HRES 1221 · 111th Congress 2009–2011, ended

Amending the Rules of the House of Representatives to increase openness and transparency in the annual appropriations process as it relates to earmarks.

Fact sheet

Latest action · Mar 25, 2010 Referred to House Standards of Official Conduct

Progress

Where this resolution reached, and when. A stage with no date was not reached; one that failed a vote and later carried shows the date it carried. A simple resolution is the business of one chamber alone: it is not sent to the other chamber or to the President, and does not become law.

  1. IntroducedMar 25, 2010
  2. Agreed to in HouseNot reached

Summary

Amends Rule XXI (Restrictions on Certain Bills) of the Rules of the House of Representatives to make it out of order to consider in the House any legislation (or any accompanying report or joint explanatory statement) that contains a congressional earmark for an organization other than a non-profit tax-exempt organization or a governmental entity. (Thus prohibits earmarks to for-profit entities.)

Makes it out of order to consider in the House any conference report (not just, as currently, a conference report accompanying a regular general appropriation bill) if it (or the accompanying joint explanatory statement) contains any congressional earmark or limited tax or tariff benefit that was not committed to the conference committee by either chamber, or in a committee report of either chamber, on such measure or on a companion measure.

Amends Rule XXIII (Code of Official Conduct) to require a Member, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner (Member) requesting a congressional earmark in any legislation (or an accompanying report) or any conference report (or accompanying joint explanatory statement) to provide, in the required written statement to the chair and ranking minority member of the committee of jurisdiction, the federal nexus or specific power granted to Congress in the Constitution to enact such earmark and the previous authorization by law that supports it (federal nexus).

Amends Rule XXI to make it out of order to consider in the House any legislation, amendment, or conference report unless any accompanying report or joint explanatory statement containing any congressional earmark sets forth for each congressional earmark the same federal nexus.

Makes it out of order in the House to consider any general appropriation bill or any other measure making or continuing appropriations (or an amendment or conference report) if it includes any congressional earmark requested by any member of the Committee on Appropriations or inserted at the behest of the chair of that committee or of any of its subcommittees.

Amends Rule XXIII to require each Member to maintain an official website and include on it a comprehensive, sortable, and searchable database comprising all congressional earmark requests for the current fiscal year and for the budget year, including for each such request: (1) the name and address of any recipient; (2) the purpose of the earmark; and (3) the federal nexus and the amount requested.

Cosponsors

Members who signed on, in the order they did.

No cosponsors are on file for this measure.

Actions 4

Everything that happened, newest first.

  1. Mar 25, 2010Introduced in House
  2. Mar 25, 2010Referred to House Rules
  3. Mar 25, 2010Referred to House Standards of Official Conduct
  4. Mar 25, 2010Referred to the Committee on Rules, and in addition to the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.

Subjects

Assigned by the Library of Congress. Policy area: Congress.

Text 1

Each version as it was printed, newest first.

  1. Mar 25, 2010Introduced in House

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