[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 16250-16251]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




ELIMINATION OF A REPORTING REQUIREMENT FOR UNFUNDED DNA IDENTIFICATION 
                             GRANT PROGRAM

  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass 
the bill (H.R. 6605) to eliminate an unnecessary reporting requirement 
for an unfunded DNA Identification grant program.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The text of the bill is as follows:

                               H.R. 6605

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

     SECTION 1. ELIMINATION OF REPORT REQUIREMENT.

       Section 2406 of title I of the Omnibus Crime Control and 
     Safe Streets Act of 1968 (42 U.S.C. 3796kk-5) is repealed.

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


                             General Leave

  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all 
Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend 
their remarks and include extraneous materials on H.R. 6605, currently 
under consideration.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Texas?

[[Page 16251]]

  There was no objection.
  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I join the ranking member, Mr. Conyers, in cosponsoring 
this commonsense, bipartisan bill which eliminates an unnecessary 
reporting requirement on the States from an unfunded Federal grant 
program.
  Earlier this year, I cosponsored, with Mr. Conyers, H.R. 6189, the 
Reporting Efficiency Improvement Act. In response to a specific request 
from the administration, H.R. 6189 eliminated two reports that the 
Department of Justice was required to prepare for grant programs that 
have not been funded by Congress for many years. One of these grant 
programs is the DNA Identification Act of 1994. On October 5, the 
President signed into law H.R. 6189.
  H.R. 6605, the bill before the House today, does for the States what 
H.R. 6189 did for the Federal Government: It eliminates the statutory 
requirement for States to report to the Attorney General about grants 
from the DNA Identification Act of 1994. Because Congress has not 
funded this grant program in nearly a decade, this statutory reporting 
requirement is unnecessary.
  I again thank Mr. Conyers, the ranking member of the Judiciary 
Committee, for his initiative on this issue, and I urge my colleagues 
to support this bill.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  To our colleagues, this measure before us now, H.R. 6605, is a 
noncontroversial bill that makes a single technical correction to the 
U.S. Code. Under the Government Performance and Results Modernization 
Act of 2010, the Department of Justice conducts an annual review of 
statutory reporting requirements that are outdated, duplicative, or 
otherwise no longer useful to Congress. After conducting that review, 
the Department recommended we eliminate two reports, both related to 
programs that have not received funding from Congress for the better 
part of a decade. Last September, with the support of Chairman Lamar 
Smith, Congress passed H.R. 6189, the Reporting Efficiency Improvement 
Act, to remove these two reporting requirements from the Federal code. 
President Obama signed H.R. 6189 into law on October 5 of this year.
  The bill before us today makes a single technical correction to the 
Federal code in order to reflect the changes we made earlier this year. 
Specifically, the legislation eliminates a cross-reference to a report 
that, after the enactment of H.R. 6189, no longer exists. This bill is 
a housekeeping measure and nothing more.
  I urge my colleagues to support the legislation, and I yield back the 
balance of my time.
  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers on this 
side, and I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Smith) that the House suspend the rules and 
pass the bill, H.R. 6605.
  The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the 
rules were suspended and the bill was passed.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

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