Preemptions in Federal Legislation in the 106th Congress
Abstract
The Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 (UMRA) requires the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to review bills reported by Congressional committees for the presence of federal mandates on other levels of government or the private sector. The law also created legislative hurdles designed to make it harder for the Congress to pass intergovernmental mandates without providing funding to cover their costs. Since UMRA was enacted, some Members of Congress and state and local officials have shifted their concern from unfunded mandates in general to federal preemptions provisions of federal law that would overturn state laws and procedures or would prohibit state or local governments from enacting laws in a particular policy area. In its mandate statements for bills, CBO identifies explicit preemptions as intergovernmental mandates. (In cases where a preemption is not stated explicitly, CBO is not in a position to identify an implied preemption as a mandate, often because it is not clear that the law would be a preemption until well after enactment.) During the 106th Congress, about half of the intergovernmental mandates that CBO identified were preemptions. In most cases, however, the cost of those preemptions to state, local, or tribal governments was not significant. Consequently, the legislative hurdles established by UMRA did not greatly affect the consideration or enactment of preemptions. Even so, the number of preemptions that became law during the 106th Congress was relatively small: of the 80 bills containing preemptions that were approved by various committees, only 23 were enacted. None of them, in CBO's estimate, impose annual costs that exceed the cost threshold set by UMRA for intergovernmental mandates ($50 million in 1996 dollars, adjusted annually for inflation).
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 2001
- Accession Number
- ADA399942
Entities
Organizations
- Congressional Budget Office