on local broadcasters, their advertisers, or 
any of the work that they do in local communities.
  As a former broadcaster, I understand the important role that 
advertising plays, but it is also important that the people know what 
is an advertisement being paid for with government money, what is a 
public service announcement, and what is being paid for by private 
individuals.
  This bill adds a disclaimer to ads in printed material very similar 
to what all of us in this Chamber are familiar with. There are 
advertising rules for Members' campaigns, where you have to indicate, 
This was paid for by so-and-so.
  This would just require government agencies who purchase advertising 
or produce written material to add a disclaimer saying something to the 
effect of, Produced and aired at taxpayer expense.
  I will reserve the balance of my time at this point, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Under this legislation, Mr. Speaker, any communication an agency 
makes that is an advertisement or that provides information about a 
Federal Government program, benefit, or service would have to say that 
it is printed or published at taxpayer expense. Emails, radio, and 
television ads would have to say that they are produced and 
disseminated at taxpayer expense.
  Some agencies already identify the agencies that print them. For 
example, the Army prints, ``Paid for by the United States Army'' on its 
recruiting posters. This bill would require the Army to change its 
wording and say, ``Printed at taxpayer expense.'' I have not heard any 
explanation, either at the committee or here on the floor, for why such 
a change is so necessary.
  The gentlewoman from Illinois, Congresswoman Duckworth, the former 
Assistant Secretary of Veterans Affairs, raised an important point 
during our committee's consideration of this bill. She pointed out that 
some materials printed by the Department of Veterans Affairs state that 
the VA produced the materials. This is important because veterans need 
to be able to trust the source of the information, and seeing 
``Department of Veterans Affairs'' engenders just that trust.
  Four years ago, this body passed a law, cosponsored by Chairman Issa, 
the chairman of our committee, that prohibited nongovernment parties 
from sending mailings marked ``census'' without a clear disclaimer with 
the name of the party sending the mailing.
  That law was passed after the Republican National Committee sent a 
mailing that led recipients to think it was an official census document 
when it was not.

                              {time}  1230

  We passed that law because we wanted to protect consumers from being 
misled into believing a communication from a nongovernmental source 
was, in fact, an official government document. We should use that same 
logic and caution with this bill. I think it is important that this 
bill is interpreted to allow agencies to continue to say that a 
communication is paid for by that agency rather than being required to 
say that the document is printed or published at taxpayer expense.
  During the committee's consideration of this legislation, Chairman 
Issa and my friend, Chairman Farenthold, made commitments to 
Representative Duckworth to work with her in finding mutually agreeable 
language. Representative Duckworth suggested language that would 
address the issues we

[[Page H1949]]

