[House Report 113-425]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
SBDV 2015-1
113th Congress Report
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
2d Session 113-425
_______________________________________________________________________
Union Calendar No. 314
R E P O R T
on the
INTERIM SUBALLOCATION OF BUDGET
ALLOCATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2015
SUBMITTED BY MR. ROGERS, CHAIRMAN,
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
together with
MINORITY VIEWS
April 29, 2014.--Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the
State of the Union and ordered to be printed
?
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky, Chairman
FRANK R. WOLF, Virginia
JACK KINGSTON, Georgia
RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN, New Jersey
TOM LATHAM, Iowa
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama
KAY GRANGER, Texas
MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho
JOHN ABNEY CULBERSON, Texas
ANDER CRENSHAW, Florida
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas
KEN CALVERT, California
TOM COLE, Oklahoma
MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
TOM GRAVES, Georgia
KEVIN YODER, Kansas
STEVE WOMACK, Arkansas
ALAN NUNNELEE, Mississippi
JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska
THOMAS J. ROONEY, Florida
CHARLES J. FLEISCHMANN, Tennessee
JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER, Washington
DAVID P. JOYCE, Ohio
DAVID G. VALADAO, California
ANDY HARRIS, Maryland
MARTHA ROBY, Alabama
MARK E. AMODEI, Nevada
CHRIS STEWART, Utah NITA M. LOWEY, New York
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
PETER J. VISCLOSKY, Indiana
JOSE E. SERRANO, New York
ROSA L. DeLAURO, Connecticut
JAMES P. MORAN, Virginia
ED PASTOR, Arizona
DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina
LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California
SAM FARR, California
CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania
SANFORD D. BISHOP, Jr., Georgia
BARBARA LEE, California
ADAM B. SCHIFF, California
MICHAEL M. HONDA, California
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
TIM RYAN, Ohio
DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
HENRY CUELLAR, Texas
CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine
MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
WILLIAM L. OWENS, New York
William E. Smith, Clerk and Staff Director
(ii)
LETTER OF SUBMITTAL
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Appropriations,
Washington, DC, April 29, 2014.
Hon. John A. Boehner,
The Speaker, U.S. House of Representatives,
Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Speaker: By direction of the Committee on
Appropriations, I submit herewith the Committee's report on the
interim suballocation of budget allocations for fiscal year
2015.
This report follows the requirements of section 302(b) of
the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 with respect to an initial
subdivision for two subcommittees of the allocation of fiscal
year 2015 spending authority provided to the Committee on
Appropriations by the House. That overall allocation is the
level included in the House Concurrent Resolution on the Budget
for fiscal year 2015 as well as the level provided in section
101 of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 (H.J. Res. 59, P.L.
113-67).
However, when the Committee drafted this report it lacked
the updated Congressional Budget Office baseline which will be
used to score appropriations bills, making it difficult to
develop suballocations for the remaining ten subcommittees.
Once the Committee receives this updated baseline information
it will fully allocate the overall allocation provided to it.
Sincerely,
Harold Rogers,
Chairman.
(iii)
Union Calendar No. 314
113th Congress Report
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
2d Session 113-425
======================================================================
REPORT ON THE INTERIM SUBALLOCATION OF BUDGET ALLOCATIONS FOR FISCAL
YEAR 2015
_______
April 29, 2014.--Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the
State of the Union and ordered to be printed
_______
Mr. Rogers, from the Committee on Appropriations, submitted the
following
R E P O R T
INTERIM SUBALLOCATION OF BUDGET ALLOCATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2015
The Committee on Appropriations submits the following
report on the interim suballocation of budget allocations for
fiscal year 2015.
This report follows the requirements of section 302(b) of
the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 with respect to an initial
subdivision for two subcommittees of the allocation of fiscal
year 2015 spending authority provided to the Committee on
Appropriations by the House. The overall allocation provided to
the Committee is the level included in the House Concurrent
Resolution on the Budget for fiscal year 2015 as well as the
amount provided in section 101 of the Bipartisan Budget Act of
2013 (H.J. Res. 59, P.L. 113-67).
The Committee has adopted this interim procedure because of
the special circumstances it faces as it begins the fiscal year
2015 appropriations process. The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013
signed into law in December of 2013 provided the House and
Senate with a common discretionary top line for fiscal year
2015, allowing their respective Appropriations Committees to
begin their work without waiting for the adoption of a new
Budget Resolution conference report. In fact, this is the
earliest the Committee has acted upon regular annual
appropriations bills since fiscal year 1975.
(1)
In addition to the early start, the President's fiscal year
2015 Budget submission to Congress was a month late, which has
delayed the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) from producing an
updated baseline or its re-estimate of the President's budget.
