On the recordFebruary 2, 2012
I respectfully oppose the amendment put in by my two friends. This would amend the Senate rules to make it out of order for the Senate to proceed to any bill or joint resolution unless the committee of jurisdiction has posted on its Web site a CRS analysis of whether the bill would create a new program, office, or initiative that duplicates or overlaps an existing one. So it sounds pretty good on the surface, but there are two problems. One is that CRS tells us it would be hard-pressed to carry out this responsibility, certainly in a timely manner. The second results from the first, which is that this would be another way to slow legislation because it did not yet have the CRS analysis. A final point is this: The committees of jurisdiction ought to be making their own judgment and probably know better than CRS whether they are creating a new program that duplicates or overlaps an existing one. So, respectfully, I would urge a ``no'' vote.
