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The House of Representatives yesterday passed a bipartisan bill co-sponsored by Rep. Virginia Foxx that would shed light on how federal policies impact the budgets of state and local governments and private sector employers. The Unfunded Mandates Information and Transparency Act, H.R. 50, passed the House by a vote of 250 to 173. Foxx has introduced this legislation in the past four Congresses, and it has previously passed the House with bipartisan support on three separate occasions, but she recently told us that with the change in the majority in the US Senate, she feels the bill stands a much better chance of passing both houses. Foxx said yesterday, “Americans are better served when regulators are required to measure and consider the costs of the rules they create. The Unfunded Mandates Information and Transparency Act is simply about making government work better for the American people by requiring openness and honesty from Washington.”  And Foxx said, “Transparency and accountability are not partisan issues. It’s my hope that the bipartisan manner in which this legislation passed the House will pave the way for swift consideration and passage in the Senate.”

H.R. 50 would increase transparency about the costs imposed by unfunded mandates and would hold the federal government accountable for considering those costs before passing them on to local governments and small businesses. The legislation would expand the scope of the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 (UMRA), which was passed to ensure public awareness of the financial burden federal mandates place on employers and state and local governments. Current loopholes within UMRA allow certain regulatory bodies to escape public reporting requirements and incentivize others to forego publicizing regulatory proposals. The Unfunded Mandates Information and Transparency Act would correct this.

The legislation also would require the federal government to report how legislative changes to existing federal grant programs might shift costs to state, local and tribal governments. For instance, grant programs which are administered by states can be altered by federal legislation. Under H.R. 50 the federal government would be statutorily required to report how such changes would impact state or local government budgets.

http://www.goblueridge.net/news/1/26945-foxx-unfunded-mandates-bill-clears-house