creases are planned, or what multi-year or no-year monies will remain available from year to year.

2. Assessment.-Several questions are raised by this section. First, what is meant by bases? That term is not defined in the bill? If what is meant by bases are the budget justifications presented by executive agencies to the respective Appropriations Committees of each house, then should this material or a condensed version of it be incorporated in the Budget, or some supplemental document; or is it sufficient that these Committees make the justifications available to all Members?

And if the justifications are required to be incorporated in the budget, then this runs counter to the effort by some Members to make that a much shorter and simpler document. Moreover, given a requirement that agencies provide justifications for both their immediate and long-range programs, Congress may find itself overwhelmed with this type of information. The Executive branch is staffed with thousands of budget analysts who would excel in preparing budget justifications for any and all programs.

The ability of Members to criticize these justifications would likely be minimal at best. For example, given the Vietnam War the Veterans' Administration might request that 100 additional VA hospitals be constructed to care for the large number of wounded military personnel who require medical assistance. It is unlikely that many Members would have the background to challenge the figure of 100, even with the VA's justifications at hand.

Legislators rarely examine a budget from a "zero-base" standpoint. Instead, they look at the monies appropriated to an agency during the previous fiscal year. For example, if the Office of Education received $2.8 billion one year and requests $3 billion the next, legislators usually focus on the requested financial increase rather than ask for a justification of the entire amount. What bases, then, are required: for an entire program, for increases in that program, or for both?

Another dilemma: if budget justifications are complete, they may overwhelm a Member. Yet if they are not comprehensive, they may be misleading. And how does a legislator know whether the Executive branch has provided the full story regarding justifications for various programs?

(C) "The President shall transmit to Congress during the first fifteen days of each regular session, in addition to the budget . . ., alternative budgets taking into account contingency plans in the event of either major national disasters or economic or strategic dislocations."

1. Assessment.-It is questionable whether this proposal should be required of the Executive branch. To draft a budget for each fiscal year, along with multi-year projections for each program as required by S. 3984, is difficult enough without attempting to account for the costs of anticipated "major national disasters" or "economic or strategic dislocations." This is akin to crystal-ball gazing. Moreover, what is an economic or strategic dislocation?

How does one assess the financial costs of hurricanes, floods, or earthquakes, let alone predict their occurrence in this or that fiscal year? To prepare alternate budgets for every possible nationally disruptive eventuality would result in a document based on guesswork and opinion. Since it is impossible to predict how many hurricanes, floods, or forest fires will occur in any given year or how much it

will cost to repair the damages that result from these disasters, it seems reasonable for the Federal government to cope with these disasters just as it has in recent years.

Certain agencies of the Government, such as the Office of Emergency Preparedness, are responsible for (1) preparing contingency plans for natural disasters, (2) mobilizing the Government's resources whenever disasters occur, and (3) recommending preventive measures for disaster-prone areas. In addition, funds are available to the President to assist communities hit by floods. For example, the Federal Disaster Act of 1950 (64 Stat. 1109) and other subsequent statutes provide "financial assistance to state and local governments whenever the President declares a major disaster. From 1951 through 1970, the President issued 338 declarations and allocated $857 million from the disaster relief fund." 11

More recently, Tropical Storm Agnes in 1972 caused heavy destruction in the eastern United States. To meet this unexpected disaster, Congress enacted a Disaster Relief Supplemental Appropriations bill (P.L. 92-334). According to the House Committee on Appropriations, the actions taken to grant new budget authority to agencies and departments concerned with disaster relief represent the "largest single effort ever undertaken by the Federal Government to provide aid for victims of a natural disaster." 12 Over $1.8 billion was provided to repair the damages caused by Tropical Storm Agnes. Rather than require alternative budgets for various emergency conditions, it seems more logical for Congress to provide agencies concerned with disaster relief with sufficient funds to meet annually expected problems. Congress can act quickly to supplement those accounts whenever major natural disasters occur that are impossible to anticipate.

