BEA 1997 (Contents)

Budget Enforcement Act of 1997

Section 10105

Title X—Budget Enforcement and Process Provisions

Subtitle A—Amendments to the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974

SEC. 10105. AMENDMENTS TO SECTION 301.

(a) Terms of Budget Resolutions.—Section 301(a) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 is amended by striking ‘‘, and planning levels for each of the two ensuing fiscal years,’’ and inserting ‘‘and for at least each of the 4 ensuing fiscal years’’.

(b) Contents of Budget Resolutions.—Paragraphs (1) and (4) of section 301(a) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 are amended by striking ‘‘, budget outlays, direct loan obligations, and primary loan guarantee commitments’’ each place it appears and inserting ‘‘and outlays’’.

(c) Additional Matters.—Section 301(b) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 is amended by—

(1) striking paragraph (7) and inserting the following:

‘‘(7) set forth procedures in the Senate whereby committee allocations, aggregates, and other levels can be revised for legislation if that legislation would not increase the deficit, or would not increase the deficit when taken with other legislation enacted after the adoption of the resolution, for the first fiscal year or the total period of fiscal years covered by the resolution;’’;

(2) in paragraph 8, striking the period and inserting ‘‘; and’’; and

(3) adding the following new paragraph:

‘‘(9) set forth direct loan obligation and primary loan guarantee commitment levels.’’.

(d) View and Estimates.—The first sentence of section 301(d) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 is amended by inserting ‘‘or at such time as may be requested by the Committee on the Budget,’’ after ‘‘Code,’’.

(e) Hearings and Report.—Section 301(e) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 is amended—

(1) by striking ‘‘In developing’’ and inserting the following: ‘‘(1) In general.—In developing’’; and

(2) by striking the sentence beginning with ‘‘The report accompanying’’ and all that follows through the end of the subsection and inserting the following:

‘‘(2) Required contents of report.—The report accompanying the resolution shall include—

‘‘(A) a comparison of the levels of total new budget authority, total outlays, total revenues, and the surplus or deficit for each fiscal year set forth in the resolution with those requested in the budget submitted by the President;

‘‘(B) with respect to each major functional category, an estimate of total new budget authority and total outlays, with the estimates divided between discretionary and mandatory amounts;

‘‘(C) the economic assumptions that underlie each of the matters set forth in the resolution and any alternative economic assumptions and objectives the committee considered;

‘‘(D) information, data, and comparisons indicating the manner in which, and the basis on which, the committee determined each of the matters set forth in the resolution;

‘‘(E) the estimated levels of tax expenditures (the tax expenditures budget) by major items and functional categories for the President’s budget and in the resolution; and

‘‘(F) allocations described in section 302(a).

‘‘(3) Additional contents of report.—The report accompanying the resolution may include—

‘‘(A) a statement of any significant changes in the proposed levels of Federal assistance to State and local governments;

‘‘(B) an allocation of the level of Federal revenues recommended in the resolution among the major sources of such revenues;

‘‘(C) information, data, and comparisons on the share of total Federal budget outlays and of gross domestic product devoted to investment in the budget submitted by the President and in the resolution;

‘‘(D) the assumed levels of budget authority and outlays for public buildings, with a division between amounts for construction and repair and for rental payments; and

‘‘(E) other matters, relating to the budget and to fiscal policy, that the committee deems appropriate.’’.

(f) Social Security Corrections.—(1) Section 301(i) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 is amended by—

(A) inserting ‘‘Social Security Point of Order.—’’ after ‘‘(i)’’; and

(B) striking ‘‘as reported to the Senate’’ and inserting ‘‘(or amendment, motion, or conference report on the resolution)’’; and

(2) Section 22 of House Concurrent Resolution 218 (103d Congress) is repealed.

[Section 10105 (PDF)]
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COUNSEL NOTES

Codification

This section was not classified to the U.S. Code.

EXPLANATORY STATEMENT OF MANAGERS
(H. CONF. REPT. 105-217)

The joint explanatory statement of managers for the conference committee on H.R. 2014 summarized this section as follows:

U.S. Congress, Joint Explanatory Statement on the Committee of Conference on the Balanced Budget Act of 1997; (Conference Report), Committee on the Budget, House of Representatives, 105th Congress, 1st Session, Washington D.C. 1997, p.

Congressional Research service report

CRS issued a report on the Budget Enforcement Act of 1997 (Pub. L. 105-33), including this description of this section:

Section 10105. Amendments to Section 301. Section 301 of the CBA provides for the annual adoption of the budget resolution, specifying required and optional contents of the resolution and establishing procedures regarding its development.

Section 10105 of the act changes Section 301 in several ways. First, the permanent requirement that budget resolutions cover three fiscal years is changed to a minimum of five years. The BEA of 1990 had put in place a temporary requirement (set to expire at the end of FY1998) that budget resolutions cover five fiscal years; this change effectively makes that requirement permanent. The Budget Committees, however, may recommend that the budget resolution cover a period longer than five fiscal years.

Second, Section 10105 makes optional rather than mandatory the inclusion of total direct loan obligation and total primary loan guarantee commitment levels in the budget resolution and the accompanying report. These elements of the budget process effectively were made obsolete by the enactment of the Federal Credit Reform Act of 1990, which was incorporated into the CBA of 1974, as a new Title V, by the BEA of 1990. Under the Federal Credit Reform Act, credit activity is controlled primarily by the appropriation of budget authority for credit subsidies. Decisions regarding the levels of such budget authority are enforced in the same manner as for other spending programs under the congressional budget process. However, credit subsidy levels are influenced greatly by executive branch estimates of interest rates and default risk. Consequently, this section retains the option for Congress of setting credit levels in the budget resolution should these interest and default estimates become subject to significant error in the future.

Third, Section 10105 further modifies the optional contents of the budget resolution to include special “pay-as-you-go” procedures in the Senate pertaining to the use of “reserve funds,” effectively ratifying recent Senate practice. Reserve funds enable committees to pursue increased funding for specified programs within their jurisdiction when such increases are not assumed in the budget resolution; adjustments are made in committee allocations and other levels, so that points of order under the CBA of 1974 may not be raised, as long as the committee’s legislation is deficit neutral.

Fourth, Section 10105 modifies the deadline for committees to submit their “views and estimates” reports in Section 301(d) of the act, allowing the Budget Committees to set an alternative to the usual deadline of within six weeks after submission of the President’s budget. (See the discussion of Section 300 of the act, above.) Fifth, Section 10105 revises the listing, set forth in Section 301(e) of the act, of elements in the report accompanying a budget resolution. The revision distinguishes between required and optional elements.

Finally, Section 10105 amends Section 301(i) of the act, which establishes a point of order in the Senate against a budget resolution recommending a decrease in the projected surplus in the Social Security trust funds. As originally framed, the point of order applied only to a reported budget resolution; the amendment broadens the point of order to apply to the budget resolution at all legislative stages. The change is consistent with the practice of the Senate during the past several years, which effectively expanded the application of the point of order by means of provisions incorporated into the annual budget resolution. A header for the subsection also is inserted. Additionally, Section 22 of the FY1995 budget resolution (H.Con.Res. 218 of the 103rd Congress), which initially established the Senate practice, is repealed.

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LEGISLATIVE HISTORY NOTES

Pub. L. 105–33, title X, §10000, Nov. 5, 1990, 111 Stat. 677; (Budget Enforcement Act of 1997).

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[BCR § 278]