S tatements of Administration Policy, or SAPs, are one of the President's communication tools designed to communicate the Administration's position on legislation coming up on the House and Senate floor. Issued by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on behalf of the Executive Office of the President (EOP), SAPs provide the Administration's position on pending legislation. These statements can supply guideposts to Congress regarding the Administration's legislative approach to the passage and execution of a bill. A collection of all SAPs from the current presidential Administration is located at the White House OMB website. SAPs by design always include policy position language and are often the first formal written document indicating the President's intent to sign or veto a legislative measure. Beyond the intent to sign or veto a bill, SAPs also indicate varying levels of support or opposition to the bill in question. This report discusses the creation and use of SAPs, but does not discuss OMB's related interagency clearance procedures at length. This report is divided into five sections. The report discusses structural components of SAPs, the development of SAPs from the Ronald Reagan Administration to the present, the coordination of executive branch actors involved in issuing SAPs, the receipt of SAPs and their impact on government institutions, and possible reactions to SAPs when they are released publicly. SAPs are written statements of the Administration's policy position towards a particular piece of legislation. While other avenues and forms of communication exist between Congress and the executive branch, SAPs serve as a contained summation of the Administration's positions regarding a specific bill. This section describes a SAP's structure, key components, position statements, and veto threats that may be found in SAPs. The report includes an example SAP in the Appendix . In recent years, SAPs have generally adhered to the same structure from Administration to Administration. Underneath the bill title, sponsor, and number of cosponsors, the Administration will lay out its views on the bill. The George W. Bush and William J. Clinton Administrations typically addressed their position on the passage of the bill in the first paragraph of the SAP. In contrast, the Barack H. Obama Administration often has its bill position in the middle or at the very end of a SAP. The key operative clause in all SAPs across presidencies is an expression of the Administration's opposition to or support for passage of the bill. For example, the Obama Administration writes in the included SAP in the Appendix , "Accordingly, the Administration strongly opposes House passage of H.R. 3010 , the Regulatory Accountability Act." SAPs may also point to specific provisions within the bill text if they meet the Administration's threshold of significance. If such provisions are included, the Administration wants the items to be noticed by Members of Congress and likely also the public. SAPs will sometimes offer further revisions for these provisions or call for amendments, in addition to critiques of the existing bill text. SAP position statements cover the spectrum from strong support of a bill, to strong opposition to bill passage, a threat to veto a bill, and all positions in between. SAPs may even include criticisms or praise of particular bill provisions. This section provides examples of the gradations of position statements contained in SAPs. An Administration may choose to support the passage of a bill, as was the case in the Obama Administration's SAP on S. 1793 , the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009. The SAP reads, "The Administration strongly supports Senate passage" of S. 1793 , and later identifies that the Obama Administration, in particular, "supports the provision in the legislation revising the threshold of unobligated balances that triggers penalties ... " and "strongly supports the inclusion of a provision to offset unobligated balances from subsequent grant awards rather than cancellation of unobligated amounts." For this particular bill, the SAP starts with a statement of strong support of bill passage and includes suggestions for bill provisions that the Obama Administration would strongly support. Similarly, a SAP that voices opposition to a bill's passage contains a position statement and possible consequences if the bill is passed. The Obama Administration wrote, "The Administration strongly opposes House passage of H.R. 3463 .... " Furthermore, the Obama Administration says, "H.R. 3463 would terminate the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), which was established after the 2000 Presidential election to improve the administration of elections. The EAC continues to perform crucial statutory responsibilities by serving as a national clearing house of information for election officials and the public." As in most SAPs, the initial position statement is supported in the body text by specific statements on the bill's projected effect. While SAPs allow for the Administration to assert varying levels of support for or opposition to a bill, perhaps the most noticeable statement in a SAP is whether the Administration intends to veto the bill. Some Members of Congress have characterized SAPs as forerunner indicators of a veto. Members may pay particular attention to a SAP when a veto threat is being made. Two types of veto threats appear