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TheWeekInCongress.com (TM)                                                                                         Earmark Provisions

Week Ending January 5, 2006

H RES. 6 adopting the rules for the House of Representatives for the 110^th Congress.

The tradition of establishing the House rules when new Congresses convene is continued with this Resolution that, under its' Title I, adopts the rules of the previous congress with the promise of changing some of those rules in Title II.

Title II strikes directly at provisions in the 109^th rules that were implicit in various ethics matters that came to light in the past two years.

First on the list of reforms is called ‘Ending the K Street Project” referring to ‘K’ Street in Washington, D.C. where lobbyist organizations establish offices and republican influence on those firms reportedly came with the threat of official retaliation against those firms if they hired employees who did not share the Majority party’s or an individual Members’ political affiliation. The practice is banned.

Gifts to Members and Member staff from lobbyists, an agent of a foreign principal or an entity that employs those lobbyists or agents are currently limited to less than $50 and a $100 yearly total and this bill retains those limits. A ticket to a sporting event is to be valued either at the face value of the ticket or the cost to the general public if the ticket does not have a face value or if the face value doesn’t equal the economic value.

The rule is continued under which Members and staff members are prohibited from accepting travel reimbursements from a registered lobbyist, agent of a foreign country or an entity that employs or retains them. Lobbyist may only play a de minimis role in Member travel, as well. An exception to the rule is a one-day event such as a convention or meeting. Also, colleges and universities are not subject to the rule. Those restrictions take place March 1, 2007.  Future rules are ordered that will determine on a case-by-case basis if two days of travel is necessary for a one-day trip. Members who accept reimbursement for travel must obtain a certification from the entity paying for the one-day trip that the lobbyist did not plan, organize, request, arrange or finance the travel except in the case of university sponsored travel. Members and staff must file that certification with the House Clerk within 15 days of the trip. The Clerk must make the information public within 30 days of receipt.

Members are prohibited from accepting reimbursement of any kind including ‘in kind’ payment for transportation, lodging or related expenses for a trip on which the Member of staff is accompanied on a segment by a registered lobbyist or agent of a foreign principal or if the trip is in any part planned, organized, requested or arranged by a registered lobbyist or agent or a foreign principal.

Members are prohibited from using official, personal or campaign funds to pay for the use of privately owned airplanes. The prohibition does not include chartering commercially available planes.

The House Ethics Committee is charged with developing new standards of what constitutes a ‘reasonable expense by private groups for Member travel as well as a new standard for determining if the travel has a valid connection to the Member’s official duties. The guidelines for the new rules will include the relevance of the trip to official duties, the reasonableness of an amount spent by the trip sponsor, the relationship between the event and an officially connected purpose and a direct and immediate relationship between a source of funding and an event and the requirement of a member to submit to the Committee to gain approval for travel under this clause. Travel expenses will be in the context of official government travel per diem rates.

Ethics themselves will be the topic of annual ethics training form Members and some staff and new staff must receive the training within 60 days of beginning work at the House.

The Resolution steps away from ethics reform as such to rename several House committees that the Republican Majority renamed when in power. The Committee on Education and the Workforce is changed back to the Committee on Education and labor. International Relations is reverted to Foreign Affairs. Committee Resources is returned to Committee on Natural Resources. Committee on Reform is changed back to Oversight and Government Reform and the Committee on Science is once again the Committee on Science and Technology. Other committee changes include limiting the Armed Services Committee to no more than seven subcommittees, Foreign Affairs may have no more than seven subcommittees and Transportation may have no more than six subcommittees.

Title III deals more with floor procedures by prohibiting the Speaker from holding electronic votes (Roll Call votes) open longer than the schedules times (usually five or fifteen minutes)

Conferences between the House and Senate are governed by the requirement that House conferees insist that conference committees operate I an open and fair manner and the they sign the final conference report at one time in one place. Any conference report that was altered after it was signed by conferees may not be considered by the House.

