Our good friends on the other side of the aisle came up with this proposal at the beginning of last year. and since that time have consistently waived it. We think we ought to take some of these rules a little bit more seriously and perhaps not pass them in the first place if we are not going to pay much attention to them. This particular conference report has four refugeerelated provisions which. taken together. may well result in increased costs to individual States throughout this country. There are good arguments on both sides of the question of whether these four provisions represent unfunded mandates. and apparently CBO itself is having some trouble coming up with a definitive answer. What I want to say and be clear about Is we would have made the point of order not because of necessarily opposition to the four particular provisions dealing with refugees. but because of our understanding of the Intention of the unfunded mandates law. which is to provide full and open debate on any issues or that may raise unfunded mandates for the States. That. after all. was the expressed purpose from our friends on the other side as part of their Contract for that particular change in our rules. Allowing for debate on the unfunded mandates question in this bill would provide one way to alert States that the Congress is In fact taking action which may well have come impact on state costs.
Keywords matched
refugees refugeerelated