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H.R. 3: Spending Cuts to Expired and Unnecessary Programs Act

Jun 7, 2018 at 9:17 p.m. ET. On Passage of the Bill in the House.

This was a vote to pass H.R. 3 (115th) in the House.

H.R. 8 rescinds nearly $15 billion of unobligated balances from previously appropriated funding. Specifically, the bill includes 34 rescissions totaling $14.835 billion and affects programs at the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, Health and Human Services, Justice, Labor, State, Transportation, Treasury, and the Railroad Retirement Board. Rescissions include:

  • $4.3 billion from the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program - The Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) direct loan program was established in Section 136 of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 to support the production of fuel-efficient, advanced technology vehicles and qualifying components in the United States. The ATVM loan program provides direct loans to automotive or component manufacturers for reequipping, expanding, or establishing manufacturing facilities in the U.S. that produce fuel-efficient advanced technology vehicles or qualifying components, or for engineering integration performed in the U.S. for advanced technology vehicles or qualifying components. To date, the program has supported the production of more than 4 million advanced technology vehicles and has over $16 billion in remaining loan authority and has not made a loan since 2011.[1]

  • $523 million from the Title 17 Innovative Technology Loan Guarantee Program - The Title XVII innovative clean energy projects loan program (Title XVII) provides loan guarantees to accelerate the deployment of innovative clean energy technology.  The U.S. Department of Energy is authorized to issue loan guarantees pursuant to Title XVII of the Energy Policy Act of 2005.  Loan guarantees are made to qualified projects and applicants who apply for funding in response to open technology-specific solicitations. The Title XVII loan program applies to a wide range of energy technologies, including advanced fossil energy, nuclear energy, renewable energy, and energy efficiency.[2]

  • $5.1 billion from Children Health Insurance Fund - The Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) provides health coverage to eligible children, through both Medicaid and separate CHIP programs. CHIP is administered by states, according to federal requirements. The program is funded jointly by states and the federal government. The President’s proposal contains two provisions related to CHIP that would simply rescind funds that are either no longer necessary or can’t be spent because the authority to do so expired last year. Rescinding these funds will likely have no impact on the program.

  • $1.8 billion from the Child Enrollment Contingency Fund – Under CHIP, the Contingency Fund provides payments to States that experience funding shortfalls due to higher than expected enrollment. At this time, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services does not expect that any State would require a Contingency Fund payment in FY 2018; therefore, this funding is not needed. It is important to note that the proposal would not rescind all available funding, meaning sufficient funding would be available should a state eventually qualify for a payment.

  • $800 million from Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovations – Created under the Affordable Care Act, the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (the Innovation Center) with CMS supports the development and testing of innovative health care payment and service delivery models.

  • $500 million from the Farm Security and Rural Investment Programs – These funds would come from conservation programs discontinued after the 2014 Farm Bill, unused Environmental Quality Incentives Program money, a flood prevention program that’s already fully funded.

  • $148 million from Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service – APHIS is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) responsible for protecting animal health, animal welfare, and plant health. APHIS is the lead agency for collaboration with other agencies to protect U.S. agriculture from invasive pests and diseases. Most funding rescissions will be from the Commodity Credit Corporation to fight the avian influenza outbreak in 2015 and bovine tuberculosis outbreaks from 2015 to 2017. APHIS can still utilize the corporation’s existing funds for future outbreaks.

  • $133 million from Railroad Unemployment Insurance Extended Benefits – The program expired in 2012 and these funds remain unobligated.

A self-executing amendment, made in order by the rule, reflects the President’s requested revision to the rescissions package made minor technical changes and withdrew four previously proposed rescissions. The amendment eliminates rescissions to the Ebola, Sandy, and miscellaneous transportation funds.

None of the rescinded balances are from FY 2018 appropriations. Funding proposed to be rescinded has, in many cases, been left unspent by agencies for years.

Source: Republican Policy Committee

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Totals

All Votes R D
Yea 50%
 
 
210
210
 
0
 
Nay 50%
 
 
206
19
 
187
 
Not Voting
 
 
11
5
 
6
 

Passed. Simple Majority Required. Source: house.gov.

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Notes: The Speaker’s Vote?
The Speaker of the House is not required to vote in “ordinary legislative proceedings, except when such vote would be decisive.” In practice, this means the Speaker of the House rarely votes and only does so when it is politically useful. When the Speaker declines to vote, he or she is simply omitted from the roll call by the House Clerk. (See House Rules, Rule I(7).)
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