Porter Goss: “while I understand the necessity in completing H.R.3345, legislation to implement the reduction in the Federal workforce…”

“while I understand the necessity in completing H.R.3345, legislation to implement the reduction in the Federal workforce of 252,000 positions--I must rise to lament the fact that we once again have a conference report that includes extraneous provisions. Generally, when the House and the other body pass differing versions of the same bill, a conference is established to, in the words of the distinguished chairman of the Post Office and Civil Service Committee, compromise. But shouldn't we feel safe in the assumption that the areas of compromise discussed in this context would be limited to the areas of disagreement within the bill at hand? You might think so--but you'd be wrong. More often than not, conference committees meet behind closed doors, often late at night. These committees sometimes insert all sorts things into their work product that most members don't find out about until after the votes are counted and the bill is passed. A particularly egregious example of this end-run of the normal legislative process that occurred in my brief tenure had to do with the infamous boat user fee. We killed it in subcommittee, we killed it in full committee, we killed it on the floor, but that thing had more lives to live--and what do you know, it showed up in the fine print of a conference report that Members never had time to read. It was a bad law--and we ultimately repealed it--but the point was, it should never have been permitted to pass in the first place.”