raised with the military and the Veterans Administration. 
Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, that language is not--not--included in this 
bill, and no changes were made at all since the committee considered 
it, despite the assurances given to Representative Duckworth.
  I will not vote against the bill, but I certainly hope that, if this 
bill or a similar bill moves through the Senate, the majority in the 
House will keep the commitments made to Representative Duckworth and 
the Democrats on our committee to find a satisfactory resolution to the 
legitimate concerns that were raised.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  I would like to take a moment to address the concerns raised by the 
gentleman from Virginia before yielding to the author of the bill, Mr. 
Long.
  During the markup, Representative Duckworth was concerned about 
certain agencies like the VA and the Department of Defense; and during 
the markup, we did add a provision, at the minority's request, that 
allowed the Office of Management and Budget to implement regulations in 
exactly how this is going to be done. It certainly does not prohibit 
``paid for by the Army'' or ``paid for by the Veterans 
Administration.'' It would simply add, ``paid for by the Army at 
taxpayer expense,'' which would clearly be compliant with this law, the 
idea being to determine what the taxpayers are paying for and what is 
being donated for time, for instance, by a broadcast facility for 
public service announcements or to differentiate ads that are not paid 
for by the government. There is no disclaimer. We know it is not paid 
for with taxpayer dollars.
  What we are after here is to let the taxpayer know when they see 
something on the television, hear something on the radio, or see a 
printed material that their tax dollars funded it and it is something 
they can either be proud of or they can pick up the phone and call us 
up here in Washington, D.C. and say, What the heck are you doing 
wasting our money on these types of ads?
  It empowers the public to know. We are not trying to limit Federal 
agencies. We are not trying to detract from the fine work that the VA 
does or to detract from the recruiting efforts that our Armed Forces 
are in.
  Mr. CONNOLLY. Will my friend yield?
  Mr. FARENTHOLD. I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.
  Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank my friend.
  Is there any doubt, do you think, in a taxpayer's mind that if the 
current situation that identifies something as paid for by the U.S. 
Army, then certainly we all understand that it is also paid for by the 
U.S. taxpayer?
  Mr. FARENTHOLD. Reclaiming my time, we have got an alphabet soup of 
government agencies. As I review documents for the budget, I sometimes 
have to Google what some of the agencies in the Federal Government do. 
Obviously, almost everybody knows what the Army is, but if you are not 
in the financial services, do you know what the CFPB is? Or do you know 
what some of the smaller subagencies are? And I think that is what we 
are getting at.
  At this point, I will, however, yield as much time as he may consume 
to the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Billy Long, the author of this 
bill, my good friend and a fellow broadcaster, I might add.
  Mr. LONG. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Texas for yielding 
to me.
  Every day, Federal agencies spend money advertising various programs 
without mentioning where the funding for these programs or their ads 
are coming from. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously said 
that sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants. The Taxpayer 
Transparency Act is about shining a light on how taxpayer dollars are 
spent by requiring executive branch agencies to disclose that these 
advertisements are paid for at taxpayer expense. Simply, this bill 
extends similar requirements already imposed on the House and the 
Senate to the executive branch.
  It is time for government to start working for the people again. By 
providing more transparency in their spending, executive branch 
agencies will have to answer to the people. Americans have every right 
to know exactly how their tax dollars are being spent. As Members of 
Congress, we should all support an open and honest government, and this 
legislation does that by requiring executive branch agencies to be 
transparent with spending taxpayer dollars which promote Federal 
programs.
  I urge the House to support this bill and look forward to further 
action by our colleagues in the Senate.
  Mr. CONNOLLY. Could I inquire of the Speaker how much time remains on 
both sides?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Virginia has 17\1/2\ 
minutes remaining. The gentleman from Texas has 14\1/2\ minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Speaker, I have no other speakers on this side. 
Does the gentleman have others on his side?
  Mr. FARENTHOLD. I don't have any further speakers, and I am prepared 
to close.
  Mr. CONNOLLY. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  In closing, Mr. Speaker, I certainly laud the intent of the bill. I 
sometimes wish, however, that we applied this same rubric to ourselves 
here in Congress. Wouldn't it be interesting for the taxpayers to know, 
for example, that a dead-end kind of inquiry on the IRS being pursued 
by the majority in this body just in our committee alone has already 
cost the taxpayers of the United States $14 million producing virtually 
nothing? And it would be very interesting to know how much it has cost 
the taxpayers of this country when we had 46 or 47 repeal of the 
Affordable Care Act amendments in bills in this Congress and in the 
previous Congress.
  Having said that, I certainly am not going to vote against the bill, 
but I am concerned that some of the concerns raised by my colleagues, 
particularly Congresswoman Duckworth, were not, in fact, addressed in 
the final bill brought before this floor. It is my hope we could 
continue to work together to try to resolve that with some compromise 
language as we work with our colleagues in the other body.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Without getting into the pros and cons of the various investigations 
that this body does, I will say that it is our constitutional 
obligation to provide oversight to the various Federal agencies. One of 
the ways we do that is through the investigation that our committee 
does bring up.
  I do want to say we did visit with Representative Duckworth, and we 
do feel as if her concerns have been addressed. We could not agree on 
specific language with Ms. Duckworth, but we were able to come up with 
these provisions that the minority requested at the markup that allowed 
the OMB to come up with the implementing regulations. It also includes 
a provision suggested by the minority to make clear that communications 
funded entirely by user fees or by sources other than that that do not 
include Federal funds may indicate how it is funded through the United 
States Government.
  But this is a bill all designed to provide transparency, let 
taxpayers see the fruits of the spending of taxpayer dollars on 
advertisements, and to make a judgment about that on their own and know 
what is going on and know how their money is being spent.
  As my colleague from Missouri pointed out, sunshine is the best 
disinfectant. It is what we are about in the Oversight and Government 
Reform Committee. It is what this bill does, again, designed as a 
regulation on government agencies, not as an attempt to go after 
broadcasters, print shops, or anything like that. This is just to get 
the government agencies to tell the taxpayers what they bought with the 
disclaimer on there.
  It is commonsense legislation. I urge all my colleagues to stand 
behind it. It is something that I think will be a huge step forward 
towards transparency, and I look forward to this bill's passage.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Speaker, last fall we learned that the 
Department of Health and Human Services spent nearly $12 million 
dollars of taxpayer money for airtime campaigns to promote Obamacare. 
While this was

