[Deschler's Precedents, Volume 4, Chapters 15 - 17]
[Chapter 17. Committees]
[F. Committee Reports]
[Â§ 61. Cost-estimate Requirement]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


[Page 3170-3173]
 
                               CHAPTER 17
 
                               Committees
 
                          F. COMMITTEE REPORTS
 
Sec. 61. Cost-estimate Requirement

    A House rule requires that each public bill or joint resolution 
reported by a committee must contain certain estimates of the costs 
which would be incurred in carrying out such bill or joint resolution. 
The requirement is set forth in Rule XIII clause 7: (9)
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 9. House Rules and Manual Sec. 748(b) (1979).
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        The report accompanying each bill or joint resolution of a 
    public character reported by any committee shall contain--
        (1) an estimate, made by such committee, of the costs which 
    would be incurred in carrying out such bill or joint resolution in 
    the fiscal year in which it is reported and in each of the five 
    fiscal years following such fiscal year (or for the authorized 
    duration of any program authorized by such bill or joint 
    resolution, if less than five years), except that, in the case of 
    measures affecting the revenues, such reports shall require only an 
    estimate of the gain or loss in revenues for a one-year period; and
        (2) a comparison of the estimate of costs described in 
    subparagraph (1) of this paragraph made by such committee with any 
    estimate of such costs made by any Government agency and submitted 
    to such committee. . . .
        (e) The preceding provisions of this clause do not apply to the 
    Committee on Appropriations, the Committee on House Administration, 
    the Committee on Rules, and the Committee on Standards of Official 
    Conduct.

    The requirement is of recent origin, brought about by the 
Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970,(10) and became 
effective on the adoption of the rules by the 92d Congress on Jan. 22, 
1971.(11)
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10. Pub. L. No. 91-510, 84 Stat. 1140. Sec. 252(b) (Oct. 26, 1970).
11. 11. 117 Cong. Rec. 134-144, 92d Cong. 1st Sess.
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    As evidenced by the following excerpt from the report of the 
Committee on Rules,(12) the pur
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12. H. Rept. No. 91-1215, 116 Cong. Rec. 20276, 91st Cong. 2d Sess., 
        June 17, 1970.
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[[Page 3171]]

pose of the rule is to inform Members of the costs of programs 
recommended by House legislative committees and thus exercise greater 
control over the fiscal operations of government. The report states:

        The responsibility for developing and disseminating fiscal 
    information does not, and should not, rest solely with the revenue-
    raising and Appropriations Committees. Programs and their costs are 
    inextricably interrelated. If Congress is to exercise rational 
    control over the Government's fiscal operations, its Members must 
    be made fully aware of the financial consequences of programs they 
    are considering.
        Here the legislative committees of Congress can play an 
    important role. With the aid of the supplementary staff resources 
    provided for elsewhere in this bill, they should be better able to 
    analyze and evaluate the cost estimates submitted by executive 
    agencies.
        Section 252 [Rule XIII clause 7] places that responsibility 
    upon the legislative committees by requiring that their reports on 
    public bills and joint resolutions shall contain 5-year projections 
    of the estimated costs that would be incurred by adoption of the 
    measures at issue. The committees are further directed to present a 
    comparison of their cost estimates with those submitted by the 
    executive branch.
        Revenue measures are exempted from this requirement, but 
    reports on such proposals will be required to contain an estimate 
    of its impact, in terms of revenue loss or gain, for 1 year.

    Under section 403 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, each 
committee was required to include in any report accompanying a bill or 
resolution a cost-estimate prepared by the Congressional Budget Office, 
if the estimate was timely submitted before the report was filed. 
(13) This requirement was incorporated into the rules [Rule 
XI clause 2(l)(3)(C), House Rules and Manual Sec. 713 (e) (1979)], by 
the Committee Reform Amendments of 1974.(14) Even if such a 
cost-estimate is included in the report, the committee must still 
prepare its own cost-estimate pursuant to Rule XIII clause 7 
(15) (or adopt as the committee-estimate the Congressional 
Budget Office estimate).
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13. Pub. L. No. 93-344, July 12, 1974; Sec. 403 was made effective on 
        the first day on which the first Director of the Congressional 
        Budget Office was appointed.
14. H. Res. 988, 120 Cong. Rec. 34447-70, 93d Cong. 2d Sess., Oct. 8, 
        1974, effective Jan. 3, 1975.
15 House Rules and Manual Sec. 748(b) (1979).
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    In the case of legislation providing new budget authority or tax 
expenditures, the Congressional Budget Act required certain statements 
in committee reports, prepared after consultation with the 
Congressional Budget Office, providing projections and comparisons 
relative to concurrent resolu

