House Adopts New Rules for 112th Congress (Hwy Trust Fund, CUTGO, Etc.)

(According to the House Republican Conference, the Senate does not pass new rules each new Congress.)

Highlights of Changes to House Rules for the 112th Congress

According to summaries from the Congressional Research Service and the Republican Conference, as well as other sources, the following are highlights of the specific amendments and changes to the House Rules made by H. Res. 5:

Funding-Related Changes

Remove “firewall” for Highway Trust Fund. Make it out of order in the House to consider general appropriations legislation that: (1) provides spending authority derived from receipts deposited in the Highway Trust Fund (excluding any transfers from the General Fund of the Treasury); or (2) reduces or otherwise limits the accruing balances of such Fund, for any purpose other than authorized activities for the highway or mass transit categories.

According to a press release from Representative Ryan (D), this provision removes the "firewall" that separates the federal Highway Trust Fund, financed by the federal gas tax, from general revenue funds. According to Ryan, the change will make it harder for states to plan multi-year construction projects such as highway improvements and public-transit systems by subjecting transportation funding to the uncertainty of the annual appropriations process.

See below for details on industry opposition to this rule change.

Replace PAYGO with CUTGO. Replace the current pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) requirement with a cut-as-you-go (CUTGO) requirement.

Under the new CUTGO rule, any legislation that would increase mandatory spending over one, five, or ten years would have to cut spending by an equal or greater amount elsewhere. Under CUTGO, tax increases could not be used to pay for new mandatory spending. CUTGO would apply to all bills dealing with mandatory spending and the Rules include a mechanism to address “emergency” designations (see exemptions for emergencies and contingencies below).

(According to various press reports and a press release from House Speaker Boehner, under CUTGO, spending increases have to be offset by spending cuts while under PAYGO, spending increases or tax cuts have to be offset by spending cuts or tax increases.)

Exemptions for emergencies and contingencies. Exempt bills and joints resolutions designated as “emergency” or bills that make appropriations for contingency operations related to the global war on terror from being counted against budget aggregates and allocations.

Limitation on advanced appropriations. Place a ceiling of $28.8 billion on aggregate advanced appropriations for FY 2012 and FY 2013.

Limits on legislation with net effect of increasing spending. Prohibit consideration of legislation if it has the net effect of increasing mandatory spending within a five-year or ten-year budget window.

Spending reduction amendments in appropriations bills. Require that each appropriations bill contain a “spending reduction” account. The account would contain the total amount of spending removed from the bill through the amendment process. Amendments to cut certain accounts or lower funding levels in appropriations bills would be counted towards spending reduction. The Rules would also require that other amendments that propose to increase spending in accounts in a general appropriations bill must include an offset of equal or greater value.

Trade agreement exemption. Authorize the Budget Committee Chairman, prior to the adoption of a budget resolution, to exempt from estimates the budgetary effects of measures implementing trade agreements.

Procedural-Type Changes

3 day advance availability of bills, resolutions. Establish a point of order against consideration of a bill or joint resolution that has not been available to Members for three calendar days.

Electronic availability of documents. Direct the House Administration Committee to establish standards for making documents publicly available in electronic form by the House and its committees.

3 day advance notice for House Committee meetings. Require the chair of each committee (other than the Committee on Rules) to make a specified public announcement of a committee meeting at least three days before the meeting.

24 hour advance availability of legislation before markup, etc. Require a Committee chair to make: (1) the text of legislation publicly available in electronic form at least 24 hours before its markup; (2) the results of a recorded vote available in electronic form within 48 hours of the vote; (3) the text of a measure or matter available in electronic form within 24 hours after a meeting to consider it, including the text of adopted amendments.

Public availability of witness testimony, Committee rules. Require: (1) statements of nongovernmental witnesses (truth in testimony information), with appropriate redactions to protect witness privacy, to be made publicly available in electronic form within one day after the witnesses appear; and (2) each committee to make its rules available in electronic form.

Audio, video coverage of Committee hearings, meetings. Require each committee, to the maximum extent practicable, to: (1) provide audio and video coverage of each hearing or meeting in a manner allowing the public easily to listen to and view the proceedings; and (2) maintain the recordings of such coverage in a manner easily accessible to the public.

Committee oversight plans to include elimination of inefficient, duplicative programs. Requires standing committees, during development of their oversight plans, to include proposals to cut or eliminate mandatory and discretionary programs that are inefficient, duplicative, outdated, or more appropriately administered by state or local governments.

Committee name changes. Redesignate the Committee on Science and Technology as the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.

Term limits for committee, subcommittee chairs. Limit the terms of committee or subcommittee chairs (except for the Committee on Rules) to three consecutive Congresses.

Quarterly committee activity reports. Increase the frequency of committee activity reports from one to four times per year.

Transportation and Business Associations Opposed HTF Rule Change

Prior to the adoption by the House of the new rules, 21 transportation and business associations, including the American Trucking Associations and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, sent a letter to the House leadership expressing opposition to the HTF rule change.

According to the letter, this rules change would sever the user-financed basis of the Highway Trust Fund, and make annual federal highway and transit investments subject to the whims of the appropriations process. In so doing, this proposal would inject further uncertainty into an already destabilized U.S. transportation construction marketplace.

House Republican Conference section-by-section summary of rules available here and legislative digest for H.R. 5 available here.

Representative Ryan’s press release on HTF available here.

Industry letter opposing HTF rule is available here.