[House Report 113-425]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                            SBDV 2015-1
113th Congress                                                   Report
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
 2d Session                                                     113-425
_______________________________________________________________________

                                     

                                     

                                                 Union Calendar No. 314

                                     

                              R E P O R T

                                 on the

                    INTERIM SUBALLOCATION OF BUDGET

                    ALLOCATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2015

                   SUBMITTED BY MR. ROGERS, CHAIRMAN,

                      COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

                             together with

                             MINORITY VIEWS




 April 29, 2014.--Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the 
              State of the Union and ordered to be printed
                                                                      ?

                                  COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

                    HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky, Chairman

 FRANK R. WOLF, Virginia
 JACK KINGSTON, Georgia
 RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN, New Jersey
 TOM LATHAM, Iowa
 ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama
 KAY GRANGER, Texas
 MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho
 JOHN ABNEY CULBERSON, Texas
 ANDER CRENSHAW, Florida
 JOHN R. CARTER, Texas
 KEN CALVERT, California
 TOM COLE, Oklahoma
 MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
 CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
 TOM GRAVES, Georgia
 KEVIN YODER, Kansas
 STEVE WOMACK, Arkansas
 ALAN NUNNELEE, Mississippi
 JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska
 THOMAS J. ROONEY, Florida
 CHARLES J. FLEISCHMANN, Tennessee
 JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER, Washington
 DAVID P. JOYCE, Ohio
 DAVID G. VALADAO, California
 ANDY HARRIS, Maryland
 MARTHA ROBY, Alabama
 MARK E. AMODEI, Nevada
 CHRIS STEWART, Utah                NITA M. LOWEY, New York
                                    MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
                                    PETER J. VISCLOSKY, Indiana
                                    JOSE E. SERRANO, New York
                                    ROSA L. DeLAURO, Connecticut
                                    JAMES P. MORAN, Virginia
                                    ED PASTOR, Arizona
                                    DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina
                                    LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California
                                    SAM FARR, California
                                    CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania
                                    SANFORD D. BISHOP, Jr., Georgia
                                    BARBARA LEE, California
                                    ADAM B. SCHIFF, California
                                    MICHAEL M. HONDA, California
                                    BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
                                    TIM RYAN, Ohio
                                    DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
                                    HENRY CUELLAR, Texas
                                    CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine
                                    MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
                                    WILLIAM L. OWENS, New York

               William E. Smith, Clerk and Staff Director

                                  (ii)
  
  
  
  

                          LETTER OF SUBMITTAL

                              ----------                              

                          House of Representatives,
                               Committee on Appropriations,
                                    Washington, DC, April 29, 2014.
Hon. John A. Boehner,
The Speaker, U.S. House of Representatives,
Washington, DC.

    Dear Mr. Speaker: By direction of the Committee on 
Appropriations, I submit herewith the Committee's report on the 
interim suballocation of budget allocations for fiscal year 
2015.
    This report follows the requirements of section 302(b) of 
the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 with respect to an initial 
subdivision for two subcommittees of the allocation of fiscal 
year 2015 spending authority provided to the Committee on 
Appropriations by the House. That overall allocation is the 
level included in the House Concurrent Resolution on the Budget 
for fiscal year 2015 as well as the level provided in section 
101 of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 (H.J. Res. 59, P.L. 
113-67).
    However, when the Committee drafted this report it lacked 
the updated Congressional Budget Office baseline which will be 
used to score appropriations bills, making it difficult to 
develop suballocations for the remaining ten subcommittees. 
Once the Committee receives this updated baseline information 
it will fully allocate the overall allocation provided to it.
            Sincerely,
                                             Harold Rogers,
                                                          Chairman.

                                 (iii)



                                                 Union Calendar No. 314
113th Congress                                                   Report
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
 2d Session                                                     113-425

======================================================================



 
 REPORT ON THE INTERIM SUBALLOCATION OF BUDGET ALLOCATIONS FOR FISCAL 
                               YEAR 2015

                                _______
                                

 April 29, 2014.--Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the 
              State of the Union and ordered to be printed

                                _______
                                

    Mr. Rogers, from the Committee on Appropriations, submitted the 
                               following

                              R E P O R T

    INTERIM SUBALLOCATION OF BUDGET ALLOCATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2015

    The Committee on Appropriations submits the following 
report on the interim suballocation of budget allocations for 
fiscal year 2015.
    This report follows the requirements of section 302(b) of 
the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 with respect to an initial 
subdivision for two subcommittees of the allocation of fiscal 
year 2015 spending authority provided to the Committee on 
Appropriations by the House. The overall allocation provided to 
the Committee is the level included in the House Concurrent 
Resolution on the Budget for fiscal year 2015 as well as the 
amount provided in section 101 of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 
2013 (H.J. Res. 59, P.L. 113-67).
    The Committee has adopted this interim procedure because of 
the special circumstances it faces as it begins the fiscal year 
2015 appropriations process. The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 
signed into law in December of 2013 provided the House and 
Senate with a common discretionary top line for fiscal year 
2015, allowing their respective Appropriations Committees to 
begin their work without waiting for the adoption of a new 
Budget Resolution conference report. In fact, this is the 
earliest the Committee has acted upon regular annual 
appropriations bills since fiscal year 1975.