The updated baseline, which will ultimately be used by CBO to
score appropriations bills, was not available at the time the
Committee drafted this interim report or its first two
appropriations bills. As the Committee lacks this critical
information at this time, it would be difficult to develop the
subdivisions for the remaining fiscal year 2015 appropriations
bills. After the updated CBO baseline is available, the
Committee will adopt a full set of 302(b) suballocations for
all twelve subcommittees as expeditiously as possible.
By submitting this interim report and beginning its work on
appropriations bills at this time, the Committee will be in the
best possible position to report all fiscal year 2015
appropriations bills to the House under regular order.
INTERIM SUBALLOCATIONS TO TWO SUBCOMMITTEES FISCAL YEAR 2015 BUDGET AUTHORITY AND OUTLAYS
[In millions of dollars]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Discretionary
----------------------------
Subcommittee General Overseas Mandatory Total
Purpose Contingencies
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Legislative Branch:\1\
All except Senate:
Budget authority.................................. 3,326 ............. 107 3,433
Outlays........................................... 3,604 ............. 106 3,710
Senate items:
Budget authority.................................. 932 ............. 25 957
Outlays........................................... 728 ............. 25 753
Total Legislative:
Budget authority.................................. 4,258 ............. 132 4,390
Outlays........................................... 4,332 ............. 131 4,463
Military Construction, Veterans Affairs:\1\
Budget authority.................................. 71,499 ............. 85,315 156,814
Outlays........................................... 77,455 ............. 85,070 162,525
Interim total for two subcommittees:
General Purpose:
Budget authority.................................. 75,757 ............. 85,447 161,204
Outlays........................................... 81,787 ............. 85,201 166,988
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\Estimates for outlays based on CBO's February baseline. Such estimates may change with final CBO scoring
based on its updated April baseline.
SBDV 2015-1
FULL COMMITTEE VOTES
Pursuant to the provisions of clause 3(b) of rule XIII of
the House of Representatives, the results of each roll call
vote on an amendment or on the motion to report, together with
the names of those voting for and those voting against, are
printed below.
There were no roll call votes.
MINORITY VIEWS
Assembling appropriations bills is a serious and solemn
responsibility. We should not go about it without a road map or
compass. It is irresponsible for the Committee on
Appropriations to mark up any bill until we see allocations for
all twelve funding bills. However, the majority's interim
allocations show the amount for the first two subcommittees
only. We are in the dark about how much each of the remaining
ten will have to spend or how over $900 billion will be
distributed.
The history of the Budget Act is instructive in explaining
why these interim allocations are so unsatisfactory. Under the
original Budget Act, appropriations bills were judged only by
whether they exceeded the full Committee total. As a
consequence, the first bills to be considered could spend as
much as those subcommittees wanted; only the last few bills
were ever in danger of exceeding the full committee total. The
current 302(b) process was an innovation added to the 1974
Budget Act so that each bill could be judged on its own. By
requiring a complete allocation from the start, anyone can see
whether the first bills use too much of the available
resources.
In other words, the whole purpose of section 302(b) is to
ensure that the last piggy to the trough has enough to eat. The
Committee needs to display the entire pie chart, not just two
slices at a time.
The Chairman points to logistical impediments, noting that
CBO hasn't scored the President's budget request. But an
interim allocation could still divvy up the whole pie with a
caveat that the amounts may change. We routinely amend
allocations later in the year when additional information is
available. The bottom line is these interim allocations hide
over $900 billion in budget authority.
When Democrats were in the majority, far, far smaller
omissions were met with howls of protest. Our FY 2008 302(b)s
allocated All of the budget authority among All of the
subcommittees. However, on the outlay side only, we placed $369
million--not billion--under the full committee with an
explanation: CBO's outlay estimates for the subcommittees
always change when they score each bill. The minority views
asserted that this ``budgetary sleight of hand'' makes
``offering an amendment a pointless exercise.'' Our FY 2010
302(b)s also distributed All of the budget authority among All
of the subcommittees but again reserved several hundred million
in outlays. The minority shrieked that Democrats were
``designing schemes to hide the true costs from American
taxpayers.''
The current process is not regular order. When we return to
regular order, when the majority provides a full allocation, we
intend to offer a Democratic alternative. The debate will then
be joined on our different values. Allocations are not just a
set of numbers; they are a statement of our priorities.
The specific allocations for the Military Construction and
VA bill, which is almost exactly at the President's request,
and for the Legislative Branch bill, which is at this year's
level, seem adequate.
Our concern is with the irresponsible process and precedent
it sets.
Nita M. Lowey.