[Senate Report 116-113]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                      Calendar No. 216
116th Congress     }                                    {       Report
                                 SENATE
 1st Session       }                                    {      116-113
_______________________________________________________________________

                                     



  TO REQUIRE THE COMPTROLLER GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES TO ANALYZE 
CERTAIN LEGISLATION IN ORDER TO PREVENT DUPLICATION OF AN OVERLAP WITH 
          EXISTING FEDERAL PROGRAMS, OFFICES, AND INITIATIVES

                               __________

                              R E P O R T

                                 of the

                   COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND

                          GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS

                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                              to accompany

                                S. 2183



              [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]



               September 23, 2019.--Ordered to be printed 
                                __________
	       
                      U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
	                             
89-010                     WASHINGTON : 2019 
	                     
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
               
        COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS

                    RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin, Chairman
ROB PORTMAN, Ohio                    GARY C. PETERS, Michigan
RAND PAUL, Kentucky                  THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma             MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire
MITT ROMNEY, Utah                    KAMALA D. HARRIS, California
RICK SCOTT, Florida                  KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona
MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming             JACKY ROSEN, Nevada
JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri

                Gabrielle D'Adamo Singer, Staff Director
                   Joseph C. Folio III, Chief Counsel
       Patrick J. Bailey, Chief Counsel for Governmental Affairs
               David M. Weinberg, Minority Staff Director
               Zachary I. Schram, Minority Chief Counsel
         Yelena L. Tsilker, Minority Professional Staff Member
                     Laura W. Kilbride, Chief Clerk









                                                      Calendar No. 216
116th Congress     }                                    {       Report
                                 SENATE
 1st Session       }                                    {      116-113
======================================================================

 
  TO REQUIRE THE COMPTROLLER GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES TO ANALYZE 
CERTAIN LEGISLATION IN ORDER TO PREVENT DUPLICATION OF AN OVERLAP WITH 
          EXISTING FEDERAL PROGRAMS, OFFICES, AND INITIATIVES

                                _______
                                

               September 23, 2019.--Ordered to be printed

                                _______
                                

 Mr. Johnson, from the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental 
                    Affairs, submitted the following

                              R E P O R T

                         [To accompany S. 2183]

      [Including cost estimate of the Congressional Budget Office]

    The Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental 
Affairs, to which was referred the bill (S. 2183) to require 
the Comptroller General of the United States to analyze certain 
legislation in order to prevent duplication of an overlap with 
existing Federal programs, offices, and initiatives, having 
considered the same, reports favorably thereon with amendments 
and an amendment to the title and recommends that the bill, as 
amended, do pass.

                                CONTENTS

                                                                   Page
  I. Purpose and Summary..............................................1
 II. Background and Need for the Legislation..........................2
III. Legislative History..............................................3
 IV. Section-by-Section Analysis......................................3
  V. Evaluation of Regulatory Impact..................................4
 VI. Congressional Budget Office Cost Estimate........................4
VII. Changes in Existing Law Made by the Bill, as Reported............5

                         I. Purpose and Summary

    The purpose of S. 2183, the Duplication Scoring Act of 
2019, is to help prevent duplication of and overlap with 
existing Federal programs, offices, and initiatives in proposed 
legislation. The legislation requires the Government 
Accountability Office (GAO) to review each committee-reported 
bill or joint resolution and determine if it is at risk of 
duplicating or overlapping with an existing program, office, or 
initiative previously identified in a GAO duplication, 
fragmentation, and overlap report. If it is determined that the 
bill or resolution is at risk of duplication or overlap, GAO is 
required to identify the name of the new feature, the section 
of the bill where it is established, and the GAO duplication 
report where the previous duplication was identified, to submit 
the information to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) 
Director and the committee that reported the bill or 
resolution, and to publish the information to the GAO website. 
CBO may include the information as a supplement to its cost 
estimate when transmitted to the committee.

