sec. 4. PAYGO ESTIMATES AND PAYGO SCORECARDS.

(a) PAYGO Estimates.[1]—

(1) Required designation in paygo acts.—

(A) House of representatives.—To establish the budgetary effects of a PAYGO Act consistent with the determination made by the Chairman of the House Budget Committee, a PAYGO Act originated in or amended by the House of Representatives may include the following statement: “The budgetary effects of this Act, for the purpose of complying with the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go-Act of 2010,^[2] shall be determined by reference to the latest statement titled ‘Budgetary Effects of PAYGO Legislation’ for this Act, submitted for printing in the Congressional Record by the Chairman of the House Budget Committee, provided that such statement has been submitted prior to the vote on passage.”.

(B) Senate.—To establish the budgetary effects of a PAYGO Act consistent with the determination made by the Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, a PAYGO Act originated in or amended by the Senate shall include the following statement: “The budgetary effects of this Act, for the purpose of complying with the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go-Act of 2010, shall be determined by reference to the latest statement titled ‘Budgetary Effects of PAYGO Legislation’ for this Act, submitted for printing in the Congressional Record by the Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, provided that such statement has been submitted prior to the vote on passage.”.

(C) Conference reports and amendments between the houses.—To establish the budgetary effects of the conference report on a PAYGO Act, or an amendment to an amendment between Houses on a PAYGO Act, which if estimated shall be estimated jointly by the Chairmen of the House and Senate Budget Committees, the conference report or amendment between the Houses shall include the following statement: “The budgetary effects of this Act, for the purpose of complying with the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go-Act of 2010, shall be determined by reference to the latest statement titled ‘Budgetary Effects of PAYGO Legislation’ for this Act, jointly submitted for printing in the Congressional Record by the Chairmen of the House and Senate Budget Committees, provided that such statement has been submitted prior to the vote on passage in the House acting first on this conference report or amendment between the Houses.”.

(2) Determination of budgetary effects of paygo acts.—

(A) Original legislation.—

(i) Statement and estimate.—Prior to a vote on passage of a PAYGO Act originated or amended by one House, the Chairman of the Budget Committee of that House may submit for printing in the Congressional Record a statement titled “Budgetary Effects of PAYGO Legislation” which shall include an estimate of the budgetary effects of that Act, if available prior to passage of the Act by that House and shall submit, if applicable, an identification of any current policy adjustments made pursuant to section 7 of this Act. The timely submission of such a statement, in conjunction with the appropriate designation made pursuant to paragraph (1)(A) or (1)(B), as applicable, shall establish the budgetary effects of the PAYGO Act for the purposes of this Act.

(ii) Effect.—The latest statement submitted by the Chairman of the Budget Committee of that House prior to passage shall supersede any prior statements submitted in the Congressional Record and shall be valid only if the PAYGO Act is not further amended by either House.

(iii) Failure to submit estimate.—If—

(I) the estimate required by clause (i) has not been submitted prior to passage by that House;

(II) such estimate has been submitted but is no longer valid due to a subsequent amendment to the PAYGO Act; or

(III) the designation required pursuant to this subsection has not been made;

the budgetary effects of the PAYGO Act shall be determined under subsection (d)(3), provided that this clause shall not apply if a valid designation is subsequently included in that PAYGO Act pursuant to paragraph (1)(C) and a statement is submitted pursuant to subparagraph (B).

(B) Conference reports and amendments between the houses.—

(i) In general.—Prior to the adoption of a report of a committee of conference on a PAYGO Act in either House, or disposition of an amendment to an amendment between Houses on a PAYGO Act, the Chairmen of the Budget Committees of the House and Senate may jointly submit for printing in the Congressional Record a statement titled “Budgetary Effects of PAYGO Legislation” which shall include an estimate of the budgetary effects of that Act if available prior to passage of the Act by the House acting first on the legislation and shall submit, if applicable, an identification of any current policy adjustments made pursuant to section 7 of this title. The timely submission of such a statement, in conjunction with the appropriate designation made pursuant to paragraph (1)(C), shall establish the budgetary effects of the PAYGO Act for the purposes of this Act.

(ii) Failure to submit estimate.—If such estimate has not been submitted prior to the adoption of a report of a committee of conference by either House, or if the designation required pursuant to this subsection has not been made, the budgetary effects of the PAYGO Act shall be determined under subsection (d)(3).

