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Thursday, June 29, 2006

Sunset Commission Update
Here's another look at the negotiations in the House and the plans for getting a sunset commission package out quickly:

Boehner met June 22 with Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS) and Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) to craft a compromise between their bills that adopt different mechanisms for sunsetting agency programs. Congressional sources say the GOP goal is to introduce a compromise bill after the July 4 recess.
“Negotiations are ongoing but at some point the leadership is going to step in and decide which way we’re going to go on this in July,” according to a Republican staffer.

So even if the ardor for sunsets has cooled a bit in the Senate, we still need your help to stop this threat in the House and prevent any attempts to force a bill all the way through.

Posted by Robert Shull, 05:31:37 PM

Sunset Update: Advocacy in Action
In the Senate, the pressure is on to strip sunset commission language out of the Gregg budget process change bill, according to Inside EPA:

Sources say Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), who has supported Republican tax cuts and other measures, told Bush in a June 27 bipartisan meeting that the bill stands a better chance of passage if it is stripped of controversial items such as the sunset commission.
“Our message was that if there was bipartisan energy behind a bill just focused on line-item authority, there’s a good chance it could get done this year,” a Nelson source says.
Sources familiar with the June 27 meeting with Bush now say a narrower line-item authority bill, S. 2381, is more likely to move forward. The measure was introduced by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) with the co-sponsorship of Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) and does not contain the sunset provisions.

Also in the Inside EPA story is confirmation that advocacy works. In addition to thousands of letters coming into Senate offices, our coalition sent a letter with over 250 groups (and more signing on every day), representing a wide range of groups beyond those who care about budget issues. “The activists’ letter has made a difference," a Democratic staffer told Inside EPA, explaining that the environmental and other groups who care about regulatory policy and other public protections really stood out in a letter about what many consider to be budget process reform.

Posted by Robert Shull, 01:33:40 PM

Friday, June 23, 2006

Where the Real Waste Is
Proponents of sunset commissions support their drive to eliminate important programs like Head Start, GEAR UP, TRIO, Even Start, the Land and Water Conservation Program, OSHA, and more by declaring that they simply want to eliminate waste. Maybe the real waste is the Bush administration's failure to manage the federal contracts it gives to its allies in the corporate sector:

Rep. Waxman today released a comprehensive assessment of procurement spending by the Bush Administration. The 65-page report finds that spending on contractors over the past five years has ballooned, growing faster than any other part of the discretionary budget and increasing five times faster than inflation. The report also contains the first government-wide estimate of the number and value of "problem contracts" under the Bush Administration, detailing 118 contracts worth over $745 billion that have experienced significant overcharges, wasteful spending, or mismanagement.

[Via Government Reform Democrats]

Posted by Robert Shull, 06:14:49 PM

New Bill Offers Plan on Global Warming
From Rep. Waxman's office:

Today Rep. Henry A. Waxman, together with twelve of his House colleagues, introduced the "Safe Climate Act of 2006." The legislation is based on what scientists have concluded the United States must do to avoid dangerous, irreversible warming of the planet and would significantly reduce U.S. "emissions of greenhouse gases.

[Via Government Reform Democrats]

Posted by Robert Shull, 06:11:15 PM

BushGreenwatch on Sunsets
If you haven't seen it already, be sure to check out BushGreenwatch's excellent coverage of the sunset commissions issue.

Posted by Robert Shull, 06:03:26 PM

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Lamar Alexander Rule - Threatened, Not Used
Correction from yesterday: the Lamar Alexander rule, which creates a 60-vote obstacle to important new legislation such as any real increase in the minimum wage, was essentially in the background to block the minimum wage proposal, but wasn't actually unleashed. Here's a description from BNA's Daily Report for Executives:

In the Senate, a proposal offered by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) to raise the federal minimum from $5.15 to $7.25 per hour over two years garnered support from a majority of senators with a 52-46 vote.
The amendment was withdrawn, however, because Kennedy--in order to get the GOP to bring the proposal to a vote--struck a deal with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) that the minimum wage amendment would need 60 supporters to be included on an unrelated Department of Defense authorization bill (S. 2766). Without that agreement, Republicans would have moved to block the minimum wage proposal, a move that also would have required 60 votes to overcome.

So the Lamar Alexander rule was invoked to kill the minimum wage increase last November, but was an offstage threat this time (which is, by the way, uncomfortably close in time to a more important November for many politicos).