              II. Background and the Need for Legislation

    In 2010, Congress passed and the President signed into law 
the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010. Among other budgetary 
matters, the bill required the Comptroller General to provide 
an annual report to Congress identifying programs, agencies, 
offices, and initiatives with duplicative goals and activities, 
the cost of such duplication, and recommendations for 
consolidation or elimination.\1\ In the first eight annual 
reports issued from 2011 to 2018, GAO recommended more than 800 
actions to Congress or Executive Branch agencies to reduce or 
eliminate duplication and overlap, save costs, and enhance 
revenue.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010, Pub. L. No. 111-139, 124 
Stat. 8.
    \2\Government Efficiency and Effectiveness: Hearing Before Subcomm. 
on Fed. Spending Oversight and Emergency Mgmt. of the S. Comm. on 
Homeland Sec. and Governmental Affairs, 116th Cong. (2019) (statement 
of Gene L. Dodaro, Comptroller General of the United States).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    According to GAO, Congress and Executive Branch agencies 
have partially or fully addressed 621 of those recommendations 
resulting in $262 billion in financial benefits.\3\ GAO also 
estimates that by fully implementing the remaining open 
recommendations, tens of billions more dollars could be 
saved.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\Id. at 1.
    \4\Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    On May 21, 2019, Comptroller General Gene Dodaro appeared 
before the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental 
Affairs Subcommittee on Federal Spending Oversight and 
Emergency Management to review GAO's 2019 duplication, 
fragmentation, and overlap report and discuss opportunities to 
reduce overlap and achieve cost savings for the Federal 
Government.\5\ During the hearing, an exchange occurred between 
Subcommittee Chairman Rand Paul and Comptroller General Dodaro 
about preventing duplication and overlap in the Federal 
Government from existing in the first place.\6\ Senator Paul 
suggested that, given the amount of programmatic information 
GAO has accumulated over the past eight duplication reports, 
they work with CBO to review bills that have been reported by 
committees and report to Congress if they are duplicative of 
another element in the Federal Government. Comptroller General 
Dodaro affirmed that this would be a worthy objective to help 
prevent the creation of new programs that already exist.\7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \5\Id.
    \6\Id. (statements of Sen. Rand Paul, Chairman, Subcomm. on Fed. 
Spending Oversight and Emergency Mgmt. and Gene L. Dodaro, Comptroller 
General of the United States).
    \7\Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

                        III. Legislative History

    Senators Rand Paul (R-KY), Margaret Wood Hassan (D-NH), and 
James Lankford (R-OK) introduced S. 2183 on July 18, 2019. The 
bill was referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and 
Governmental Affairs.
    The Committee considered S. 2183 at a business meeting on 
July 24, 2019. Senator Paul offered an amendment to change the 
title of the bill. Senators Peters and Paul also offered an 
amendment to clarify that GAO should use a risk-based approach 
in its analysis, conduct analyses to the extent practicable, 
and submit its analysis directly to the committee, and that the 
CBO Director may include this information as a supplement to 
CBO's cost estimate.
    The Committee ordered the bill as modified by the Paul and 
Peters-Paul amendments reported favorably en bloc by voice vote 
with Senators Johnson, Portman, Paul, Lankford, Romney, Scott, 
Enzi, Hawley, Peters, Carper, Hassan, Sinema, and Rosen 
present. Consistent with Committee rules, the Committee reports 
the bill with a technical amendment by mutual agreement of the 
Chairman and Ranking Member.

        IV. Section-by-Section Analysis of the Bill, as Reported


Section 1. Short title

    This section gives the bill the short title as the 
``Duplication Scoring Act of 2019.''

Section 2. Assessments of reported bills by GAO

    Section 2 adds a new subsection (i) to Section 719 of title 
31, United States Code. Subsection (i)(1) defines ``covered 
bill or joint resolution,'' ``Director,'' ``existing 
duplicative or overlapping feature,'' ``GAO duplication and 
overlap report,'' and ``new duplicative or overlapping 
feature.''
    Subsection (i)(2) paragraph (A) requires the Comptroller 
General, to the extent practicable, to determine whether each 
committee reported bill or joint resolution is at risk of 
creating a new program, office, or initiative that is 
duplicative of or overlaps with an an element of the Federal 
government previously identified in a GAO duplication report. 
If it is determined that the bill or resolution is at risk of 
duplication or overlap, the Comptroller General is required to 
identify the name of the new program, office, or initiative, 
the section of the bill where it is established, and the GAO 
duplication report where the duplication was identified, to 
submit the information to the CBO Director and the committee 
that reported the bill or resolution, and to publish the 
information to the GAO website.
    Subsection (i)(2) paragraph (B) allows the Director to 
submit the information provided by the Comptroller General as a 
supplement to its cost estimate for the bill or resolution.
    Subsection (i)(3) specifies that if GAO has not submitted 
the information to the Director by the date the cost estimate 
is submitted to the Committee, the Director would be allowed to 
submit the information as a supplement to the cost estimate 
once it is received.

Section 3. Effective date

    This section establishes the effective date as the earlier 
of: (1) 60 days after OMB issues the agency program inventory 
list required under section 1122(a) of Title 31; or (2) the 
start of a new Congress that is one year after the date of 
enactment.

                   V. Evaluation of Regulatory Impact

    Pursuant to the requirements of paragraph 11(b) of rule 
XXVI of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the Committee has 
considered the regulatory impact of this bill and determined 
that the bill will have no regulatory impact within the meaning 
of the rules. The Committee agrees with the Congressional 
Budget Office's statement that the bill contains no 
intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the 
Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA) and would impose no costs 
on state, local, or tribal governments.

             VI. Congressional Budget Office Cost Estimate

                                     U.S. Congress,
                               Congressional Budget Office,
                                 Washington, DC, September 6, 2019.
Hon. Ron Johnson, Chairman,
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs,
U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
    Dear Mr. Chairman: The Congressional Budget Office has 
prepared the enclosed cost estimate for S. 2183, the 
Duplication Scoring Act of 2019.
    If you wish further details on this estimate, we will be 
pleased to provide them. The CBO staff contact is Matthew 
Pickford.
            Sincerely,
                                         Phillip L. Swagel,
                                                          Director.
    Enclosure.