(3) Procedure in the senate.—In the Senate, upon submission of a statement titled “Budgetary Effects of PAYGO Legislation” by the Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee for printing in the Congressional Record, the Legislative Clerk shall read the statement.

(4) Jurisdiction of the budget committees.—For the purposes of enforcing section 306 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, a designation made pursuant to paragraph (1)(A),(1)(B), or (1)(C), that includes only the language specifically prescribed therein, shall not be considered a matter within the jurisdiction of either the Senate or House Committees on the Budget.^[3]

(b) CBO PAYGO Estimates.—

(1) In general.—

(A) Estimates.—Section 308(a) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 is amended by adding at the end the following new paragraph:

“(3) CBO PAYGO Estimates.—

“(A) The Chairs of the Committees on the Budget of the House and Senate, as applicable, shall request from the Director of the Congressional Budget Office an estimate of the budgetary effects of PAYGO legislation.

“(B) Estimates shall be prepared using baseline estimates supplied by the Congressional Budget Office, consistent with section 257 of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985.

“(C) The Director shall not count timing shifts, as that term is defined at section 3(8) of the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010, in estimates of the budgetary effects of PAYGO Legislation.”.

(B) Sideheading.—The side heading of section 308(a) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 is amended by striking “Reports on”.

(2) Guidelines.—Section 308 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 is amended by adding at the end the following new subsection:

“(d) Scorekeeping Guidelines.—Estimates under this section shall be provided in accordance with the scorekeeping guidelines determined under section 252(d)(5) of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985.”.

(c) Current Policy Adjustments for Certain Legislation.—

(1) In general.—For any provision of legislation that meets the criteria in subsection (c), (d), (e) or (f) of section 7, the Chairs of the Committees on the Budget of the House and Senate, as applicable, shall request that CBO adjust the estimate of budgetary effects of that legislation pursuant to paragraph (2) for the purposes of this title. A single piece of legislation may contain provisions that meet criteria in more than one of the subsections referred to in the preceding sentence. CBO shall adjust estimates for legislation designated under subsection (a) and estimated under subsection (b). OMB shall adjust estimates for legislation estimated under subsection (d)(3).

(2) Adjustments.—

(A) Estimates.—CBO or OMB, as applicable, shall exclude from the estimate of budgetary effects any budgetary effects of a provision that meets the criteria in subsection (c), (d), (e) or (f) of section 7, to the extent that those budgetary effects, when combined with all other excluded budgetary effects of any other previously designated provisions of enacted legislation under the same subsection of section 7, do not exceed the maximum applicable current policy adjustment defined under the applicable subsection of section 7 for the applicable 10-year period.

(B) Baselines.—Any estimate made pursuant to subparagraph (A) shall be prepared using baseline estimates supplied by the Congressional Budget Office, consistent with section 257 of the BBEDCA. CBO estimates of legislation adjusted for current policy shall include a separate presentation of costs excluded from the calculation of budgetary effects for the legislation, as well as an updated total of all excluded costs of provisions within subsection (c), (d), or (e) of section 7, as applicable, and in the case of paragraph (1) of section 7(f), within any of the subparagraphs (A) through (L) of such paragraph, as applicable.

(3) Limitation on availability of excess savings.—

(A) Prohibition on use of excess saving^[4] for ineligible policies.—To the extent the adjustment for current policy of any provision estimated under this subsection exceeds the estimated budgetary effects of that provision, these excess savings shall not be available to offset the costs of any provisions not otherwise eligible for a current policy adjustment under section 7, and shall not be counted on the PAYGO scorecards established pursuant to subsections (d)(4) and (d)(5).

(B) Prohibition on use of excess savings across budget areas.—For provisions eligible for a current policy adjustment under subsections (c) through (f) of section 7, to the extent the adjustment for current policy of any provision exceeds the estimated budgetary effects of that same provision, the excess savings shall be available only to offset the costs of other provisions that qualify for a current policy adjustment in that same subsection. Each paragraph in section 7(f)(1) shall be considered a separate subsection for purposes of this section.

(4) Further guidance on estimating budgetary effects.—Estimates of budgetary effects under this subsection shall be consistent with the guidance provided at section 7(h).

(5) Inclusion of statements.—For PAYGO legislation adjusted pursuant to section 7, the Chairman of the House or Senate Budget Committee, as applicable, shall include in any statement titled “Budgetary Effects of PAYGO Legislation”, submitted for that legislation pursuant to section 4, an explanation of the current policy designation and adjustments.