(D) "The committee report accompanying each bill or joint resolution of a public character reported by any committee of the Senate or House of Representatives (except the Committee on Appropriations of each House) shall contain 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 to become effective and in each of the four fiscal years following such fiscal year. together with the basis for each such estimate."

1. Background. This provision is similar to the requirement for five-year cost estimates provided for by the 1970 Legislative Reorganization Act (P.L. 91–510) and in other earlier proposals. For example, Senate Concurrent Resolution 38, introduced in 1950, required "that all bills and joint resolutions authorizing appropriations shall be accompanied by reports as to the cost of operations of such legislation over a five-year period, or for the period of its operation if less." 13 As another example, S. 913, introduced in the 82nd Congress (1951), provided that: 14

all bills and joint resolutions authorizing appropriations re-
ported from committees of the Senate or the House shall be

11 Louis Fisher, "Presidential Spending Discretion and Congressional Controls," forthcoming article in Law and Contemporary Problems (Winter 1972).

12 H. Rept. No. 92-1318, 92nd Cong., 2nd sess., p. 2.

13 S. Rept. No. 1487, 81st Cong., 2nd sess., p. 3.

14 S. Rept. No. 576, 82nd Cong., 1st sess., p. 15.

accompanied by reports in writing to include in such report
or any accompanying document, an estimate from the depart-
ment or other agency of the legislative, executive, or judicial
branch of the Government of the probable cost of carrying
out the legislation proposed over the first 5-year period of its
operation, or over the period of its operation if such legisla-
tion would be effective for less than 5 years. Such estimates
may be submitted to the Bureau of the Budget for review.
Compilations of all such estimates are to be printed semi-
annually by the Appropriations Committees for the informa-
tion of the Congress.

During hearings conducted by the 1965 Joint Committee on the Organization of the Congress, several persons recommended that committee reports contain five-year estimates of program costs. The 1966 Final Report of the Joint Committee noted this concern by proposing: "The committee report should include a projection of costs for the next year and for future years on programs of multiyear authorization. Consideration of the fiscal consequences of new legislation is so basic to sound procedures that final consideration of a bill should be subject to a point of order in the absence of this projection."

The 1967 Legislative Reorganization Act (S. 355) contained a section requiring five-year cost estimates in committee reports. In explaining the need for this section, Senator Mike Monroney (Okla.) said: 15

Yet cost is one of the important elements in the consideration
of any program in which the Government is to render service,
in the establishment of new agencies, or the expanding of old
ones. Therefore, if cost figures can be obtained, they should be.
If it is impossible to ascertain, within a reasonable degree of
exactness, what the cost will be, then we think it is far better
for the committee to say so. The committee should then say,
"We have tried our level best to find out, but we cannot at this
time give a clear, accurate estimate of the cost," this would be
preferable to a guess, or a poorly based estimate, of what the
program might cost. I feel it would deter the passage of
spending funds if the language of the committee were, "We
cannot, frankly, tell you what it will cost."

The 1967 Reorganization Act passed the Senate in March 1967, but was not acted upon by the House.

2. The 1970 LRA (P.L. 91–510).-Section 252 of the 1970 LRA requires Senate and House committee reports to contain an estimate of the costs in carrying out a program in the "fiscal year in which it is reported and in each of the five fiscal years following such fiscal year...." The Appropriations Committees of each house were exempted from complying with this section.

In explaining the purposes of this section, the committee report accompanying H.R. 17654 stated: 16

The responsibility for developing and disseminating fiscal information does not, and should not, rest solely with the revenue-raising and Appropriations Committees. Programs

15 113 Cong. Rec. 3404 (February 15, 1967).

14 H. Rept. No. 91-1215, 91st Cong., 2nd sess., p. 14.

and their costs are inextricably interrelated. If Congress is to
exercise rational control over the Government's fiscal opera-
tions, its Members must be made fully aware of the financial
consequences of programs they are considering.

