i now ask unanimous consent that the ranking member and i have such time as we may consume to engage in an educational colloquy without objection so ordered over the years congress has mandated if not thousands certainly well has mandated thousands or reports to be prepared by federal agencies while each of these individual reports may have been well meaning most of them in my opinion are under utilized poorly targeted or in fact filed and forgotten we can save taxpayer money by eliminating these unnecessary reports this committee has periodically through the years enacted legislation eliminating unnecessary reports former chairman jack brooks who stands to our right holding a cigar was a key sponsor of the congressional reports elimination act of  and ninety eight and an earlier one thousand nine hundred and ninety five act together eliminated hundreds of unnecessary reports and saved millions of dollars it has been twelve years since this committee last addressed the problem and it is long past time that we do so i propose to all the members of the committee but particularly to my ranking member that we work together to produce a bipartisan bill to eliminate unnecessary congressionally mandated reports i believe working together with the office of management and budget we can again save the taxpayers not just millions of dollars but give the opportunity to redirect the focus of the administration toward the work at hand often the most important and most senior members of the administration are the ones being asked to review these reports if these reports are essential we will reassert them if not it is our goal as the oversight and reform committee to ensure no matter where a report is going to that comes from the executive branch we review it to determine whether it is necessary i would yield to the ranking member chairman issa mister chairman i agree with you i have said many times that part of our responsibility is to make sure that government functions an effective and efficient manner it seems like almost every year we are demanding more and more reports from government and as you said to me a few minutes ago the question is who reads them and the question is whether or not some of them have been outdated some of them may have been mandated many many years ago and it is quite possible that the very reason for the reports year basis or whatever it might be i look forward to working with you on that this is something else that we can do in a bipartisan manner chairman issa i thank the gentleman for all of the members of the committee every member of this committee serves on at least one other committee i have directed the staff to prepare a joint letter by both myself and the ranking member that will go to each chairman each ranking member and the administration asking for their suggestions a of reports that may be under utilized currently not directed properly or completely unnecessary i thank the ranking member for his support we will see that that goes out over the next week or  so i guess technically we are back in session so the question occurs on the cummings amendment which was previously made part of a rolled vote  is agreed to the ayes have it the motion is agreed to and h r three hundred and seventy three is ordered reported to the house i ask unanimous consent that the staff be authorized to make necessary confirming and technical changes to the bill reported today without objection