Legislative Division

The 114th Congress

Key Congressional Committees

• Appropriations

  These House and Senate Appropriations committees allocate money to Federal agencies for their programs. There are 13 appropriations subcommittees. Those of interest to postal and federal employees are Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Treasury, and General Government, and Appropriations for the Federal government are provided both in annual appropriations acts and in permanent provisions of law.

• Senate Finance

  This committee is responsible for revenue measures generally; taxes; tariffs and import quotas; reciprocal trade agreements; customs; revenue sharing; federal debt limit; Social Security; health programs financed by taxes or trust funds.

• House Ways and Means

  This committee is responsible for revenue measures generally; reciprocal trade agreements; customs, collection, districts, and ports of entry and delivery; revenue measures relating to the insular possessions; bonded debt of the United States; deposit of public moneys; transportation of dutiable goods; tax-exempt foundations and charitable trusts; national Social Security, except (A) health care and facilities programs that are supported from general revenues as opposed to payroll deductions and (B) work incentive programs.

• Budget

  This committee is responsible for the congressional budget process generally, concurrent budget resolutions, measures relating to special controls over the federal budget; Congressional Budget Office.

• Senate Government Affairs

  This committee is responsible for archives of the United States; budget and accounting measures; census and statistics; federal civil service; congressional organization; intergovernmental relations; government information; District of Columbia; organization and management of nuclear export policy; executive branch organization and reorganization; Postal Service; efficiency, economy, and effectiveness of government.

• House Government Reform

  This committee is responsible for civil service, including intergovernmental personnel; the status of officers and employees of the United States, including their compensation, classification and retirement; measures relating to the municipal affairs of the District of Columbia in general, other than appropriations; federal paperwork reduction; budget and accounting measures, generally; holidays and celebrations; overall economy, efficiency and management of government operations and activities, including federal procurement; National Archives; population and demography generally, including the census; Postal Service generally, including the transportation of mail; public information and records; relationship of the federal government to the states and municipalities generally; reorganizations in the executive branch of the government.

• Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions

  This committee is responsible for education, labor, health and public welfare in general; arts and humanities; biomedical research and development; child labor; convict labor, domestic activities of the Red Cross; equal employment opportunity; handicapped people; labor standards and statistics; mediation and arbitration of labor disputes; occupational safety and health; private pensions; public health; railway labor and retirement; regulation of foreign laborers; student loans; wages and hours; agricultural colleges; Gallaudet University; Howard University; St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C.

• House Education and Work Force

  This committee is responsible for measures relating to education or labor generally; child labor; Columbia Institution for the Deaf, Dumb and Blind; Howard University; Freedmen’s Hospital; convict labor and the entry of goods made by convicts into interstate commerce; food programs for children in schools; labor standards and statistics; mediation and arbitration of labor disputes; regulation or prevention of importation of foreign laborers under contract; U.S. Employees’ Compensation Commission; vocational rehabilitation; wages and hours of labor; welfare of minors; work incentive programs.

• Judiciary

  This committee is responsible for civil and criminal judicial proceedings in general; national penitentiaries; bankruptcy, mutiny, espionage and counterfeiting; civil liberties; constitutional amendments; apportionment of representatives; government information; immigration and naturalization; interstate compacts in general; claims against the United States; patents, copyrights and trademarks; monopolies and unlawful restraints of trade; holidays and celebrations; revision and codification of the statutes of the United States; state and territorial boundary lines.

• Senate Rules Committee

  This committee is responsible for senate rules and regulations: Senate administration in general; congressional organization; corrupt practices; qualification of senators; contested elections; federal elections in general; Government Printing Office; Congressional Record; meetings of Congress and attendance of members; presidential succession; the Capitol, congressional office buildings, the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution and the Botanic Garden; purchases of books and manuscripts and erection of monuments to the memory of individuals.

• House Rules Committee

  This committee is responsible for rules and joint rules (other than rules or joint rules relating to the Code of Official Conduct), and order of business of the House; recesses and final adjournments of Congress.

• Equal Employment Opportunity

  While federal laws prohibit job discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, the system that enforces the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) law is broken. Many federal agencies have huge case backlogs and lack the human and financial resources necessary to properly enforce existing civil rights laws.

  Current proposals and initiatives to reform the system put at risk existing protections offered to postal and federal employees. Proposals discussed, such as removing the right to an investigation and restricting access to a hearing before an administrative judge, will undermine the efficacy of the system enacted to protect workers and will force workers to seek redress in the federal courts, which is a very expensive proposition.

  In determining whether mediation has a useful role within the EEO process, the right of employees to a detailed investigation and hearing should not be compromised or eliminated. Rather, agencies should be held accountable for missing deadlines and sanctioned appropriately when discrimination is found.

  N.A.P.F.E. supports strong and consistent enforcement of equal employment laws, a process that allows investigations so that employees can access evidence supportive of their claims, and the right to a hearing before an Administrative Judge.

• Postal Reform

  The Postal Service is facing many challenges. In 2001, the agency was heavily impacted by the terrorist attacks of September 11th and the anthrax attack in October. Its points of delivery are increasing as volume decreases. It is struggling to preserve its viability in the age of the internet and private mail companies.

  The Postal Service has released a Transformation Plan, which rejects privatization or a return to an agency financed by the government’s treasury. Instead, it proposed restructuring the Postal Service into a Commercial Government Enterprise. The Postal Service is now focused on cutting costs to erode its billion-dollar deficits.

  President Bush has named a nine-member Commission on the U.S. Postal Service with a mandate to look at the Postal Service’s operations, structures, and finances. The Commission will also look into privatizing part of the Postal Services operations.

