(d) (1) If the committee to which a resolution with respect to a special message has been referred has not reported it at the end of thirty calendar days of continuous session after its introduction, it is in order to move either to discharge the committee from further consideration of the resolution or to discharge the committee from further consideration of any other resolution with respect to the same message which has been referred to the committee.

(2) A motion to discharge may be made only by an individual favoring the resolution, may be made only if supported by one-fifth of the Members of the House involved (a quorum being present), and is highly privileged (except that it may not be made after the committee has reported a resolution with respect to the same special message); and debate thereon shall be limited to not more than one hour, to be divided equally between those favoring and those opposing the resolution. An amendment to the motion is not in order, and it is not in order to move to reconsider the vote by which the motion is agreed to or disagreed to.

(3) If the motion to discharge is agreed to or disagreed to, the motion may not be renewed, nor may another motion to discharge the committee be made with respect to any other resolution with respect to the same special message.

(e) (1) When the committee has reported, or has been discharged from further consideration of, a resolution with respect to a special message, it shall at any time thereafter be in order (even though a previous motion to the same effect has been disagreed to) to move to proceed to the consideration of the resolution. The motion shall be highly privileged and not debatable. An amendment to the motion shall not be in order, nor shall it be in order to move to reconsider the vote by which the motion is agreed to or disagreed to.

(2) Debate on the resolution shall be limited to not more than two hours, which shall be divided equally between those favoring and those opposing the resolution. A motion further to limit debate shall not be debatable. No amendment to, or motion to recommit, the resolution shall be in order, and it shall not be in order to move to reconsider the vote by which the resolution is agreed to or disagreed to.

(f) Motions to postpone, made with respect to the consideration of a resolution with respect to a special message, and motions to proceed to the consideration of other business, shall be decided without debate.

(g) All appeals from the decisions of the Chair relating to the application of the rules of the Senate or the House of Representatives, as the case may be to the procedure relating to any resolution referred to in this section shall be decided without debate.

SEC. 105. If the President, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the head of any department or agency of the United States, or any other officer or employee of the United States impounds any funds authorized or made available for a specific purpose or project or orders, permits, or approves the impounding of any such funds by any other officer or employee of the United States, and the President fails to transmit a special message with respect to such impoundment as required by this title, the Comptroller General shall report such impoundment and any available information concerning it to both Houses of Congress: and the provisions of this title shall apply with respect to such impoundment in the same manner and with the same effect as if such report of the Comptroller General were a special message submitted by the President under section 101, with the sixty-day period provided in section 102 being deemed to have commenced at the time at which the Comptroller General makes the report. As used in section 104, the term "special message" includes a report made by the Comptroller General under this section.

SEC. 106. The Comptroller General is hereby expressly empowered as the representative of the Congress through attorneys of his own selection to sue any department, agency, officer, or employee of the United States in a civil action in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to enforce the provisions of this title, and such court is hereby expressly empowered to enter in such civil action any decree, judgment, or order which may be necessary or appropriate to secure compliance with the provisions of this title by such department, agency, officer, or employee. Within the purview of this section, the Office of Management and Budget shall be construed to be an agency of the United States, and the officers and employees of the Office of Management and Budget shall be construed to be officers or employees of the United States. SEC. 107. Section 203 of the Budget and Accounting Procedures Act of 1950 is repealed.

SEC. 108. Nothing contained in this title shall be construed as

(1) asserting or conceding the constitutional powers or limitations of either the Congress or the President;

(2) ratifying any impoundment heretofore or hereafter executed or approved by the President or any other Federal officer or employee, except insofar as pursuant to statutory authorization then in effect; or

(3) affecting in any way the claims or defenses of any party to litigation concerning any impoundment ordered or executed before the date of the enactment of this Act.

TITLE II-CEILING ON FISCAL YEAR 1974 EXPENDITURES

SEC. 201. (a) Except as provided in subsection (b), expenditures and net lending during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1974, under the budget of the United States Government shall not exceed $267,100,000,000.

(b) If the estimates of revenues which will be received in the Treasury during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1974, as made from time to time, are increased as a result of legislation enacted after the date of the enactment of this Act reforming the Federal tax laws, the limitation specified in subsection (a) shall be reviewed by Congress for the purpose of determining whether the additional revenues made available should be applied to essential public services for which adequate funding would not otherwise be provided.

