Thursday, June 30, 2011
The Congressional Appropriations Process: An Introduction
Sandy Streeter
Analyst on Congress and the Legislative Process
Congress annually considers several appropriations measures, which provide funding for numerous activities, for example, national defense, education, and homeland security, as well as general government operations. Congress has developed certain rules and practices for the consideration of appropriations measures, referred to as the congressional appropriations process.
Appropriations measures are under the jurisdiction of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees. In recent years these measures have provided approximately 35% to 39% of total federal spending. The remainder of federal spending comprises direct (or mandatory) spending controlled by House and Senate legislative committees and net interest on the public debt.
There are three types of appropriations measures. Regular appropriations bills provide most of the funding that is provided in all appropriations measures for a fiscal year, and must be enacted by October 1, the beginning of the fiscal year. If regular bills are not enacted by the beginning of the new fiscal year, Congress adopts continuing resolutions to continue funding, generally until regular bills are enacted. Supplemental appropriations bills provide additional appropriations to become available during a fiscal year.
Each year Congress considers a budget resolution that, in part, sets spending ceilings for the upcoming fiscal year. Both the House and Senate have established parliamentary rules that enforce certain spending ceilings associated with the budget resolution during consideration of appropriations measures in the House and Senate, respectively.
Congress has also established an authorization-appropriation process that provides for two separate types of measures—authorization bills and appropriation bills. These measures perform different functions. Authorization bills establish, continue, or modify agencies or programs. Appropriations measures subsequently provide funding for the agencies and programs authorized.
Date of Report: June 22, 2011
Number of Pages: 29
Order Number: 97-684
Price: $29.95
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Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Enforcement of Congressional Rules of Conduct: An Historical Overview
Jacob R. Straus
Analyst on the Congress
The Constitution vests Congress with broad authority to discipline its Members. Only since 1967, however, have both houses established formal rules of conduct and disciplinary procedures whereby allegations of illegal or unethical conduct may be investigated and punished.
In 1964, the Senate established its first permanent ethics committee, the Select Committee on Standards and Conduct, which was renamed the Select Committee on Ethics in 1977. In 1967, the House first established a permanent ethics committee, the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, which was renamed the Committee on Ethics in 2011. A year after being established, each chamber adopted rules of conduct. Previously, Congress dealt case by case with misconduct and relied on election results as the ultimate arbiter in questions of wrongdoing.
In 2008, with the adoption of H.Res. 895, the House created the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) to review allegations of impropriety by Members, officers, and employees of the House and, when appropriate, to refer “findings of fact” to the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. The OCE board of directors comprises six board members and two alternates. Current Members of the House, federal employees, and lobbyists are not eligible to serve on the board. The OCE was reauthorized at the beginning of the 111th Congress. The Senate has not established a comparable office.
This report describes the evolution of enforcement by Congress of its rules of conduct for the House and Senate and summarizes the disciplinary options available to the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct and the Senate Select Committee on Ethics.
For additional information, please refer to CRS Report RL30650, Senate Select Committee on Ethics: A Brief History of Its Evolution and Jurisdiction, by Jacob R. Straus, CRS Report 98-15, House Committee on Ethics: A Brief History of Its Evolution and Jurisdiction, by Jacob R. Straus, CRS Report R40760, House Office of Congressional Ethics: History, Authority, and Procedures, by Jacob R. Straus, and CRS Report RL31382, Expulsion, Censure, Reprimand, and Fine: Legislative Discipline in the House of Representatives, by Jack Maskell.
Date of Report: June 14, 2011
Number of Pages: 19
Order Number: RL30764
Price: $29.95
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Senate Select Committee on Ethics: A Brief History of Its Evolution and Jurisdiction
Jacob R. Straus
Analyst on the Congress
The United States Constitution provides each House of Congress with the sole authority to establish rules and punish and expel Members. From 1789 to 1964, the Senate dealt individually with cases of disciplinary action against Members, often forming ad hoc committees to investigate and make recommendations when acts of wrongdoing were brought to the chamber’s attention. Events of the 1960s, including the investigation of secretary to the majority Robert G. “Bobby” Baker, for alleged corruption and influence peddling, prompted the creation of a permanent ethics committee and the writing of a Code of Conduct for Members, officers, and staff of the Senate.
The Senate Select Committee on Ethics was first established in 1964. This bipartisan, six-member committee investigates alleged violations of the rules of the Senate and recommends disciplinary actions. In the 95th Congress (1977-1978), the Senate expanded the committee’s jurisdiction and altered its procedures to implement revisions to the Senate Code of Official Conduct. Also, to reflect these changes the committee was renamed the Select Committee on Ethics.
