Congressional Review Act Improvement Act
Floor Speech
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Ms. ZOE LOFGREN of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
H.R. 5593, the Congressional Review Act Improvement Act, would cut government waste by reducing duplicative paperwork and relieving some of the administrative burdens currently mandated by the Congressional Review Act, the congressional mechanism for reviewing agency rules.
The Congressional Review Act requires that all agencies promulgating a rule submit to both Houses of Congress and to the Comptroller General a report that contains a copy of the rule, a concise general statement describing the rule, and the proposed effective date of the rule. Thus, under current law, the same material is submitted to, housed in, and printed by four different governmental entities. This approach creates unnecessary burdens. For example, the House Parliamentarian has testified before the Subcommittee on Administration of the Judiciary Committee in three separate Congresses about the ever-increasing volume of executive branch communications under the Congressional Review Act and its overwhelming impact on the operations of the Parliamentarian's office.
This legislation would eliminate the requirement that agencies submit rules to each House of Congress if they are already printed in the Federal Register. Instead, the House and Senate would receive a weekly list of all rules from the Comptroller General. The House and Senate would then have that list printed in the Congressional Record with a statement of referral for each rule.
The bill would still require agencies to submit rules and reports to each House of Congress that were not printed in the Federal Register, and Congress could still employ the procedures in the Congressional Review Act to disapprove agency rules.
H.R. 5593 was introduced by Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee Chair Linda Sanchez, along with Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers. They were joined by Ranking Member Lamar Smith and Subcommittee Ranking Member Chris Cannon as original cosponsors. This bill has bipartisan support, and makes a lot of sense. I would urge my colleagues to support it.
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