SEC. 202. (a) Notwithstanding the provisions of any other law, the President shall, in accordance with this section, reserve from expenditures and net lending, from appropriations or other obligational authority otherwise made available, such amounts as may be necessary to keep expenditures and net lending during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1974, within the limitation specified in section 201.

(b) In carrying out the provisions of subsection (a) the President shall reserve amounts proportionately from appropriations and other obligational authority available for each functional category, and to the extent practicable, subfunctional category (as set out in the United States Budget in Brief), except that(1) no reservations shall be made from amounts available for interest, veterans' benefits and services, payments from social insurance trust funds, public assistance maintenance grants under title IV of the Social Security Act, food stamps, military retirement pay, medicaid, and judicial salaries; and

(2) no rservations from authority available for any functional category or subfunctional category shall have the effect of reducing the total amount available for any specific program or activity (as set out in the budget accounts listing in the Budget of the United States Government for Fiscal Year 1974, pages 167-312) within that particular category by a percentage which is more than 10 percentage points higher than the net percentage of the overall reduction in expenditures and net lending resulting from all reservations made as required by subsection (a).

(c) (1) Reservations made to carry out the provisions of subsection (a) shall be subject to the provisions of title I of this Act unless made in accordance with the proportional reservation and percentage requirements of subsection (b).

(2) In order to assist the Congress in the exercise of its functions under this title and title I with respect to reservations made to carry out the provisions of subsection (a), the Comptroller General shall review each such reservation and inform the House of Representatives and the Senate as promptly as possible whether or not, in his judgment, such reservation was made in accordance with the requirements of subsection (b).

(d) In no event shall the authority conferred by this section be used to impound funds, appropriated or otherwise made available by Congress, for the purpose of eliminating a program the creation or combination of which has been authorized by Congress.

SEC. 203. In the administration of any program as to which

(1) the amount of expenditures is limited pursuant to this title, and

(2) the allocation, grant, apportionment, or other distribution of funds among recipients is required to be determined by application of a formula involving the amount appropriated or otherwise made available for distribution,

the amount available for expenditure (after the application of this title) shall be substituted for the amount appropriated or otherwise made available in the application of the formula.

93D CONGRESS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 1st Session

{

REPORT No. 93-336

IMPOUNDMENT CONTROL AND 1974 EXPENDITURE CEILING

JUNE 27, 1973.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union and ordered to be printed

Mr. MADDEN, from the Committee on Rules,
submitted the following

REPORT

together with

MINORITY VIEWS AND SEPARATE VIEWS

[To accompany H.R. 8480]

The Committee on Rules, to whom was referred the bill (H.R. 8480) to require the President to notify the Congress whenever he impounds funds, to provide a procedure under which the House of Representatives or the Senate may disapprove the President's action and require him to cease such impounding, and to establish for the fiscal year 1974 a ceiling on total Federal expenditures, having considered the same, report favorably thereon with an amendment and recommend that the bill as amended do pass.

The amendment is as follows:

Page 6, after the period in line 23, add the following new sentence: If a special message is transmitted under section 101 during any Congress and the last session of such Congress adjourns sine die before the expiration of sixty calendar days of continuous session (or a special message is so transmitted after the last session of the Congress adjourns sine die), the message shall be deemed to have been retransmitted on the first day of the succeeding Congress and the sixty-day period referred to in paragraph (1) of this subsection and in section 102 (with respect to such message) shall commence on such first day.

PURPOSE AND BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE BILL

The purpose of this bill is to provide for more effective and responsible congressional control over both the expenditure and nonexpenditure of funds by the executive branch. It seeks to accomplish that purpose, first, by establishing an appropriate permanent mechanism and orderly procedures whereby Congress can review individual impoundment actions by the executive branch, and by disapproval of either House require impoundments to cease, and second, by establishing a ceiling on Federal expenditures during the fiscal year 1974.

Title I of H.R. 8480 establishes the procedure by which the Congress can require the President to cease any impoundment of funds.