This report briefly outlines the background of ethics enforcement in the Senate, including the creation of the Select Committee on Standards and Conduct and the subsequent renaming of the committee as the Select Committee on Ethics. The report also focuses on the Senate Code of Conduct and on the Select Committee’s current jurisdiction and procedures.
For additional information on ethics in the Senate, please refer to CRS Report RL30764, Enforcement of Congressional Rules of Conduct: An Historical Overview, by Jacob R. Straus; CRS Report RL31126, Lobbying Congress: An Overview of Legal Provisions and Congressional Ethics Rules, by Jack Maskell; and CRS Report 93-875, Expulsion and Censure Actions Taken by the Full Senate Against Members, by Jack Maskell.
Date of Report: June 14, 2011
Number of Pages: 24
Order Number: RL30650
Price: $29.95
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Congressionally Chartered Nonprofit Organizations (“Title 36 Corporations”): What They Are and How Congress Treats Them
Kevin R. Kosar
Analyst in American National Government
The chartering by Congress of organizations with a patriotic, charitable, historical, or educational purpose is essentially a 20th century practice. There are currently some 92 nonprofit corporations listed in Title 36, Subtitle II, of the U.S. Code. These so-called “Title 36 corporations,” such as the Girl Scouts of America and the National Academy of Public Administration, are typically incorporated first under state law, then request that Congress grant them a congressional or federal charter.
Chartered corporations listed in Title 36 are not agencies of the United States, and their charters only rarely assign the corporate bodies any governmental attributes. For instance, the corporation’s debt is not guaranteed, explicitly or implicitly, by the full faith and credit of the United States. The attraction of Title 36 status for national organizations is that it tends to provide an “official” imprimatur to their activities, and to that extent it may provide them prestige and indirect financial benefit.
In recent years, some in Congress have expressed concern that the public may be misled by its chartering process into believing that somehow the U.S. government approves and supervises the corporations, when in fact this is not the case. As a consequence, the House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee of jurisdiction instituted a moratorium on granting new charters in 1989. (The Senate generally defers to the House on chartering matters.) On several recent occasions, however, Congress has established Title 36 corporations despite the moratorium.
Date of Report: June 17, 2011
Number of Pages: 20
Order Number: RL30340
Price: $29.95
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Document available via e-mail as a pdf file or in paper form.
To order, e-mail Penny Hill Press or call us at 301-253-0881. Provide a Visa, MasterCard, American Express, or Discover card number, expiration date, and name on the card. Indicate whether you want e-mail or postal delivery. Phone orders are preferred and receive priority processing.
Analyst in American National Government
The chartering by Congress of organizations with a patriotic, charitable, historical, or educational purpose is essentially a 20th century practice. There are currently some 92 nonprofit corporations listed in Title 36, Subtitle II, of the U.S. Code. These so-called “Title 36 corporations,” such as the Girl Scouts of America and the National Academy of Public Administration, are typically incorporated first under state law, then request that Congress grant them a congressional or federal charter.
Chartered corporations listed in Title 36 are not agencies of the United States, and their charters only rarely assign the corporate bodies any governmental attributes. For instance, the corporation’s debt is not guaranteed, explicitly or implicitly, by the full faith and credit of the United States. The attraction of Title 36 status for national organizations is that it tends to provide an “official” imprimatur to their activities, and to that extent it may provide them prestige and indirect financial benefit.
In recent years, some in Congress have expressed concern that the public may be misled by its chartering process into believing that somehow the U.S. government approves and supervises the corporations, when in fact this is not the case. As a consequence, the House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee of jurisdiction instituted a moratorium on granting new charters in 1989. (The Senate generally defers to the House on chartering matters.) On several recent occasions, however, Congress has established Title 36 corporations despite the moratorium.
Date of Report: June 17, 2011
Number of Pages: 20
Order Number: RL30340
Price: $29.95
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Document available via e-mail as a pdf file or in paper form.
To order, e-mail Penny Hill Press or call us at 301-253-0881. Provide a Visa, MasterCard, American Express, or Discover card number, expiration date, and name on the card. Indicate whether you want e-mail or postal delivery. Phone orders are preferred and receive priority processing.