(d) OMB PAYGO Scorecards.—

(1) In general.—OMB shall maintain and make publicly available a continuously updated document containing two PAYGO scorecards displaying the budgetary effects of PAYGO legislation as determined under section 308 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, applying the look-back requirement in subsection (e) and the averaging requirement in subsection (f), and a separate addendum displaying the estimates of the costs of provisions designated in statute as emergency requirements.

(2) Estimates in legislation.—Except as provided in paragraph (3), in making the calculations for the PAYGO scorecards, OMB shall use the budgetary effects included by reference in the applicable legislation pursuant to subsection (a).

(3) OMB PAYGO Estimates.—If a PAYGO Act does not contain a valid reference to its budgetary effects consistent with subsection (a), OMB shall estimate the budgetary effects of that legislation upon its enactment. The OMB estimate shall be based on the approaches to scorekeeping set forth in section 308 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, as amended by this title, and subsection (g)(4), and shall use the same economic and technical assumptions as used in the most recent budget submitted by the President under section 1105(a) of title 31 of the United States Code.

(4) 5-year scorecard.—The first scorecard shall display the budgetary effects of PAYGO legislation in each year over the 5-year period beginning in the budget year.

(5) 10-year scorecard.—The second scorecard shall display the budgetary effects of PAYGO legislation in each year over the 10-year period beginning in the budget year.

(6) Community living assistance services and supports act.—Neither scorecard maintained by OMB pursuant to this subsection shall include net savings from any provisions of legislation titled “Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act”, which establishes a Federal insurance program for long-term care, if such legislation is enacted into law, or amended, subsequent to the date of enactment of this title.

(e) Look-back To Capture Current-Year Effects.—For purposes of this section, OMB shall treat the budgetary effects of PAYGO legislation enacted during a session of Congress that occur during the current year as though they occurred in the budget year.

(f) Averaging Used to Measure Compliance Over 5-year and 10-year Periods.—OMB shall cumulate the budgetary effects of a PAYGO Act over the budget year (which includes any lookback effects under subsection (e)) and—

(1) for purposes of the 5-year scorecard referred to in subsection (d)(4), the four subsequent outyears, divide that cumulative total by five, and enter the quotient in the budget-year column and in each subsequent column of the 5-year PAYGO scorecard; and

(2) for purposes of the 10-year scorecard referred to in subsection (d)(5), the nine subsequent outyears, divide that cumulative total by ten, and enter the quotient in the budget-year column and in each subsequent column of the 10-year PAYGO scorecard.

(g) Emergency Legislation.—

(1) Designation in statute.—If a provision of direct spending or revenue legislation in a PAYGO Act is enacted as an emergency requirement that the Congress so designates in statute pursuant to this section, the amounts of new budget authority, outlays, and revenue in all fiscal years resulting from that provision shall be treated as an emergency requirement for the purposes of this Act.

(2) Designation in the house of representatives.—If a PAYGO Act includes a provision expressly designated as an emergency for the purposes of this title, the Chair shall put the question of consideration with respect thereto.

(3) Point of order in the senate.—

(A) In general.—When the Senate is considering a PAYGO Act, if a point of order is made by a Senator against an emergency designation in that measure, that provision making such a designation shall be stricken from the measure and may not be offered as an amendment from the floor.

(B) Supermajority waiver and appeals.—

(i) Waiver.—Subparagraph (A) may be waived or suspended in the Senate only by an affirmative vote of three-fifths of the Members, duly chosen and sworn.

(ii) Appeals.—Appeals in the Senate from the decisions of the Chair relating to any provision of this subsection shall be limited to 1 hour, to be equally divided between, and controlled by, the appellant and the manager of the bill or joint resolution, as the case may be. An affirmative vote of three-fifths of the Members of the Senate, duly chosen and sworn, shall be required to sustain an appeal of the ruling of the Chair on a point of order raised under this subsection.

(C) Definition of an emergency designation.—For purposes of subparagraph (A), a provision shall be considered an emergency designation if it designates any item as an emergency requirement pursuant to this subsection.

