Jurassic Pork Act

Bill: 114-s-1544
Sponsor: full_name: Sen. Flake, Jeff [R-AZ]
Introduced: 2015-06-10
Policy area: Economics and Public Finance
Subjects: Appropriations

Congressional oversight

Department of Transportation

Executive agency funding and structure

Government information and archives

Government trust funds

Legislative rules and procedure

Roads and highways

Transportation and Public Works

Transportation programs funding
Latest action: action_date: 2015-06-10
text: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Appropriations.

Summaries:
action_date: 2015-06-10
action_desc: Introduced in Senate
text: <p><b>Jurassic Pork Act </b></p> <p>This bill rescinds unused earmarks previously appropriated to the Department of Transportation (DOT) and transfers the balances to the Highway Trust Fund. </p> <p>Under the House and Senate rules, an earmark is a provision or report language included primarily at the request of a Member of Congress providing, authorizing, or recommending a specific amount of discretionary budget authority, credit authority, or other spending authority for a contract, loan, loan guarantee, grant, loan authority, or other expenditure with or to an entity, or targeted to a specific state, locality or congressional district, other than through a statutory or administrative formula-driven or competitive award process. </p> <p>Under this bill, earmarks provided to DOT are unused and rescinded if more than 90% of the funding remains available for obligation at the end of the 9th fiscal year following the year the earmark was made available. DOT may delay the rescission if it determines that an additional obligation is likely to occur during the 10th year after funds were made available. </p> <p>The bill requires each federal agency to submit an annual report to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) identifying: (1) each earmark for a project that is ineligible for funding, (2) projects for which funding has been made available under an earmark, and (3) projects with unobligated balances. </p> <p>OMB must submit to Congress and post on its website an annual report including an accounting of unobligated earmarks, rescissions resulting from this bill, and DOT earmarks scheduled to be rescinded. </p>

tv_txt: II 114th CONGRESS 1st Session S. 1544 IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES June 10, 2015 Mr. Flake introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Appropriations A BILL To rescind unused earmarks provided for the Department of Transportation, and for other purposes.

1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Jurassic Pork Act . 2. Unused earmarks (a) Definitions In this section— (1) the term agency has the meaning given the term Executive agency under section 105 of title 5, United States Code; (2) the term earmark means— (A) a congressionally directed spending item, as defined in rule XLIV of the Standing Rules of the Senate; and (B) a congressional earmark, as defined in rule XXI of the Rules of the House of Representatives; and (3) the term unused DOT earmark means an earmark of funds provided for the Department of Transportation as to which more than 90 percent of the dollar amount of the earmark of funds remains available for obligation at the end of the 9th fiscal year following the fiscal year during which the earmark was made available. (b) Rescission of unused DOT earmarks (1) In general Except as provided in paragraph (2), effective on October 1 of the 10th fiscal year after funds under an unused DOT earmark are made available, all unobligated amounts made available under the unused DOT earmark are rescinded and shall be transferred to the Highway Trust Fund. (2) Exception The Secretary of Transportation may delay the rescission of amounts made available under an unused DOT earmark for 1 year if the Secretary determines that an additional obligation of amounts from the earmark is likely to occur during the 10th fiscal year after funds under the unused DOT earmark are made available. (c) Agency-Wide identification and report (1) Agency identification Each agency shall identify and submit to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget an annual report— (A) that identifies each earmark for a project of the agency that is ineligible for funding; and (B) that discusses each project of the agency for which— (i) amounts are made available under an earmark; and (ii) as of the end of a fiscal year, unobligated balances remain available. (2) Annual report The Director of the Office of Management and Budget shall submit to Congress and publically post on the website of the Office of Management and Budget an annual report regarding earmarks (including any earmark that is ineligible for funding) that includes— (A) a listing and accounting for earmarks for which unobligated balances remain available, summarized by agency, which shall include, for each earmark— (i) the amount of funds made available under the original earmark; (ii) the amount of the unobligated balances that remain available; (iii) the fiscal year through which the funds are made available, if applicable; and (iv) recommendations and justifications for whether the earmark should be rescinded or retained in the next fiscal year; (B) the number of rescissions resulting from this section and the annual savings resulting from this section for the previous fiscal year; and (C) a listing and accounting for earmarks provided for the Department of Transportation scheduled to be rescinded under subsection (b) at the end of the fiscal year during which the report is submitted.