Our colleagues, Mr. Condit and Mr. Portman, were two of the main proponents of the intergovernmental mandates legislation that was one of the first bills passed by the 104^th Congress and signed into law by President Clinton. That law, designed to provide information about mandates on state and local governments, passed the House with 394 votes and has proven to be quite useful in providing accurate information during the course of floor debate.

We have now had three full years to observe how the law has worked, and it has worked well. We will hear from the Acting Director of the Congressional Budget Committee later on instances in which the point of order from the '95 act has been implemented and the usefulness of this procedure in Congressional deliberation. I believe that the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act has forced Members to review reliable information from the CBO, and this information has increased not only Member consciousness of the costs of legislation but increased public awareness.

And that is why we are here today. In an effort to make the original Unfunded Mandates legislation a more valuable information tool to advise Members on private sector mandates, the Mandates Information Act has been introduced again this Congress with 34 bi-partisan co-sponsors.

H.R. 350 was referred to the Rules Committee - and the Rules Committee alone - because it is a procedures bill affecting the internal workings of the House in providing information to Members of Congress. By compelling CBO estimates and requiring a question of consideration on the House floor on certain legislation, this legislation should serve an effective role in increasing congressional accountability by requiring Congress to be informed fully of the effects of mandates before enacting them into law.

Before yielding, I know I have heard Rob Portman discuss a number of times his concerns about the "hidden tax" that resulted from the FCC's interpretation of the Telecommunications Act. Mandates such as these - which were not debated on the House floor - continue to represent "hidden taxes" that consumers are forced to pay through increased prices, lower wages, reduced job opportunities and more red tape for businesses. It is likely that during the twenty minute floor debate on the question of consideration, the costs and the impact of a mandate will be highlighted, and an educated decision could be made if we want to pass the costs onto the U.S. consumer.

I know that all of us here in Congress want to do what is best for the consumer, the U.S. worker, small businesses and the environment. It cannot hurt us to amend these congressional procedures to provide the most factual information possible to all of the Members who are voting on very important legislation.

At this time, I do want to mention during the drafting of H.R. 350 this year, an effort was made to accommodate some of the provisions that were included in the Senate private mandates bill. After a review of the drafting of Senate provisions in the original bill, the Committee has worked with the staffs of Representative Condit and Portman to make a number of technical and conforming changes to the introduced bill. This amendment - which I will offer later in the full committee markup - is very similar to the Condit/Portman Mandates Information Information Act of 1998 with some technical changes, such as additional findings and some recodification modifications. Essentially, it is the Condit/Portman bill that passed the House by a vote of 279-132 last Congress.