Posted by Robert Shull, 11:08:49 AM

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

How Sen. Lamar Alexander Killed the Effort to Raise the Min Wage
The Senate voted 52 to 46 to raise the minimum wage. But the minimum wage didn't get raised. How does that work? Since when is majority rule not good enough?

Because of something so wonky the press never bothered to report on it, even though it has just now come back to bite every minimum wage earner on his or her tired posterior. Called UMRA.

Shorthand about UMRA: if a bill would impose a certain amount of new costs for state and local governments, no matter how important that law, a member of Congress can raise a point of order against it. When UMRA passed, it was simple -- it just took a majority vote to overcome the point of order.

But Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) decided this harmless point of order should become a more substantial obstacle. He spearheaded the effort in last year's Senate budget resolution to change the requirement for overcoming the point of order, from a simple majority to a 60-vote supermajority.

Now, any bill that CBO declares will impose new costs on state and local governments of $62 million or more -- like a real increase in the minimum wage -- could very well take 60 votes to pass in the Senate.

What could perhaps be called "the Lamar Alexander rule" was used last November to kill a proposed increase in the minimum wage, and it was the reason that, despite a clear majority in the 52-46 vote, the Senate was barred today from trying to increase the minimum wage.

Posted by Robert Shull, 04:01:29 PM

We Read the National Review So That You Don't Have To
Line item veto, blah blah blah, with a reference to sunsets.

Posted by Robert Shull, 03:38:53 PM

Monday, June 19, 2006

Don't Put Federal Programs on Chopping Block, Groups Tell Senate
Sunset commission language in Sen. Gregg's "S.O.S. Act" would put federal programs at risk from an unelected and unaccountable commission, according to a letter to the Senate from over 250 national, state, and local groups.

Download the letter.

Posted by Robert Shull, 11:37:36 PM

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

PARTial Responses
A couple of responses to some points raised in yesterday's hearing on PART:

More after the jump >>>

Posted by Robert Shull, 05:41:02 PM

Monday, June 12, 2006

e-Rulemaking and PART Get Dinged
E-rulemaking and performance assessment are topics so wonky they rarely are occasion for anyone to say WOW.

Ah, but check out the House Appropriations Committee's report to accompany the Transportation/Treasury approps bill, which was just reported out on Friday.

The Appropriations Committee is just not happy with the garbage that the White House is foisting on it from PART. An Approps Committee spokesman took a milder tone recently with the Federal Times, saying of PART, “It’s nice to get a cute little number . . . but PART tends to be an excuse to cut Congress’ priorities.” The committee report isn't quite so relaxed:

For years, the Committee has directed departments and agencies to improve the budget justification document quality and presentation by including relevant and specific budget information. While the Committee has seen some improvement in a few submissions, most justifications continue to be filled with references to the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART), drowning in pleonasm, and yet still devoid of useful information. The Committee strongly encourages the administration to use a meaningful system of evaluation to justify proposed program funding levels, as long as the basis for the evaluations will also be shared with the Committee. The Committee finds little use for a budget justification which does not reveal specific details of the measurable indicators and standards used to evaluate a program’s performance, relevance, or adherence to underlying authorization statute. Further, the Committee has little patience for secretaries and administrators who cannot explain the rationale behind a program’s funding level other than ‘‘the PART score,’’ ‘‘getting to green,’’ or ‘‘this is what OMB provided.’’ The Committee welcomes the input from the agencies, and is very interested in the methodologies used by the administration to fund various program priorities.

Whew.

Meanwhile, the committee continued to chastise OMB for what it considered raiding other funds impermissibly to support its weak e-gov initiatives:

The Committee continues to express serious concerns about the continued forced implementation of this initiative on departments and agencies. Many aspects of this initiative are fundamentally flawed, contradict underlying program statutory requirements and have stifled innovation by forcing conformity to an arbitrary government standard. Therefore, the Committee continues to include a government-wide general provision that precludes the use of funds for the ‘‘e-Gov’’ initiative prior to consultation with the Committee on Appropriations. The Committee urges OMB to work directly with the individual subcommittees in advance so that approved initiatives can move forward without disruption.

So if it means that e-Rulemaking -- a great idea, being executed in a really poor manner -- is delayed, well... maybe the extra time will help administrators of that initiative get their acts together and produce a better system than they're currently on track to produce.

(Kudos to Government Computer News for catching this!)

Posted by Robert Shull, 06:38:02 PM

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