in SAPs: a statement indicating that the President will veto the bill, or a statement that agencies or senior advisors would recommend that the President veto the bill. Beginning in the 108 th Congress, SAPs containing veto threats have underlined the veto threat itself. For example, the Obama Administration issued a SAP on H.R. 2 – Repealing the Affordable Care Act. The Obama Administration wrote, "If the President were presented with H.R. 2 , he would veto it." In contrast, the Obama Administration's SAP on H.R. 3010 – Regulatory Accountability Act of 2011 said, "If the President were presented with the Regulatory Accountability Act, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill." A SAP indicating that the President will veto the bill, rather than indicating that the President's senior advisors will recommend a veto, may give the President less negotiation room after it is issued. For example, in the same Obama Administration SAP provided in the Appendix , the Administration makes its opposition to H.R. 3010 more specific by including a veto threat at the conclusion of the SAP; however, the Administration's negative position was previously indicated. Generally, SAPs are released concurrent with action in the House Rules Committee, or on the floor of the House or Senate. Releasing a SAP at such a point in the legislative process may serve to maximize the Administration's influence. Frequently, one SAP is issued per bill. Some Administrations have preferred to issue multiple SAPs per bill throughout the legislative process as the bill text changes, while some issued the same SAP to both chambers. Some Administrations limited their use of SAPs only to bills they deemed of particular importance. SAPs can be an important vehicle for the Administration to support or oppose particular provisions of a bill as it makes its way through the legislative process in the House and Senate. OMB wrote in a document from 2000 that, "As a general rule, only items of significant funding or policy importance are included in OMB letters and SAPs. From one perspective, complaining about a large number of minor items would tend to dilute the arguments put forward for major items of importance to the Administration." As described in the U.S. Constitution under Article II, Section 3, the President shall recommend for Congress's consideration "such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.... " The Recommendations Clause, as this is known, has been viewed as the President's basis to make or respond to legislative proposals, and as the President's basis to refuse to do so even when Congress asks for such proposals. When Congress considers legislation, the executive branch conducts a parallel process to consider the legislation, make recommendations, and state the Administration's views. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB), in addition to assisting with the formulation of the President's budget, assists the President in creating the Administration's recommendations and comments on Congress's legislative proposals. Since its inception, OMB has been a source of institutional memory for executive branch operations, attempting to unify the branch both in directing its policy agenda and its program execution. By virtue of being comprised of over 90% career civil servants that may stay beyond an individual Administration, OMB is situated to remember processes and procedures extending across many Administrations. Accordingly, some of OMB's processes have been developed for internal management, rather than individual Administration needs, over time. This section briefly discusses OMB's role in supervising the creation of legislative recommendations and the historical creation of SAPs. OMB writes that its core mission is "to serve the President of the United States in implementing his vision across the Executive Branch. ... It reports directly to the President and helps a wide range of executive departments and agencies across the Federal Government to implement the commitments and priorities of the President." OMB provides a means for interagency consultation with the objective of forming an Administration position rather than having Congress faced with multiple agency views. Importantly, implementing the President's priorities includes tracking bill progress through the congressional chambers and drafting Administration proposals or criticisms in response to legislative action. This process occurs within individual executive branch agencies, however the central legislative clearance process described by Circular A-19 situates OMB in a supervisory position for the Administration. Bill tracking informs the central legislative clearance process, while SAPs and any other activity where an executive branch actor takes a position on proposed legislation are the product of the central legislative clearance process. SAPs were an outgrowth of OMB's efforts to monitor appropriations legislation and develop the President's budget. As part of its responsibilities described in Circular A-11, the Budget Review Division (BRD) within OMB analyzes appropriations bills "for changes from previous configurations of the President's original budget proposals in their respective account areas and determine[s] how these squared with presidential policy." This analysis promotes consistency in an Administration's policy agenda. BRD is responsible for tracking the legislative progress of appropriations bills.