Section 252 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. A spot check of several committee reports revealed that some Senate committees had failed to abide by the provisions of Section 252. Some committees said it was impractical to estimate costs. One report from the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs provided cost estimates for 10 years on one program and 14 years on another.

3. "Basis for Each Estimate."-The same observations that were described above in Part B apply to this situation as well, i.e., what is meant by the term "basis?"

4. Comparison of Committee Estimates with Any Estimates By Any Federal Agency.-This requirement repeats what is already required by Section 252 of the 1970 LRA. A spot check of several Senate reports revealed that few committee reports cited executive agency estimates. One problem may be the difficulty of obtaining such estimates from the Executive branch. The Defense Department, for example, might not want to submit to the Foreign Relations Committee its five-year projection of military aid to Greece or South Vietnam. As another example, a report of the House Committee on Internal Security said that cost estimates had been requested of the Executive branch but none had been received.

Given this section's purpose that a committee's cost estimates should be compared with any Federal agency, two questions occur, would this section apply to the Central Intelligence Agency and would budgetary projections made available to committees by White House staffers, Henry Kissinger for example, be published?

5. List of Existing and Proposed Federal Programs.-As noted above, a problem that may occur in implementing this proposal is obtaining program lists from the Executive branch, especially for those programs that are still in the planning stage. Moreover, committees may find it difficult to determine which executive programs are directly related to the objectives of their bill (s); otherwise, almost all executive programs can be related in one way or another to the objectives of a specific bill. How is one to distinguish between executive programs significantly related to the objectives of a bill and those that are of peripheral interest only?

6. Measures Not In Compliance With This Section Shall Be Subject To A Point Of Order.-One point should be raised: could this provision be employed to delay the consideration of measures previously made in order? That is, Members might raise points of order

against a bill's consideration because the report lacked five-year budgetary projections, comparisons with Federal agency estimates, or lists of Federal programs related to the purposes of a measure. Is the absence of any one of these requirements sufficient to prevent a bill's consideration on the floor of the Senate?

We trust that this information will be helpful to you. If we can be of any further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us.

A THREE-YEAR LIMIT ON AUTHORIZATION BILLS An Analysis of Title III, S. 3984

(By Allen Schick, Senior Specialist, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress)

NOVEMBER 30, 1972

The concept of a time limitation on authorizations is not new and (primarily in the form of annual authorizations) it has been imposed on certain agencies and programs. Title III of S. 3984, the Federal Act to Control Expenditures and Upgrade Priorities, introduced on September 14, 1972 by Senator Brock, would establish a three-year limitation on most authorizing legislation. The only exceptions would be programs funded in whole or major part by user taxes.

The purpose of a time limitation is to impel the legislative committees of Congress to undertake periodic reviews of all the programs under their jurisdiction. Motivating this proposal is the conviction that unless there is a mandatory and automatic mechanism for program termination and congressional review, once programs are adopted, they are likely to be continued even if they have failed to achieve their objectives or if governmental priorities have changed. By enforcing a time limit, Congress would evaluate every program at least once every three years and determine whether it merits continuation, modification or curtailment.

At the present time, it is possible for programs operating under permanent authorization to escape all congressional review other than the annual appropriations process while programs which possess long-term authorizations may go many years without comprehensive legislative evaluation of their objectives and accomplishments. Of course, it is possible for a legislative committee to appraise programs which have permanent or long-term authorizations, but S. 3984 would mandate such reviews on a three-year cycle. As part of the review process, Title III would require open hearings which may be conducted jointly by the appropriate House and Senate Committees. It also would require departments and agencies which administer expiring programs to submit cost-benefit analyses and the congressional committees are directed to include specific cost-benefit criteria in their own evaluations of the programs.

To enforce the three-year limit, S. 3984 provides that it will not be in order for either the House or the Senate to consider authorizing legislation if a committee has failed to submit a required cost-benefit report or if the authorization is for more than three years.