Legislative Developments

Comments were presented, in the GAO Review, Vol. 16, Issue 2, Spring 1981, on the Staggers Rail Act, the Department of Transportation and Related Agencies Appropriation Act, the Chesapeake Bay Research Coordination Act, and a bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code. The Staggers Rail Act provides for the establishment of a Railroad Accounting Principles Board within and responsible to the legislative branch of the Government. The Board is to establish principles governing the determination of economically accurate railroad costs directly and indirectly associated with particular movements of goods or such other costs as the Board believes most accurately represent the economic costs of such movements. The Department of Transportation and Related Agencies Appropriation Act contains a general provision that no appropriations made available in the Act are to be obligated in a manner that would cause obligations to exceed 30 percent for the last quarter of a fiscal year. The Office of Management and Budget may waive this requirement to avoid a serious disruption in the program's activity. The Chesapeake Bay Research Coordination Act was enacted to provide coordination of federally supported and conducted research efforts regarding the Bay. The Chesapeake Bay Research Office will prepare an inventory of federal and state research programs relating to the Bay area and establish a Chesapeake Bay Research Exchange. The Senate agreed to revise the Farm Credit System to serve the current needs of the agriculture industry. There is strong support for the full implementation of the District of Columbia financial management system. A bill was also introduced to improve debt collection procedures. It would provide for an offset from the salary of a Federal employee who is indebted to the government. It clarifies the statute of limitations provision by explaining that the United States is not prevented from collecting a claim against an individual by offsetting that amount against monies owed the individual by the United States. It also amends the Internal Revenue Code to provide that the Internal Revenue Service may disclose a taxpayer's mailing address to an agency directly engaged in an activity pertaining to the collection of a debt owed the government. Under limited circumstances, the bill would also allow the agency to redisclose that information to consumer reporting agencies or debt collection agencies.