Making Technical Amendments to Update Statutory References to Certain Provisions Which Were Formerly Classified to Chapters 14 and 19 of Title United States Code, and Correcting Related Technical Errors

Floor Speech

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Ms. HAGEMAN. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3496 makes technical amendments to update statutory references to certain provisions in title 25, U.S. Code, and corrects related technical errors.

According to the Office of the Law Revision Counsel, or OLRC for short, the purpose of editorial reclassification is ``to reorganize areas of law that have outgrown their original boundaries, or to eliminate organizational units that are no longer efficient.''

Without altering any statutory language, OLRC relocates and rearranges provisions to make the organization of titles more logical and accessible. As a result, statutory references in other titles of the code must also be updated.

In September of 2016, the OLRC moved provisions from chapter 14 in title 25 into four new chapters toward the end of title 25. The reauthorization was necessary because more than 900 sections had accumulated in this chapter over years of legislating. Another small number of provisions within chapter 14 were transferred to other locations within the code.

The text and some provisions in chapters 14 and 19 were omitted in order to bring the coverage of the code into line with current classification practices with respect to general and permanent laws.

This is a routine exercise as these bills were prepared by OLRC pursuant to its responsibility under section 285(b) of title 2, U.S.C., and under the Judiciary Committee's responsibility for laws pertaining to the codification and revisions of the U.S. Code.

No substantive statutory text was repealed or altered and this bill merely improves the organizational structure of the material in the U.S. Code.

In the 115th Congress, Representative Issa sponsored a bill, which the Judiciary Committee ordered reported, making the necessary changes to cross-references in other titles of the Code affected by this editorial reclassification.

The Committee similarly favorably reported this bill during the 117th Congress. H.R. 3496 is an updated version of this legislation, which the Judiciary Committee passed this Congress by voice.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all my colleagues to support this legislation.

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