Disposal of Unneeded Federal Buildings: Legislative Proposals in the 112th Congress
Garrett Hatch
Analyst in American National Government
Federal executive branch agencies hold an extensive real property portfolio that includes 429,000 buildings. These assets have been acquired over a period of decades to help agencies fulfill their diverse missions. Agencies hold buildings with a range of uses, including offices, health clinics, warehouses, and laboratories. As agencies’ missions change over time, so, too, do their real property needs, thereby rendering some assets less useful or unneeded altogether. Healthcare provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), for example, has shifted in recent decades from predominately hospital-based inpatient care to a greater reliance on clinics and outpatient care, with a resulting change in space needs. Similarly, the Department of Defense (DOD) reduced its force structure by 36% after the cold war ended, and has engaged in several rounds of base realignments and installation closures.
Real property disposition is the process by which federal agencies identify and then transfer, donate, or sell real property they no longer need. Disposition is an important asset management function because the costs of maintaining unneeded properties can be substantial, consuming financial resources that might be applied to pressing real property needs, such as repairing existing facilities, or towards other pressing policy issues, such as reducing the national debt.
In FY2009—the most recent data available—the government held 10,327 unneeded buildings and spent $134 million dollars to maintain them. Agencies have said that their disposal efforts are often hampered by legal and budgetary disincentives, and competing stakeholder interests. In addition, Congress is limited in its capacity to conduct oversight of the disposal process because it lacks access to reliable, comprehensive, real property data. The government’s inability to efficiently dispose of its unneeded property is a major reason that federal real property management has been identified by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) as a “highrisk” area since 2003.
This report begins with an explanation of the real property disposal process, and then discusses some of the factors that have made disposition relatively inefficient and costly. It then examines three bills introduced in the 112th Congress that would address those problems: the Federal Real Property Disposal Enhancement Act (H.R. 1205), the Excess Federal Building and Property Disposal Act (H.R. 665), and the Civilian Property Realignment Act (H.R. 1734). This report concludes with a discussion of policy options for enhancing both the disposal process and congressional oversight of it.
Date of Report: June 24, 2011
Number of Pages: 17
Order Number: R41892
Price: $29.95
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Document available via e-mail as a pdf file or in paper form.
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Analyst in American National Government
Federal executive branch agencies hold an extensive real property portfolio that includes 429,000 buildings. These assets have been acquired over a period of decades to help agencies fulfill their diverse missions. Agencies hold buildings with a range of uses, including offices, health clinics, warehouses, and laboratories. As agencies’ missions change over time, so, too, do their real property needs, thereby rendering some assets less useful or unneeded altogether. Healthcare provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), for example, has shifted in recent decades from predominately hospital-based inpatient care to a greater reliance on clinics and outpatient care, with a resulting change in space needs. Similarly, the Department of Defense (DOD) reduced its force structure by 36% after the cold war ended, and has engaged in several rounds of base realignments and installation closures.
Real property disposition is the process by which federal agencies identify and then transfer, donate, or sell real property they no longer need. Disposition is an important asset management function because the costs of maintaining unneeded properties can be substantial, consuming financial resources that might be applied to pressing real property needs, such as repairing existing facilities, or towards other pressing policy issues, such as reducing the national debt.
In FY2009—the most recent data available—the government held 10,327 unneeded buildings and spent $134 million dollars to maintain them. Agencies have said that their disposal efforts are often hampered by legal and budgetary disincentives, and competing stakeholder interests. In addition, Congress is limited in its capacity to conduct oversight of the disposal process because it lacks access to reliable, comprehensive, real property data. The government’s inability to efficiently dispose of its unneeded property is a major reason that federal real property management has been identified by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) as a “highrisk” area since 2003.
This report begins with an explanation of the real property disposal process, and then discusses some of the factors that have made disposition relatively inefficient and costly. It then examines three bills introduced in the 112th Congress that would address those problems: the Federal Real Property Disposal Enhancement Act (H.R. 1205), the Excess Federal Building and Property Disposal Act (H.R. 665), and the Civilian Property Realignment Act (H.R. 1734). This report concludes with a discussion of policy options for enhancing both the disposal process and congressional oversight of it.
Date of Report: June 24, 2011
Number of Pages: 17
Order Number: R41892
Price: $29.95
Follow us on TWITTER at http://www.twitter.com/alertsPHP or #CRSreports
Document available via e-mail as a pdf file or in paper form.
To order, e-mail Penny Hill Press or call us at 301-253-0881. Provide a Visa, MasterCard, American Express, or Discover card number, expiration date, and name on the card. Indicate whether you want e-mail or postal delivery. Phone orders are preferred and receive priority processing.
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