June 14, 1978
Page 17587
BUDGET CLEARANCE CALENDAR ITEMS
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, since adoption of the first concurrent resolution on the budget on May 15, the Budget Committee staff has worked closely with the Democratic policy committee to clear legislation on the calendar for Senate action.
The purpose of this clearance process is to assure promptest possible Senate consideration of every bill which presents no budget problem. It also permits orderly scheduling of other bills which may pose special budget issues which the Senate should consider.
The leadership has identified bills to which it and the authorizing committees wish to give top priority. The Budget Committee then also gives these bills top priority.
In the last several weeks, this procedure has allowed many smaller, noncontroversial bills to be enacted by the Senate without disrupting the important debate on labor law reform.
Mr. President. I am pleased to report that this procedure has permitted the Budget Committee staff and the policy committee staff to clear for Senate action 104 of the 143 measures reported since May 8. This constitutes almost 70 percent of the calendar items. Of the remaining 30 percent, more than half are being held to permit the reporting committee, or the Congress, to complete some related action required by the Budget Act.
For example, some authorization bills for fiscal year 1979 have been reported after May 15 and require a waiver of section 402 of the Budget Act by the full Senate before the legislation can be considered on the Senate floor. Entitlement legislation cannot be considered by the Senate until the reporting committee files its crosswalk report under section 302 of the Budget Act. This procedure permits the Parliamentarian to compare the spending allocations to the reporting committees under the budget resolution with the estimated cost of the bill in order to determine whether the legislation should be referred to the Appropriations Committee for its review under section 401(b) of the Budget Act.
Finally, some bills have been reported from committees but the final version of the committee report is not yet available because of committee backlog in preparing reports for all authorizing legislation reported to meet the May 15 deadline. It is necessary for the Budget Committee — like the Senate itself — to be able to review the entire text of the bill, as well as the explanatory report, to insure accurate interpretation of the legislation.
The remaining bills on the calendar are principally bills which have major budget implications because of the amounts involved or because of significant policy issues. Many of them remain on the calendar because the non-budget policy issues they present require — in the estimate of their proponents or opponents — roll call votes or more debate. Where these major bills involve budget issues, we will report to the Senate on the detailed implications of each bill with regard to budget priorities and the budget resolution adopted by the Congress.