(D) Form of point of order.—A point of order under subparagraph (A) may be raised by a Senator as provided in section 313(e) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.^[5]

(E) Conference reports.—When the Senate is considering a conference report on, or an amendment between the Houses in relation to, a PAYGO Act, upon a point of order being made by any Senator pursuant to this section, and such point of order being sustained, such material contained in such conference report shall be deemed stricken, and the Senate shall proceed to consider the question of whether the Senate shall recede from its amendment and concur with a further amendment, or concur in the House amendment with a further amendment, as the case may be, which further amendment shall consist of only that portion of the conference report or House amendment, as the case may be, not so stricken. Any such motion in the Senate shall be debatable. In any case in which such point of order is sustained against a conference report (or Senate amendment derived from such conference report by operation of this subsection), no further amendment shall be in order.

(4) Effect of designation on scoring.—If a provision is designated as an emergency requirement under this Act, CBO or OMB, as applicable, shall not include the budgetary effects of such a provision in its estimate of the budgetary effects of that PAYGO legislation.^[6]

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COUNSEL NOTES

Codification

This section is classified to the U.S. Code at 2 U.S.C. 933.

Endnotes

[1] This subsection requires that legislation causing a change in direct spending or revenue include a CBO cost estimate in the actual legislation text of the bill by reference. It requires the House and Senate Budget Committee Chairmen to place in the Congressional Record the CBO estimate that is then considered to be part of the legislation through the text set forth in this section. This was considered to be a method by which CBO estimates could be used rather than those prepared by OMB. In its initial phase, certain CBO estimates were so included, but the practice very soon fell into disuse and such the Budget Committee Chairs do not follow these requirements.  

[2] The erroneous last dash in “Statutory Pay-As-You-Go-Act of 2010” is in the original. It should read as the “Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010”.

[3] Section 306 (CBA) is a point of order prohibiting legislation “dealing” with matters within the jurisdiction of the Committees on the Budget, unless they have acted on a referral or been discharged. Under this section, a designation related to the inclusion of a cost estimate in legislation is authorized, and this paragraph deactivates the point of order. The designation in the language, if included in legislation as introduced, will trigger a referral of the measure to the Budget Committees though.  

[4] The word “saving” is in the original. Should be “savings”.

[5] Section 313 of the Budget Act, (“the Byrd Rule”), sets out a procedure by which extraneous provisions are stricken from a bill or joint resolution in the Senate considered under the “reconciliation” process as set forth in section 310 of the Budget Act. A provision deemed “extraneous” is removed but the measure continues to be considered. It may be waived by 60 votes.

[6] Provisions designated as emergencies under this subsection are not entered on S-Paygo scorecards and are not counted for purposes of clause 10 of rule XXI in the House (Cutgo).

S-PAYGO Section-by-Section (Congressional Record)

The Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010 (Pub. L. 111-139) does not have a formal report for it. Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND) inserted a section-by-section in the Congressional Record, which summarized this section:   

Section 4 establishes procedures for determining the budgetary effects of legislation subject to PAYGO. These budgetary effects are entered by OMB on the PAYGO scorecards, as de-fined in section 4(d), and are used to determine whether a sequestration order must be issued.

Estimates of budgetary effects are made either by Congress or OMB.

This is only the introductory paragraph. For the full description see:  Section 4 – Description from S-Paygo Section-by-Section

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LEGISLATIVE HISTORY NOTES

PUBLIC LAWS

Pub. L. 111–139, title I, §4, Feb. 12, 2010, 124 Stat. 9 (Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010).

References in Text

The reference to the “Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010” in subsection (a)(1) means title I of Pub. L. 111–139, Feb. 12, 2010, 124 Stat. 8.

The reference to “this Act” in subsections (a) and (g) means Pub. L. 111–139, Feb. 12, 2010, 124 Stat. 8 (“Increasing the statutory limit on the public debt” – Commonly known by its first title, the “Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010”).

The reference to “this title” in subsections (a), (c), (d), and (g) means title I of Pub. L. 111–139, Feb. 12, 2010, 124 Stat. 8. (Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010).

Legislation titled the “Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act”, referred to in subsection (d)(6), was enacted as title VIII of Pub. L. 111–148, Mar. 23, 2010, 124 Stat. 828. Title VIII was also known as the “CLASS Act” and was repealed by Pub. L. 112–240, title VI, §642(b)(1), Jan. 2, 2013, 126 Stat. 2358 (American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012).

Codification

Section is comprised of section 4 of Pub. L. 111–139. Subsection (b) of section 4 of Pub. L. 111–139 amended section 639 of this title.

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[BCR § 284]