                                  (1)

    In addition to the early start, the President's fiscal year 
2015 Budget submission to Congress was a month late, which has 
delayed the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) from producing an 
updated baseline or its re-estimate of the President's budget. 
The updated baseline, which will ultimately be used by CBO to 
score appropriations bills, was not available at the time the 
Committee drafted this interim report or its first two 
appropriations bills. As the Committee lacks this critical 
information at this time, it would be difficult to develop the 
subdivisions for the remaining fiscal year 2015 appropriations 
bills. After the updated CBO baseline is available, the 
Committee will adopt a full set of 302(b) suballocations for 
all twelve subcommittees as expeditiously as possible.
    By submitting this interim report and beginning its work on 
appropriations bills at this time, the Committee will be in the 
best possible position to report all fiscal year 2015 
appropriations bills to the House under regular order.

            INTERIM SUBALLOCATIONS TO TWO SUBCOMMITTEES FISCAL YEAR 2015 BUDGET AUTHORITY AND OUTLAYS
                                            [In millions of dollars]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                   Discretionary
                                                           ----------------------------
                       Subcommittee                           General       Overseas     Mandatory      Total
                                                              Purpose    Contingencies
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Legislative Branch:\1\
    All except Senate:
        Budget authority..................................        3,326  .............          107        3,433
        Outlays...........................................        3,604  .............          106        3,710
    Senate items:
        Budget authority..................................          932  .............           25          957
        Outlays...........................................          728  .............           25          753
    Total Legislative:
        Budget authority..................................        4,258  .............          132        4,390
        Outlays...........................................        4,332  .............          131        4,463
Military Construction, Veterans Affairs:\1\
        Budget authority..................................       71,499  .............       85,315      156,814
        Outlays...........................................       77,455  .............       85,070      162,525
    Interim total for two subcommittees:
        General Purpose:
        Budget authority..................................       75,757  .............       85,447      161,204
        Outlays...........................................       81,787  .............       85,201      166,988
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\Estimates for outlays based on CBO's February baseline. Such estimates may change with final CBO scoring
  based on its updated April baseline.

SBDV 2015-1

                          FULL COMMITTEE VOTES

    Pursuant to the provisions of clause 3(b) of rule XIII of 
the House of Representatives, the results of each roll call 
vote on an amendment or on the motion to report, together with 
the names of those voting for and those voting against, are 
printed below.
    There were no roll call votes.

                             MINORITY VIEWS

    Assembling appropriations bills is a serious and solemn 
responsibility. We should not go about it without a road map or 
compass. It is irresponsible for the Committee on 
Appropriations to mark up any bill until we see allocations for 
all twelve funding bills. However, the majority's interim 
allocations show the amount for the first two subcommittees 
only. We are in the dark about how much each of the remaining 
ten will have to spend or how over $900 billion will be 
distributed.
    The history of the Budget Act is instructive in explaining 
why these interim allocations are so unsatisfactory. Under the 
original Budget Act, appropriations bills were judged only by 
whether they exceeded the full Committee total. As a 
consequence, the first bills to be considered could spend as 
much as those subcommittees wanted; only the last few bills 
were ever in danger of exceeding the full committee total. The 
current 302(b) process was an innovation added to the 1974 
Budget Act so that each bill could be judged on its own. By 
requiring a complete allocation from the start, anyone can see 
whether the first bills use too much of the available 
resources.
    In other words, the whole purpose of section 302(b) is to 
ensure that the last piggy to the trough has enough to eat. The 
Committee needs to display the entire pie chart, not just two 
slices at a time.
    The Chairman points to logistical impediments, noting that 
CBO hasn't scored the President's budget request. But an 
interim allocation could still divvy up the whole pie with a 
caveat that the amounts may change. We routinely amend 
allocations later in the year when additional information is 
available. The bottom line is these interim allocations hide 
over $900 billion in budget authority.
    When Democrats were in the majority, far, far smaller 
omissions were met with howls of protest. Our FY 2008 302(b)s 
allocated All of the budget authority among All of the 
subcommittees. However, on the outlay side only, we placed $369 
million--not billion--under the full committee with an 
explanation: CBO's outlay estimates for the subcommittees 
always change when they score each bill. The minority views 
asserted that this ``budgetary sleight of hand'' makes 
``offering an amendment a pointless exercise.'' Our FY 2010 
302(b)s also distributed All of the budget authority among All 
of the subcommittees but again reserved several hundred million 
in outlays. The minority shrieked that Democrats were 
``designing schemes to hide the true costs from American 
taxpayers.''
    The current process is not regular order. When we return to 
regular order, when the majority provides a full allocation, we 
intend to offer a Democratic alternative. The debate will then 
be joined on our different values. Allocations are not just a 
set of numbers; they are a statement of our priorities.
    The specific allocations for the Military Construction and 
VA bill, which is almost exactly at the President's request, 
and for the Legislative Branch bill, which is at this year's 
level, seem adequate.
    Our concern is with the irresponsible process and precedent 
it sets.

                                   Nita M. Lowey.

                                  
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