[[Page 3172]]

tions on the budget;(16) this requirement was also 
incorporated into the rules [Rule XI clause 2(l)(3)(B), House Rules and 
Manual Sec. 713(e) ( 1979)].(17)
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16. Pub. L. No. 93-344, July 12, 1974; title III of the law, including 
        Sec. 308 (a), became effective for the fiscal year beginning 
        Oct. 1, 1976.
17. H. Res. 988, 120 Cong. Rec. 34447-70, 93d Cong. 2d Sess., Oct. 8, 
        1974, effective Jan. 3, 
        1975.                          -------------------
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Waiver of Cost-of-estimate Requirement

Sec. 61.1 Although the House rules require that each public bill or 
    joint resolution reported by a committee contain certain estimates 
    of the costs which would be incurred in carrying it out, a bill or 
    joint resolution may be called up under a special rule that permits 
    consideration thereof notwithstanding a failure to comply with the 
    cost-estimate requirement, or which waives points of order based 
    thereon.

    On Aug. 18, 1972,(18) Speaker Carl Albert, of Oklahoma, 
recognized Mr. Claude D. Pepper, of Florida, who, by direction of the 
Committee on Rules, called up a resolution and asked for its immediate 
consideration. The Clerk then read the resolution, as follows:
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18. 118 Cong. Rec. 29093, 92d Cong.2d Sess.
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                                H. Res. 1097

        Resolved, That upon the adoption of this resolution it shall be 
    in order to move, clause 7, rule XIII, to the contrary 
    notwithstanding,(19) that the House resolve itself into 
    the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the 
    consideration of the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 1227) approving 
    the acceptance by the President for the United States of the 
    interim agreement between the United States of America and the 
    Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on certain measures with 
    respect to the limitation of strategic offensive arms.
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19.  Other examples of resolutions couched in the identical language 
        (i.e. ``clause 7 of Rule XIII to the contrary 
        notwithstanding,'') may be found at 118 Cong. Rec. 26584, 92d 
        Cong. 2d Sess., Aug. 3, 1972 [H. Res. 1071, providing for 
        consideration of H.R. 15989, to establish a Council on 
        International Economic Policy and to extend the Export 
        Administration Act]; and 118 Cong. Rec. 24100, 92d Cong. 2d 
        Sess., July 18, 1972 [H. Res. 1012, providing for consideration 
        of H.R. 14424, establishing a National Institute on Aging].
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    In the course of the ensuing discussion, Mr. Pepper yielded 30 
minutes of time to Mr. H. Allen Smith, of California, who observed: 
(20)
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20. 118 Cong. Rec. 29094, 92d Cong. 2d Sess.

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[[Page 3173]]

        . . . House Resolution 1097 provides an open rule with 1 hour 
    of general debate for consideration of House Joint Resolution 1227, 
    the Agreement on Limitation of Strategic Offensive Weapons. We 
    waived points of order so far as failure to comply with the 
    provisions of clause 7, rule XIII, because it was impossible to 
    make a cost estimate on House Joint Resolution 1227.

Special Rule Waiving Points of Order for Failure to Comply

Sec. 61.2 A special rule waiving points of order against consideration 
    of bills for failure of the accompanying report to comply with the 
    cost-estimate rule is sometimes provided even though the report 
    states that no additional costs were anticipated.

    On Apr. 11, 1973,(1) Mr. Speedy O. Long, of Louisiana, 
called up for immediate consideration a House resolution which provided 
in part that on the adoption of the resolution it would be in order to 
move that the House resolve itself into the Committee of the Whole for 
the consideration of a bill to amend a provision of the United States 
Code relative to the proper use of franking privileges by Members of 
Congress. The resolution provided for a waiver of points of order 
against consideration of the bill for failure to comply with the cost-
estimate rule.
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1. 119 Cong. Rec. 11785, 93d Cong. 1st Sess. Under consideration was H. 
        Res. 349, providing for consideration of H.R. 3180, to amend 
        title 39 of the United States Code relative to franking 
        privileges for Members of Congress.
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    Parliamentarian's Note: The committee report had stated merely that 
no additional costs were anticipated by the enactment of the bill. But 
since the bill repealed existing provisions of laws relating to the 
franking privilege, and the proposed bill differed in several respects 
from existing law, the cost of reenactment of the law with those 
changes should have been estimated in the report.
    The House agreed to the resolution and went on to consider the 
bill, which the House subsequently passed.


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