September 21, 1976
Page 31497
Mr. RANDOLPH. Mr. President, I submit a resolution waiving certain provisions of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 with respect to authorizations of appropriations contained in H.R. 10760,the Black Lung Benefits Reform Act of 1976, as reported by the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, and I understand that the resolution will be referred to the Committee on the Budget.
I ask unanimous consent that a letter from the chairman of the Committee on the Budget (Mr. MUSKIE), dated May 25, 1976, be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
U.S. SENATE,
COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET,
Washington, D.C.,
May 25, 1976.
Hon. JENNINGS RANDOLPH,
Subcommittee on Labor,
Committee on Labor and Public Welfare,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, D.C.
DEAR JENNINGS: This letter is in response to your inquiry concerning the procedural sections of the Budget Act which might have an impact upon the consideration of the Black Lung legislation on which you and the subcommittee have been working.
Both H.R. 10760, as passed by the House, and S. 3183, as introduced, provide for new entitlements in both the Part B and Part C sections of the Black Lung Benefits program.
Section 401(b) (1) of the Budget Act provides that it shall not be in order in the Senate to consider any bill or resolution creating new entitlements which are to become effective "before the first day of the fiscal year which begins during the calendar year in which such bill or resolution is reported." Therefore, if the Black Lung reform legislation is to avoid being subject to a point of order under this section of the Budget Act, these new entitlements cannot become effective before October 1, 1976.
In addition, section 401(b) (2) of the Budget Act provides that the Black Lung legislation may have to be referred to the Senate Appropriations Committee if the estimated new budget authority for Black Lung benefits exceeds the level of new budget authority allocated to the Labor Subcommittee by the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare under section 302(b) of the Budget Act. This section provides that as soon as practicable after a concurrent resolution on the budget is agreed to, each committee of the Senate to which an allocation of spending authority was made in the Joint Explanatory Statement accompanying the Conference Report shall "subdivide such allocation among its subcommittees or among programs over which it has jurisdiction."
The Joint Explanatory Statement accompanying S. Con. Res. 109, the First Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 1977, allocated a total of $3.2 billion of new budget authority to the Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee for entitlement programs. The Black Lung legislation will therefore have to compete with other existing and new entitlement programs within the jurisdiction of the Labor and Public Welfare Committee for the limited amount of new budget authority allocated in the First Concurrent Resolution on the Budget. If the projected new budget authority for the Black Lung benefits exceeds the remaining amount of budget authority allocated to the program pursuant to Section 302(b) by the Labor and Public Welfare Committee, then the Black Lung legislation would have to be referred to the Appropriations Committee for a period up to 15 days. The Appropriations Committee would have jurisdiction under Section 401(b) (3) of the Budget Act to report the legislation with an amendment limiting the total amount of new spending authority provided in the legislation.
Finally, both H.R. 10760 and S. 3183 contain some provisions authorizing the enactment of new budget authority for fiscal 1977. Section 402(a) of the Budget Act provides that it shall not be in order in the Senate to consider any bill or resolution authorizing the enactment of new budget authority for a coming fiscal year unless the bill or resolution is reported on or before May 15 preceding the beginning of such fiscal year.
A waiver procedure in the Senate is available under Section 402(c) of the Budget Act in which the committee reporting a bill after the May 15 deadline may also report a resolution to the Senate waiving Section 402(a) of the Budget Act with respect to the consideration of such bill or resolution and stating the reasons why the waiver is necessary. This resolution is then referred to the Senate Budget Committee which has 10 days in which to report the resolution, accompanied by the Budget Committee's recommendations and reasons for such recommendations.
I hope that this discussion clarifies the applicability of the Congressional Budget Act to the Black Lung Benefits Reform Act of 1975.
With best wishes, I am
Sincerely,
EDMUND S. MUSKIE.