Title IV sets the stage for a different approach to handling spending by first and foremost prohibiting the consideration of any legislation that proposes direct spending or revenue change that would increase the budget deficit over a five- or ten-year time frame. This is the PAYGO provision that will now become a sustainable point of order against a bill. PAYGO in its most simplistic form requires that new spending is offset by new revenues, usually taxes, or less spending elsewhere. Of equal significance is the requirement that committees and conferences must publish lists of earmarks, limited tax benefits and limited tariff benefits in all bills including unreported bills, amendments, manager’s amendments and conference reports that come to the House floor. The lists will be available to the public through a committee publication or in the Congressional Record. Equally so, a bill with no earmarks must be so reported. Any rule that waives the listing requirement will be subject to a point of order which, will be given 20 minutes of debate and, if sustained, will return the bill from the floor to the committee or otherwise stop progress on the bill.

Earmarks are defined in the Resolution as ‘any Member-requested project that is targeted to a specific place and falls outside a formula-driven or competitive award process. Formula-driven or competitive processes refer to spending bills through which spending is based on a basis of calculating the amount to be spent. Competitive award process means the process through which a grant, loan, or guarantees are awarded after a process of competition for the assets are followed. Also included in the definition of earmarks  are tax and tariff benefits that would benefit ten or fewer persons. The rule, then, would not apply to provisions that reduce or remove tariffs on such products as, say, industrial chemicals when the provision would apply to greater than ten people. Tax breaks that would benefit one person temporary or permanent relief from a change in the IRS Code of 1986 are prohibited. Past definitions of earmarks included language that defines the recipient of the funds or other considerations as non-governmental or private recipients. This bill does not include that language but there is nothing in the bill that rejects that definition.

Earmarks may not be traded for votes. Members must also disclose their earmark requests and certify that their spouses have no personal financial interest in the request.

Title V applies to a miscellany of provisions that include protocol matters governing bills and authority for Committee Members and staff to conduct depositions in the course of Committee investigations. Minority Members and staff are to be ‘afforded equitable treatment with respect to being notified to participate in the proceedings.

Another provision protects Rules Committee reports from a progress-stopping, procedural point of order if the reports are filed without a complete list of recorded votes taken during consideration of a special rule. The provision is expected to allow the Rules Committee to publish recorded votes from Committee hearings in the committee reports or on the Internet and elsewhere.

House rules are changed technically to allow several pieces of legislation to be considered if special rules for those provisions are not reported separately if the bills are part of the “First 100 Hours” agenda.

The Resolution on the budget for the 109^th Congress contains a great number of provisions and spending plans that will be continued until a conference report on the FY 2008 budget is adopted.

Last year’s law that prohibits registered lobbyist from using member’s exercise facilities is continued. The law as passed also prohibited use of the facilities by family members when the spouse is a lobbyist and former Members when the former Member is a lobbyist.

The House may suspend business when notified of an imminent safety threat allowing for a recess at the call of the Chair.

Specific future legislation regarding the recommendations of the 911 Commission would for some objection by the Minority and would be open for one hour of debate equally divided with one ‘motion to recommit allowed before vote on passage. Ultimately the rule leads to removing points of order an allowing for 3 hours of debate on HR 1, a bill regarding national security. Also authorized under this resolution is the consideration of HR 2 to amend the Fair Labor and Standards Act of 1938 and raised the minimum wage HR 3-stemcell research, and HR 4 to amend the Social Security Act allowing the Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate drug prices for the Medicare Part D prescription drug program

A resolution from the 109^th Congress HCR 376 will be held in full force in the 110^th. The Resolution provides discretionary spending guidelines in particular. The Resolution is the House Budget Resolution that sets forth the House leaderships vision of spending and program authorization.

Sponsor:  Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY)

Vote: Title I passed the House 426 to 0 (RC 6). Title II passed the House 430 to 1 (RC 7) January 4, 2007. Title III passed the House January 5, 2007 430 to 0 (RC 8) . Title VI passed the House January 5, 2007 280 to 152 (RC 9). Title V passed the House January 5, 2007 232 to 200 (RC 11). A Motion to Commit the bill failed 200 to 232 (RC 10).

Cost to the taxpayers: No discernible cost.

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