Hearings, Reports and Prints of the Senate Committee on Government Operations

93D CONGRESS 18T SESSION

H. R. 415

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

JANUARY 3, 1973

Mr. CONTE introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Rules

A BILL

To prohibit the President from impounding any funds, or approving the impounding of funds without the consent of the Congress, and to provide a procedure under which the House of Representatives and the Senate may approve the President's proposed impoundment.

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 3 That this Act may be cited as the "Congressional Spending 4 Power Act of 1973."

SEC. 2. (a) The President shall not impound any funds

6 appropriated by law out of the Treasury for a specific pur

pose or project, or approve the impounding of such funds

8 by any officer or employee of the United States unless

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(1) The President shall transmit to the House of Representatives and the Senate a special message speci

fying

(A) the amount of funds to be impounded, (B) the specific projects or governmental functions affected thereby, and

(2) The Congress shall approve the specific impounding of funds in accordance with the procedure set out in section 5 of this Act within sixty calendar days of

continuous session after the special message is received by the Congress.

(b) Each special message submitted pursuant to subsec15 tion (a) shall be transmitted to the House of Representatives 16 and the Senate on the same day, and shall be delivered to 17 the Clerk of the House of Representatives if the House is not 18 in session, and to the Secretary of the Senate if the Senate 19 is not in session. Each such message shall be printed as a 20 document of each House.

(c) If the Congress does not consider the special mes22 sage submitted pursuant to subsection (a) within the 23 sixty-day period referred to in subsection (a), approval of 24 the proposed impounding of funds shall be deemed to have 25 been refused.

1 SEC. 3. Whenever the Congress shall refuse to approve a 2 proposed impounding of funds set forth in a special message 3 submitted pursuant to section 2 (a), the President shall not 4 again submit a special message to the Congress proposing to 5 impound any of such funds in whole or in part during the same fiscal year.

7 SEC. 4. For purposes of this Act, the impounding of

8 funds includes

(a) the withholding of funds (whether by establishing reserves or otherwise) appropriated for projects

or activities, and the termination of authorized projects or activities for which appropriations have been made, and

(b) the delaying of the expenditure or obligation of funds beyond the close of the fiscal year in which the expenditure or obligation was intended by the Congress in appropriating such funds.

SEC. 5. (a) The following subsections of this section 19 are enacted by the Congress

(1) as an exercise of the rulemaking power of the House of Representatives and the Senate, respectively, and as such they shall be deemed as a part of the rules

of each House, respectively, but applicable only with respect to the procedure to be followed in that House

in the case of resolutions described in this section; and

they shall supersede other rules only to the extent that

they are inconsistent therewith; and

(2) with full recognition of the constitutional right of either House to change the rules (so far as relating

to the procedure of that House) at any time, in any

manner, and to the same extent as in the case of any other rule of that House.

(b) (1) For purposes of this section, the term "reso9 lution" means only a concurrent resolution of the House of 10 Representatives or the Senate, as the case may be, which is 11 introduced and acted upon by both Houses before the end 12 of the first period of sixty calendar days of continuous session 13 of the Congress after the date on which the President's spe14 cial message is received by that House.

(2) The matter after the resolving clause of each reso16 lution shall read as follows: "That the House of Representa17 tives (Senate) approves the proposed impounding of funds

as set forth in the special message of the President dated

House (Senate) Document numbered

(3) For purposes of this subsection, the continuity of a

session is broken only by an adjournment of the Congress

sine die, and the days on which either House is not in session

because of an adjournment of more than three days to

day certain shall be excluded from the computation of the sixty day period.

1 message shall not be referred to a committee and shall be 2 privileged business for immediate consideration. It shall at 3 any time be in order (even though a previous motion to 4 the same effect has been disagreed to) to proceed to the 5 consideration of the resolution. Such motion shall be highly 6 privileged and not debatable. An amendment to the motion 7 shall not be in order, and it shall not be in order to move to 8 reconsider the vote by which the motion is agreed to or 9 disagreed to.

(2) If the motion to proceed to the consideration of

a resolution is agreed to, debate on the resolution shall be 12 limited to ten hours, which shall be equally divided between

13 those favoring and those opposing the resolution. An amend

ment to the resolution shall not be in order. It shall not be

15 in order to reconsider the vote by which the resolution is

agreed to or disagreed to, and it shall not be in order to move

to consider any other resolution introduced with respect to

18 the same message.

(3) Motions to postpone, made with respect to the con20 sideration of a resolution, and motions to proceed to the 21 consideration of other business, shall be decided without

22 debate.

(4) Appeals from decisions of the Chair relating to 24 the application of the rules of the House of Representatives 25 or the Senate, as the case may be, to the procedure relating 26 to a resolution shall be decided without debate.

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