Congressional Reform Concepts: Authorizations

Congressional Reform Concepts
For Consideration By
A Joint Committee on the Congress of Tomorrow

The following recommendations are the result of conversations that have taken place among several groups and are intended to serve as a framework for short-term and long-term change.

Such a framework would be best achieved through the creation of a bipartisan, bicameral Joint Committee on a Modern Congress, patterned after those created during the last Century for a similar purpose.

AUTHORIZATIONS

• Require the standing authorizing committees of the House to prepare a list of those authorizations that have expired or will expire in the current Congress and establish a priority list and procedures for addressing them.
  • See “Fixing the Authorization Process: Restoring Checks and Balances”
• Amend the Anti-Deficiency Act to require a biennial report from the Office of Management and Budget and the chief financial officers of the departments on duplicate programs and justifications for the duplication or legislative proposals to eliminate them. The report would also include identifying programs that are deemed to be inactive, ineffective or no longer necessary to meet statutory requirements.
• Amend the Act to strengthen and better define Executive limits when administering unauthorized funding or priorities during program wind down or government shutdown

For a complete list of reform concepts, click here.