Emergency Designation: Current Budget Rules and Procedures

Summary

Budgetary legislation is constrained by certain enforcement rules that are generally intended to control spending, revenues, and the deficit. Since 1990, those rules have provided, in various forms, procedural mechanisms allowing Congress to effectively exempt certain budgetary amounts from such constraints by designating a provision in a measure as an emergency requirement. This report provides a brief description of the current rules and congressional procedures associated with the emergency designation.

Currently, the authority and the procedures related to designating a provision as an emergency requirement are different for the House and Senate. In the House, the rules and procedures pertaining to the emergency designation are governed by three separate authorities: (1) a separate order contained in H.Res. 5 (112th Congress); (2) the House standing rules; and (3) the Statutory PAYGO Act of 2010. In the Senate, the rules and procedures pertaining to the emergency designation are currently governed by two separate authorities: (1) the FY2010 budget resolution; and (2) the Statutory PAYGO Act of 2010.

This report will be updated as developments warrant.