Commerce Department Dismantling Bill Progresses in House
On October 13, House Republicans announced consensus on a proposal to dismantle the Department of Commerce. Their plan is based on a bill (H.R. 1756) sponsored by Dick Chrysler (R-MI) (see FYI #125). The bill had to run a gamut of 11 different House committees, each with jurisdiction over some of its elements. Many of the committees made changes which were incorporated into the final proposal, including Robert Walker’s (R-PA) Science Committee. The Republican leadership intends to roll the bill into their major budget reconciliation package. The purpose of reconciliation is to alter existing tax and spending laws to reconcile them with the budget-cutting targets Congress set for itself in this spring’s budget resolution. The huge reconciliation bill will incorporate congressional changes to Medicaid, Medicare, and many other federal programs, as well as tax law, making it a hard choice for the President to sign or veto.
The House plans to consider the reconciliation package on the floor on October 24; the Senate will debate their version later the same week. House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich (R-OH) was quoted in the October 14 Washington Post as saying that if the Senate objected to the inclusion of the Commerce dismantling legislation in the reconciliation bill, the House would attempt another way of eliminating the Commerce Department.
The Commerce Department’s functions range widely from telecommunications to trade and tourism, and from weather and oceanography to the census. The bill proposes to terminate almost 40 Commerce programs and 11,000 jobs, while shifting many essential functions to other locations within the federal government.
Under the amendments proposed by Walker, NIST and NOAA would be combined in a National Institute for Science and Technology (see FYI #129). Also created in the bill would be a new trade agency, to combine Commerce’s trade programs with the Office of the Trade Representative.
The White House has taken a stand against H.R. 1756 and similar legislation (S. 929) working its way through the Senate. President Clinton has promised to veto any bill dismembering Commerce, and Commerce Secretary Ron Brown has been highly active in fighting to save his department. In his written testimony at a September 6 House hearing, he asserted, “On the underlying question of whether the United States of America needs a Commerce Department -- on this issue I cannot yield.... I am committed to the survival of the Department of Commerce because I believe firmly that the work of this Department, and the manner in which its various components relate to one another, is essential to the economic growth and well-being of this country.”
While House Republicans estimate that their bill would save close to $7 billion over seven years, Brown argues that it would actually cost taxpayers $1.5 billion, due to termination costs, the creation of new, smaller entities, and the disruption of relocating numerous functions. He is quoted in the Washington Post as stating that the bill is “a ludicrous idea. It is bad policy, bad economics, bad for American business and bad for American workers. It would save no money.”
