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Week Ending June 22, 2007

H.RES.491 Providing for earmark reform.

The resolution was crafted following extensive negotiations between House Majority and Minority Leaders on June 14^th and 15^th. A handshake agreement on June 15th suggested that earmarks would be identified in appropriation bills when those bills came to the House floor for debate.

This resolution provides for identifying earmarks and their sponsors in bill conference reports when those reports return to the House for a final vote on passage of the bill. Conference reports reflect changes to the final version of a bill after it has passed the House and Senate and then went to a House Senate conference to iron out any differences.

No conference report accompanying a regular general appropriation bill can be considered by the 110^th Congress unless the joint explanatory statement prepared by the bill’s mangers in the House and Senate includes a list of congressional earmarks that that were not committed to the conference committee by either House, not in a report on the bill, and not in a report of a committee of the Senate on a companion measure.

Simplistically, the resolution aims to identify earmarks put in appropriation bills during conference committee negotiations on large bills that have, in the past, come back to the House and Senate with the unidentified earmarks within and were then passed.

The resolution prohibits considering a rule on debating the bill or an order that waives the requirement that the earmarks be listed. The bill would be subject to a point of order.

Sponsor:  Rep Steny Hoyer (D-MD-5^th)

Vote: Agreed to in the House without objection June 18, 2007

Cost to the taxpayers: No discernible cost

Earmark Certification:   Not applicable to this resolution.

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MORE INFORMATION

H. Res. 491

In the House of Representatives, U. S.,

June 18, 2007.

Resolved, That during the remainder of the 110th Congress it shall not be in order to consider a conference report to accompany a regular general appropriation bill unless the joint explanatory statement prepared by the managers on the part of the House and the managers on the part of the Senate includes a list of congressional earmarks (as that term is used in clause 9(d) of rule XXI) in the conference report or joint statement (and the name of any Member, Delegate, Resident Commissioner, or Senator who submitted a request to the respective House or Senate committee for each respective item included on such list) that were not committed to the conference committee by either House, not in a report on such bill, and not in a report of a committee of the Senate on a companion measure.

Sec. 2. It shall not be in order to consider a rule or order that waives the application of the first section of this resolution.

Sec. 3. A point of order under this resolution shall be disposed of by the question of consideration under the same terms as specified in clause 9(b) of rule XXI.

Attest:

Clerk.

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