Glossary of Congressional Terms
The 103 Congress is now underway. As future FYIs report on and analyze congressional actions throughout the year, the following list of congressional terminology might be of use to readers:
Act: Once legislation has been passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the president or passed over his veto, it becomes an act, or law. Legislation can also become law if the president takes no action on it within 10 days of receiving it (excluding Sundays) while Congress is in session. An act, or law, passed in the 103nd session is designated as P.L. 103-xx.
Amendment: A Member of Congress can propose an amendment to alter the language, provisions or stipulations in a bill or another amendment. An amendment is usually printed, debated and voted on in the same manner as a bill. In last year’s appropriations process, House appropriators Bob Traxler (D-Michigan) and Bill Green (R-New York) offered an amendment to eliminate funding for the Space Station. It was defeated by a vote of 237 to 181. Appropriations Bill: An appropriations bill gives the legal authority to spend or obligate money from the Treasury. Thirteen appropriations bills must be passed every fiscal year; every federal department and agency must have an appropriations bill passed to provide its funding. For example, the fiscal year 1993 appropriation for the National Science Foundation was $2,733 million, $294 million less than the President’s request of $3,027 million.
Authorization Bill: Authorizing legislation establishes or continues the legal operation of a federal program or agency, or sanctions a particular type of obligation or expenditure. In theory, every federal department, agency, and in some cases, program, should have an authorizing bill defining what the department or agency can do and setting maximum spending limits. However, in both the House and the Senate, authorizations and appropriations are the responsibility of different committees, and authorizing committees do not have the power to force their appropriations counterparts to follow their guidelines. Some programs, such as the Superconducting Super Collider-- expected to cost over $8 billion-- are receiving annual appropriations without ever having been authorized.
Bills: Most legislative proposals before Congress are in the form of bills. When introduced, bills are referred to the committee(s) with jurisdiction over the subject of the bill. Bills are labelled as H.R. xx or S.xx, depending on whether they originate in the House or Senate. All appropriations bills, by law, must originate in the House.
Committee: The House and Senate form committees to consider legislation or make investigations. Most standing committees are divided into subcommittees which study legislation, hold hearings, and report (send) bills to the full committee, which can then report the legislation for action by the House or Senate. The House Space, Science and Technology committee, for example, is the authorizing committee in the House for such agencies as NASA and NSF. Due to the great influx of new members in the 103rd Congress, over one-third of the House science committee members this year are freshmen.
Conference: Representatives of the House and Senate meet in conference to reconcile differences in the provisions of a bill passed by both chambers. A majority of the conference committee members for each chamber must agree on provisions of the bill before it can be considered by either chamber in the form of a “conference report.” Conferees have enormous latitude to change the provisions of a bill. In the fiscal 1993 appropriations process, the House voted to effectively terminate the Superconducting Super Collider, while the Senate proposed to fund it at $550 million. In conference, the conferees agreed to provide $517 million for the atom-smasher. This appropriation passed both the House and Senate and was signed into law, over the outrage of many House members who had voted against it the first time. It is of note that all the House conferees were SSC supporters.
District Office: Senators and Representatives maintain offices in their state or district in addition to their office in Washington.
Earmark: When a Member of Congress inserts language into appropriations legislation designating funds for a specific project, the money is “earmarked” for that project. These projects are usually located in a Member’s home state or district, and academic earmarks often have not undergone the competitive peer review which is the normal procedure for funding scientific projects. Earmarking, also known as “pork-barrel,” is becoming an increasing problem as tight budgets force many university presidents to lobby their Members of Congress for research funding. In a recent report prepared for House science chairman George Brown (D-California), it was estimated that of the approximately $2.5 billion in academic earmarks distributed over the period 1980-1992, 48% was provided in the last two years.
Executive Session: An executive session is a meeting of a Senate or House committee open only to its members. Appropriations conference committee meetings are often held in executive session.
Hearings: Committees hold hearings in order to take testimony from witnesses, which then becomes part of the public record. At hearings on legislation, witnesses usually include specialists, government officials and spokespersons for individuals or entities affected by the bill under study. The vast majority of hearings are open to the public. Later this spring, Congress will begin hearing from the Federal agencies on their fiscal year 1994 budget requests.
Marking Up a Bill: A “mark-up” involves going through a bill in committee or subcommittee to consider its provisions, act on amendments and revisions, and insert new sections or phraseology.
Report: A committee explains its action on a bill in its accompanying report. Although not strictly legally binding, conference report language is very important in setting agency priorities. In report language last year, appropriators urged NSF to focus more on strategic and applied research.