[[Page H1950]]

a gross misuse of taxpayer dollars allocated to specifically target 
states that have opted out of Medicaid expansion, it was not an 
isolated event.
  For this reason, I joined my colleague from Missouri as the original 
cosponsor of H.R. 3308, the Taxpayer Transparency Act.
  This bill does just what it says--provides transparency when spending 
tax dollars earned by hard working Americans.
  My colleague's bill would require agencies in the executive branch to 
disclose any and all advertisements funded by taxpayers. This includes 
all mailers, brochures, tv and radio ads, emails, billboards, and 
posters.
  Both the House and Senate are required to disclose this information 
in franked mailing--so why are executive branch agencies not held to 
the same standard of transparency? Our constituents deserve better.
  To my colleagues, I urge you to pass this bill to hold the federal 
government accountable for waste and abuse of taxpayer money.
  Mr. CUMMINGS. Madam Chairman, I rise in opposition to this 
legislation.
  For the last three years, House Republicans have repeatedly attacked 
critical public health, safety, and environmental protections.
  This package of anti-regulatory bills is just another such attack on 
agency rulemakings--one that is falsely advertised as an effort to 
improve transparency.
  Title one of this bill, which was reported by the Oversight and 
Government Reform Committee, would prevent a rule from taking effect 
until certain information is posted online for at least six months.
  The only exception to this requirement would be for the agency to 
forgo a notice and comment period or for the President to issue an 
Executive Order.
  This delay is completely unnecessary and is effectively a six-month 
moratorium on rules. It also could give agencies a perverse incentive 
to avoid a public comment period altogether if a statutory or court-
ordered deadline could be missed.
  Just one example of a rule that could be affected by this bill is the 
Food and Drug Administration's proposed rule on electronic prescribing 
information, which would ensure that doctors have the most current 
safety information on prescription drugs.
  Under this bill, this drug safety rule could not be finalized until 
OMB posts information about the rule on its web site for six months.
  FDA, like other agencies, already details the status of its 
rulemakings on its website, and extensive information about proposed 
rules is also available on the website Regulations.gov.
  Yet under this bill, if OMB failed to post a required piece of 
information, FDA could not finalize the rule unless the President 
stepped in and issued an Executive Order. It should not be that hard 
for doctors to have the most up-to-date safety information about 
prescription drugs.
  That is just title one of this Frankenstein bill. The other three 
titles of this bill are even worse. One title would add 60 additional 
requirements to the rulemaking process.
  We should be making the regulatory process more efficient and 
effective. Adding 60 new requirements will do exactly the opposite and 
make it needlessly complex.
  Madam Chairman, this is a package of bad bills that would do nothing 
to improve our rulemaking process. I urge every Member to oppose it.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Farenthold) that the House suspend the rules 
and pass the bill, H.R. 3308, as amended.
  The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the 
rules were suspended and the bill, as amended, was passed.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

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