It directs the President to notify the Congress by special message whenever he or any other officer of the executive branch impounds funds. Each such special message, which shall deal with only a single impoundment, is to be sent to the Congress within 10 days after the impoundment. Upon its receipt, each message would be referred to the Appropriations Committees of the House and Senate. The impoundment reported in that message would have to stop immediately if either House passes a simple resolution disapproving it, and if that resolution is passed within 60 days after Congress receives the message. The bill specifies procedures for expeditious consideration of disapproving resolutions.

The Comptroller General is directed to provide Congress with information concerning impoundments reported by the President. He would also notify the Congress of any impoundment not reported by the President, and in such cases that notification would trigger the disapproval procedure. In addition, the Comptroller General is authorized to bring civil actions on behalf of the Congress to enforce compliance with the requirements of the bill.

Title I also disclaims any intent to deal one way or the other with the constitutional powers or limitations of either the President or the Congress, or to ratify past impoundments, or to affect pending claims concerning any impoundment.

Title II establishes a ceiling of $267.1 billion on Federal expenditures during the fiscal year 1974. It requires the President to reserve from any appropriations or other funds available such amounts as may be necessary to keep within the ceiling, but to do so (1) proportionately among the various budget categories, and (2) within certain percentage limitations. So long as these reservations of funds comply with the specified proportionality requirements and percentage limitations, they would not be subject to the impoundment control procedure under title I. The Comptroller General is directed to inform Congress as to whether or not each reservation is made in accordance with these requirements. In no event is the reservation authority to be used to impound funds for the purpose of eliminating programs created or continued by the Congress.

LEGISLATIVE HISTORY

H.R. 8480 is a modified version of H.R. 5193, introduced March 6, 1973, by Mr. Mahon of Texas. During the period March 28-May 21. 1973, the Committee on Rules held eight days of hearings on H.R.

5193 and related measures. Oral testimony was received from 18 Members of Congress, including Senator Sam J. Ervin, Jr., of North Carolina; seven other Members submitted statements for the record. Although ordinarily the Committee does not hear witnesses other than Members of Congress, the nature of the subject convinced the Committee to set that policy aside in this instance. Consequently, testimony was also received from the Honorable Roy L. Ash, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and four distinguished scholars. As a result of this testimony, a revision based upon H.R. 5193 was prepared. This version was introduced as a clean bill, H.R. 8480, on June 7, 1973, by the Chairman and eight other members of the Committee.

BACKGROUND

Concern has mounted in recent years about the practice of the President and other officers of the executive branch to impound funds that the Congress has duly appropriated or otherwise authorized for expenditure or obligation.

Distinguished and knowledgable witnesses before the Committee charged that the President has overstepped his authority. The executive branch, it is claimed, has unilaterally set aside congressionally approved programs it deems less worthy than others and nullified national policies established by Congress. Critics assert that by these acts the executive branch has encroached upon the legitimate role of Congress in establishing spending priorities, eroded Congress' constitutional and vital power of the purse, upset the delicate constitutional balance of powers between the legislative and executive branches, aggrandized executive power, exercised an item veto never authorized by Congress, and created chaos in the operations of State and local governments.

The Committee heard conflicting testimony about the exact amount of money impounded by the executive branch in fiscal 1973. According to the Administration, it is withholding only $8.7 billion. Other witnesses, however, charged that this figure does not include the impoundment of $6 billion for water sewage treatment facilities, among others. We received $16.6 billion, $17.1 billion, and $18 billion estimates of the total, depending upon differing definitions of what should properly be included as impoundments. The Administration asserts it is withholding only 3.5 percent of the fiscal 1973 budget as compared with an annual average of 5.5 percent impounded over the last 13 years; others insist that current impoundments amount to 6.85 percent of the budget, considerably higher than the 13-year annual average. Furthermore, the Administration's defenders claim that of the $8.7 billion in admitted impoundments only 40 percent affect human resources. The Administration's critics, on the other hand, charge that it plans to terminate virtually all of these programs, whereas it is only delaying spending in space, defense, and public works programs. Almost 100 percent of the human resources programs are to be impounded out of existence, these critics insist, while the other programs are merely deferred.

Important as these matters are, our concern is not with specific amounts of money that should or should not be spent on one program