Collin Peterson: “It is a straightforward amendment that lowers the threshold on private sector mandates in which CBO is required to file…”

“It is a straightforward amendment that lowers the threshold on private sector mandates in which CBO is required to file a report from $100 million to $50 million. This will equalize the threshold at $50 million for both the public and the private sector. One of the issues was whether the lowering of this threshold would possibly cost CBO additional money. But we have checked, and CBO said the money authorized in this bill is sufficient to comply with these provisions. In the 103d Congress, 226 of us, including myself, cosponsored the bill of the gentleman from California, which would impose a tougher standard, basically a 'no money, no mandate' standard, which a lot of us would still like to see. But this is a good first start. What we are doing here by lowering this threshold is making sure that we have the same standards in both the public and private sector, and also that we will include more mandates in this process.”