Updated Rescission Statistics, Fiscal Years 1974–2020

B-330828

July 16, 2020

The Honorable Richard Shelby
Chairman
Committee on Appropriations
United States Senate

The Honorable Patrick Leahy
Vice Chairman
Committee on Appropriations
United States Senate

Subject:  Updated Rescission Statistics, Fiscal Years 1974–2020[1]

This responds to your letter requesting that we transmit to Congress an updated package of our statistical data concerning rescissions proposed and enacted after fiscal year 2017.  In response to your letter, we have updated our statistics regarding proposed and enacted rescissions since the passage of the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 through February 28, 2020, of fiscal year 2020. 

Under the Impoundment Control Act (ICA), whenever the President proposes budget authority for rescission, he must transmit a special message to Congress detailing the amounts, reasons for, and effect of the proposed rescission.  Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, Pub. L. No. 93-344, title X, 88 Stat. 297, 332 (July 12, 1974), classified at 2 U.S.C. §§ 682–688.  Where the President properly transmits a special message, an agency may withhold corresponding amounts from obligation for up to 45 calendar days of continuous congressional session.  See 2 U.S.C. § 683(b).  For the purposes of the ICA continuity of a session of Congress is broken “only by an adjournment of the Congress sine die, and the days on which either House is not in session because of an adjournment of more than 3 days to a day certain.”  2 U.S.C. § 682(5).  If Congress does not pass rescission legislation within this 45‑day period, the budget authority must be released.  2 U.S.C. § 683(b).  The ICA provides a mechanism through which Congress may fast-track a vote on a special message.  2 U.S.C. § 688.

We present our statistics in the two enclosed sets of tables, Enclosures I and II.  Enclosure I shows by fiscal year from 1974 through February 28, 2020:  (a) the aggregate number and amounts of rescissions proposed by the President, (b) the aggregate number and amount of those proposals enacted by Congress, (c) the aggregate number and amount of rescissions initiated by Congress, and (d) the total number of rescissions enacted and the total amount of budget authority rescinded by Congress, with totals for each category.  Enclosure II shows by fiscal year from 1974 through February 28, 2020, by presidential administration, the aggregate number and amount of rescissions proposed and enacted.  The tables also display the number and amount of congressional rescissions by administration with totals for each category.  Both tables include all rescissions enacted through February 28, 2020.  To compile our statistics, we used the same methodology as we have for earlier data.[2]  We analyzed appropriations, supplemental appropriations, and other acts of Congress enacted in each fiscal year to identify rescissions, which are any legislative provisions that eliminate previously enacted and currently available budget authority.

To ensure that we completely and accurately identify all rescissions, we used an internal quality review process.  This process ensured consistent application of our methodology in determining whether to include certain enactments of rescissions.  For example, we must be able to establish a definite amount for the rescission.  Therefore, we do not count what is legislatively denoted as a rescission if it comprises an indefinite or uncertain amount of budget authority.  

Sincerely yours,

Thomas H. Armstrong
General Counsel

Enclosures – 3

OBJECTIVE, SCOPE, AND METHODOLOGY FOR
RESCISSION STATISTICS

We prepared the lists in Enclosures I and II using the same methodology we have used since we first compiled tables in 1992.  See B-246096.8, Apr. 30, 1992.  To keep Congress apprised of the amount and frequency of rescissions proposed and enacted, we compiled statistics regarding rescissions proposed by the executive branch and rescissions enacted by Congress for each fiscal year from fiscal year 1974 to the present.  We analyzed appropriations, supplemental appropriations, and other acts of Congress enacted in each fiscal year to identify rescissions.  We performed an internal quality assurance review to ensure that we completely and accurately identify all rescissions.

To identify rescissions, we search for the verb “rescind” and the word “rescission” in its various forms.  However, sometimes Congress does not use these terms in the legislative language even though the action is a rescission.  For example, an act may delete a sum previously appropriated by another act and insert or substitute a lesser sum, which in effect rescinds previously appropriated budget authority.  In other cases, Congress has referred to actions rescinding budget authority as “reductions.”  Congress may also use the phrase “shall revert to the Treasury” to achieve the reduction in appropriations that we count as a rescission if it eliminates previously enacted and currently available budget authority.  Thus, our research also includes the terms “reduce,” “revert,” and “cancel” in their various forms.  To identify presidential rescission proposals, and proposals that were enacted, we reviewed each special message submitted by the Presidents pursuant to the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, 2 U.S.C. § 683 (1988), through September 30, 2017, and matched our list of rescissions against our list of rescission proposals submitted to Congress by the President pursuant to the Impoundment Control Act.[1]  We classified those rescissions that were not related to presidential proposals as congressionally initiated rescissions.

Factors Considered in Counting Rescissions

A rescission is a law that “cancels the availability of budget authority previously enacted before the authority would otherwise expire.”[2]  We consider any law that eliminates previously enacted and currently available budget authority as a rescission.

There are several scenarios in which the timing of legislation with respect to the reduction or adjustment of budget authority affects whether we count it as a rescission.  The following examples illustrate these scenarios.

• If an act provides budget authority and a subsequent act rescinds some or all of that budget authority, we count the adjustment or reduction as a rescission.


• If an act rescinds budget authority prior to the enactment of the budget authority, we do not count the adjustment or reduction as a rescission.


• If Congress appropriates budget authority and reduces or adjusts the level of that authority in the same act, we do not count it as a rescission.


• If Congress appropriates budget authority in one act and rescinds it in a second act, and both acts are signed on the same day, we do not count it as a rescission because the budget authority was never currently available.


• If Congress provides budget authority in an act which delays the effective date of the budget authority and rescinds that budget authority in a subsequent act before the effective date of its availability, we do not count it as a rescission since the budget authority was never currently available.


• If Congress rescinds an unexpended balance of funds, we count it as a rescission.  If Congress rescinds an expended balance of funds, we do not count it as a rescission since at the time of the putative rescission, it was not currently available budget authority.


• If Congress “rescinds” funds from one account and in the next paragraph “appropriates” the same amount to a different account, we consider it reallocated budget authority, not a rescission.


• We do not count any rescission from appropriations for the District of Columbia.


•  

Rescission of an Indefinite or Uncertain Amount of Budget Authority

We must be able to establish a definite amount for the rescission.  We do not count what is legislatively denoted as a rescission if it comprises an indefinite or uncertain amount of budget authority.

• If the language states that up to a certain amount or an indefinite amount of budget authority is rescinded, we have not included these rescissions in our statistics.  For example, if the language states that “up to” or “not more than” a particular amount is rescinded, the amount is indefinite and we do not count it as a rescission.  When able to verify an exact amount rescinded, we adjust our historical tables accordingly.[3] 


• If, however, the language rescinds a specific, minimum amount of budget authority, we include that amount in our rescission statistics.  For example, where the law rescinds “not less than” a specific amount we include a rescission in that amount, even though more may be rescinded.