CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION As part of our continuing exploration of proposals to increase the effectiveness of congressional oversight, the Subcommittee on the Legislative Process has, in the past year, compiled and reviewed "sunset" legislation from 35 states that currently have such statutes on their books. With the aid of the Congressional Research Service, the Subcommittee staff has assembled these statutes in one volume. Since 1976, when Colorado became the first state to enact such legislation, "sunset" has worked itself firmly into the language and usually means a provision to end a program or agency by a target date unless it is renewed by legislative action. An important part of sunset is the review that must accompany any weighing of whether or not to dispense with a program or agency or to change the entities being reviewed in some substantive way. The goals of this program review are to 1) make sure that the taxpayers' money is not being wasted on ineffective or inefficient programs; and 2) make certain that the purpose of the program or the mandate of the legislative body is being adhered to. Stated so broadly, the intent of sunset-type legislation on both the state and federal level is the same. Essentially, it is to improve government by eliminating waste, making changes in programs if changes are warranted, or eliminating programs or agencies altogether if this is in the taxpayers' best interest. The drive for more effectual yet streamlined government that inspired so many of the states to adopt sunset legislation has also moved Congress to consider similar proposals within the past several years. In the 94th Congress, when the sunset concept made its debut, more than 70 such bills were introduced, indicating the wide appeal and popularity of this new approach to limiting bureaucratic growth.1 To date, only one sunset bill has been brought to the Floor of either House for a vote. In the 95th Congress, the Senate passed S. 2, which had been introduced by Senators Edmund S. Muskie, William Roth, and John Glenn. It contained automatic termination features and a ten-year review schedule. It was voted upon too late in the session to allow time for House action. Every Congress since the 94th, however, has conducted hearings on sunset-related measures. In the 96th Congress, a new subcommittee, the Subcommittee on the Legislative Process, was established within the Rules Committee and assigned jurisdiction over various oversight propos 1 These proposals were dubbed "sunset" after the Colorado prototype, the nation's first Sunset Law. The phrase "sunset law," as recounted in "Safire's Political Dictionary" (William Safire, Ballantine Books, New York, 1980), was coined by a member of the Board of Directors of Colorado Common Cause at a May, 1975, meeting. als, including sunset. The Subcommittee commenced its work with a series of extensive hearings. In this first session of the 97th Congress, the Subcommittee has held several hearings on various proposals to improve congressional oversight, including H.R. 2, the Sunset Act of 1981, introduced by Representative James J. Blanchard, and H.R. 58, the Sunset Review Act of 1981, introduced by Representatives Butler Derrick and Gillis W. Long.2 Compared to the relatively quick initial acceptance of sunset on the state level, the proposals before Congress have been subjected to intense scrutiny. There are several reasons for this more deliberative course of congressional examination of sunset. Not unnaturally, they are grounded in the different ways government is conducted within state and federal legislative and constitutional parameters. State governments are not simply the federal government drawn on a smaller scale. Although all 50 states have bicameral legislatures (with the exception of Nebraska) and an elected executive official, the inherent differences in legislative process, scope, and implementing mechanisms make it impractical, if not impossible, to transfer the sunset idea directly from a state body to the federal one without making some adjustments to compensate for the incompatabilities. A Congressional Research Service study describes the relationship that exists between state and federal approaches to sunset: The precise evolution of sunset proposals at the Federal level reflects the influences of the legislative process in the Congress and the structure of political institutions at the Federal level more than it reflects any particular State law. In other words, the Federal sunset bills do not represent direct adaptations of any State sunset law; rather they constitute simultaneous and somewhat independent developments.3 In most of the states, sunset laws focus on agencies, commissions, and licensing boards, a fact that is partly due to differences in the state and federal budget procedures. On the federal level, most programs are appraised annually through the appropriations process and periodically through the authorization process. In the course of considering authorizations and appropriations, Congress holds hearings, conducts investigations, solicits agency views, and utilizes an oversight and investigative infrastructure that includes committee staff and congressional support agencies such as the General Accounting Office, the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress, the Office of Technology Assessment, and the Congressional Budget Office. The combination of authorization and appropriations represents a complex, institutionalized control over the life of programs that 2 H.R. 2 would bar spending funds for programs and eliminate tax expenditures unless these are reviewed and re-authorized at least once in a ten-year period. Certain programs, such as social security, veterans benefits, and civil rights programs would be exempt from the reauthorization requirement. H.R. 58 would not automatically terminate programs or tax expenditures; neither would it exempt any from review. Termination would have to be voted upon by the Congress. Both bills would establish a schedule for oversight, and an inventory of federal programs. 3 Virginia A. McMurtry, Relationship Between State and Federal Sunset Legislation, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 1979. is usually absent in the states, where citizen legislators meeting once every two years has been a not uncommon arrangement. The problem of a lack of systematic_control over government entities was addressed by the Colorado General Assembly when it enacted the first sunset law in 1976. The legislation limited the life of boards and commissions to six years unless public need for an agency could be demonstrated. As the Assembly stated: The General Assembly finds that state government actions have produced a substantial increase in numbers of agencies, growth of programs, and proliferation of rules and regulations and that the whole process developed without sufficient legislative oversight, regulatory accountability, or a system of checks and balances. The General Assembly further finds that by establishing a system for the termination, continuation, or re-establishment of such agencies, it will be in a better position to evaluate the need for the continued existence of existing and future regulatory bodies.* Colorado's prototype legislation, featuring the action-forcing mechanism of automatic termination, was replicated in some form in more than 30 states between 1976 and 1981. This was part of a general movement of state legislatures to fashion themselves into bodies better equipped to deal with increasingly complex problems, the most pressing being heightened budgetary constraints due to inflation. In addition to adopting sunset laws to help guard against wasteful spending, many states took other steps within the last decade to improve their capacities to govern. Common approaches consisted of increasing legislative salaries, adopting annual sessions, enlarging legislative staffs, and modifying committee structures. All these measures, according to Bruce Adams of Common Cause, who has detailed the background of the sunset movement, led to increased legislative program evaluation. 5 This would indicate that the state sunset laws, in conjunction with other positive steps taken by state legislatures, have fulfilled at least some of their sponsors' hopes. The overall goal of state sunset legislation remains open to thoughtful analysis. Frank H. Bailey, Executive Director of the Council of State Governments, poses this question: "Is termination a goal of sunset or a tool to stimulate program evaluation by an established timetable?"6 This is a key question and continues to be debated on both the state and federal level. The design of sunset or sunset-related laws will vary, depending on how the question is answered. It is not our purpose in this preface to attempt to answer the question of whether the ultimate aim of sunset law is better oversight or program termination. On the federal level, that question has most recently been addressed-and answered as each sponsor feels is best-by the sunset and oversight related bills that have been introduced in the 97th Congress. On the state level, the issue is still in flux, as demonstrated by the amendments many states continue to add to their original sunset legislation. *H.B. 1088, 50th Colorado General Assembly, 2d Reg. Sess. (1976) at $1. Adams, Bruce, "Sunset: A Proposal for Accountable Government," reprinted from Administrative Law Review, Summer, 1976, Vol. 23, Number 3, American Bar Association, in "Making Government Work: A Common Cause Report on State Sunset Activity," Common Cause, 1978. Forward, "Sunset: Expectation and Experience," Doug Roederer and Patsy Palmer, The Council of State Governments, Lexington, Ky., 1981. |