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    S. 2183 would require the Government Accountability Office 
(GAO) to review all legislation that has been reported by any 
Congressional committee to determine if that legislation 
includes programs that would duplicate or overlap with programs 
that GAO has identified in its annual reports on duplicative 
and overlapping programs. The bill also would require GAO to 
post this information on its website and to provide the 
information to CBO. In recent years GAO has prepared annual 
reports for the Congress on federal programs that it has 
determined are duplicative or overlapping. In addition, CBO 
reviews all bills ordered reported by a Congressional committee 
as part of our statutory requirement to provide cost estimates 
of those bills. Thus, under the bill GAO would overlap some of 
CBO's statutory requirements.
    Over the last 10 years CBO has reviewed, on average, about 
650 bills a year that have been ordered reported by a 
Congressional authorizing committee. On that basis and using 
information from CBO and GAO about the number of people needed 
for GAO to also review those bills, CBO estimates that the 
additional work under S. 2183 would in total cost GAO and CBO 
less than $500,000 annually and $2 million over the 2020-2024 
period. Any additional spending would be subject to the 
availability of appropriated funds.
    The CBO staff contact for this estimate is Matthew 
Pickford. The estimate was reviewed by H. Samuel Papenfuss, 
Deputy Assistant Director for Budget Analysis.

       VII. Changes in Existing Law Made by the Bill, as Reported

    In compliance with paragraph 12 of rule XXVI of the 
Standing Rules of the Senate, changes in existing law made by 
S. 2183 as reported are shown as follows (existing law proposed 
to be omitted is enclosed in brackets, new matter is printed in 
italic, and existing law in which no change is proposed is 
shown in roman):

TITLE 31

           *       *       *       *       *       *       *


Subtitle I--General

           *       *       *       *       *       *       *


CHAPTER 7--GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE

           *       *       *       *       *       *       *



Subchapter II--General Duties and Powers

           *       *       *       *       *       *       *



SEC. 719. COMPTROLLER GENERAL REPORTS.

    (a) * * *

           *       *       *       *       *       *       *

    (i)
          (1) In this subsection--
                  (A) the term `covered bill or joint 
                resolution' means a bill or joint resolution of 
                a public character reported by an committee of 
                Congress (including the Committee on 
                Appropriations and the Committee on the Budget 
                of either House);
                  (B) the term `Director' means the Director of 
                the Congressional Budget Office;
                  (C) the term `existing duplicative or 
                overlapping feature' means an element of the 
                Federal Government previously identified as an 
                area of duplication, overlap, or fragmentation 
                in a GAO duplication and overlap report;
                  (D) the term `GAO duplication and overlap 
                report' means each annual report prepared by 
                the Comptroller General under section 21 of 
                Public Law 111-139 (31 U.S.C. 712 note); and
                  (E) the term `new duplicative or overlapping 
                feature' means a new Federal program, office, 
                or initative created under a covered bill or 
                joint resolution that would duplicate or 
                overlap with an existing duplicative or 
                overlapping feature.
          (2) For each covered bill or joint resolution--
                  (A) the Comptroller General shall, to the 
                extent practicable--
                          (i) determine the extent to which the 
                        covered bill or joint resolution 
                        creates a risk of a new duplicative or 
                        overlapping feature and, if the risk so 
                        warrants, identify--
                                  (I) the name of the new 
                                Federal program, office, or 
                                initiative;
                                  (II) the section of the 
                                covered bill or joint 
                                resolution at which the new 
                                duplicative or overlapping 
                                feature is established; and
                                  (III) the GAO duplication and 
                                overlap report in which the 
                                existing duplicative or 
                                overlapping feature is 
                                identified; and
                          (ii) submit the information described 
                        in clause (i) to the Director and the 
                        committee that reported the covered 
                        bill or joint resolution; and
                          (iii) publish the information 
                        prepared under clause (i) on the 
                        website of the Government 
                        Accountability Office; and
                  (B) subject to paragraph (3), the Director 
                may include the information submitted by the 
                Comptroller General under subparagraph (A)(ii) 
                as a supplement to the estimate for the covered 
                bill or joint resolution to which the 
                information pertains submitted by the Director 
                under section 402 of the Congressional Budget 
                Act of 1974 (2 U.S.C. 653).
          (3) If the Comptroller General has not submitted to 
        the Director the information for a covered bill or 
        joint resolution under paragraph (2)(A)(ii) on the date 
        on which the Director submits the estimate for the 
        covered bill or joint resolution to which the 
        information pertains under section 402 of the 
        Congressional Budget Act of 1974 (2 U.S.C. 653), the 
        Director may, on the date on which the Comptroller 
        General submits the information to the Director, 
        prepare and submit to each applicable committee the 
        information as a supplement to the estimate for the 
        covered bill or joint resolution.

                                  [all]