  N.A.P.F.E. opposes privatization of the Postal Service as its primary purpose is to bind the nation together, not look at the bottom line. N.A.P.F.E. supports preserving the universal service of the Postal Service by getting rid of its break-even mandate that asks the Postal Service to act as a business while hampering its ability to do so. N.A.P.F.E. also supports giving the Postal Service more flexibility in setting prices. Additionally, N.A.P.F.E. advocates for improved labor relations within the Postal Service so workers may feel that their well-being is as important as the Service’s bottom line.

• Health Care

  Despite spending more money per capita on healthcare than any other country in the world, the World Health Organization ranks the U.S. 37th in meeting the healthcare needs of its people. Today, 41 million people are without health insurance. Racial and ethnic minorities suffer disproportionately from cancer, cardiovascular disease, infant mortality, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, and are less likely to have child and adult immunizations. Studies have shown that while heart disease and cancer are the first and second leading causes of death, respectively, African Americans, Hispanics, and American Indians lead Whites in incidences of death from these diseases. Also, while racial and ethnic minorities make up approximately 25 percent of the total population, these groups account for over half of all AIDS cases. These disparities persist even when racial and ethnic minorities are insured, as they are likely to receive inferior care despite their insured status.

  Further, many retirees must choose between food and necessary medication because of the high costs of prescription drugs. And, access to long-term care is greatly needed as Americans are living longer and are increasingly facing the prohibitive costs of funding their long-term care. In fact, medical bills are the principal reason for bankruptcy filings. Moreover, states, in the face of large deficits, are cutting Medicaid eligibility and benefits.

  The National Academy of Sciences has issued a report stating that “[t]he health care delivery system is incapable of meeting the present, let alone the future, needs of the American public.” The report noted that private health insurance is increasing at an annual rate of more than 12 percent, with insureds receiving few benefits.

  N.A.P.F.E. supports a national health care policy that mandates universal coverage of the highest quality at a cost that all can afford. It supports a national program providing long-term care for the chronically ill. And, N.A.P.F.E. supports Healthy People 2010, the initiative aimed at ending racial and ethnic disparities in the health care system.

• Civil Service Protections

  The debate surrounding the creation of the Homeland Security Department raised the specter that the civil service protections and union rights of federal workers may be in jeopardy. By insisting on the need for complete managerial flexibility in the new department dedicated to fighting terrorism, President Bush alarmed those federal workers who feel that the system of managerial flexibility can lead to arbitrary actions against their interests and abolish the right to join unions.

  Though the legislation establishing the Homeland Security Department does not apply Civil Service laws governing pay, promotion, performance evaluations, discipline and firing, job classification, and collective bargaining to the new Department, its Secretary must consult with employee organizations when making rules. This is a welcome provision and creates a new paradigm in the federal government for relationships between workers and managers. And one that must be monitored closely to ensure that managerial flexibility does not lead to the politicization of the new department.

  Additionally, the legislation creating the new Homeland Security Department contains new rules that affect personnel provisions throughout the government, including allowing for categorical rankings to improve the quality of hires, direct hiring authority for agencies with critical needs, appointments of “chief human capital officers and allowing for “workforce restructuring” buyouts.

  As Congress considers legislation that seeks to reform civil service rules, such as the proposed “Federal Workforce Flexibility Act of 2003,” N.A.P.F.E. will work to ensure that proposed reform initiatives do not undermine the rights of federal workers.

  N.A.P.F.E. supports civil service protections and the right to unionize for all federal workers, believing that these protections leave workers free to work on behalf of the country’s interests rather than be concerned about possible derogation of their rights.

• Working Families

  Today’s working families encounter many challenges balancing their work lives and the needs of their families. While the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) requires employers with 50 employees or more to provide up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a newborn, adopted, or foster child, child, spouse, or parent with major health problems, or for the employees’ health care without fear of losing their job or benefits, many workers are not covered by the FMLA. Or, a sizeable majority of those covered by FMLA cannot afford to take unpaid leave.

  Studies show that many employees feel that they will need to use their FMLA benefits to take care of an ill parent. The need for affordable long-term care is reaching crisis proportions, and many workers can’t afford the cost of caring for their parents or taking time off work to do so themselves.

  Additionally, the need for affordable quality childcare has never been greater as more and more families find it necessary for both parents to work in order to meet the needs of the family. Most working parents must rely on childcare, and the cost for quality care can be prohibitive.

  The expansion of unemployment insurance programs or the use of temporary disability insurance would be a great help to working parents who should not be torn apart as they try to provide for and care for their families.

  N.A.P.F.E. supports strong enforcement of FMLA, coupled with programs to help families make the best use of FMLA’s benefits, such as expanded unemployment insurance or temporary disability insurance.

• Social Security

  The Old Age Survivors and Disability Insurance program (“Social Security’) is at risk. Social Security provides benefits to families who lose wages because of old age, disability, or the death of a wage earner. It depends on the contributions of today’s workers to fund today’s retirees. In 2017, when baby boomers begin to retire, there will be even fewer workers contributing to the system than there are today. Projections show that by 2037, Social Security will be able to pay 75% of expected benefits. There are differing approaches on how to address the projected imbalance. The President’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security issued its report recommending adding personal accounts to the Social Security Program. However, subsequent studies show that such a program would drain billions from the program and jeopardize the guaranteed benefits of the program.

  Equally, the Government Pension Offset and Windfall Elimination provisions reduce the Social Security benefits of hundreds of thousands of government workers, undermining their overall retirement income.

  N.A.P.F.E. supports reforming Social Security so that all those eligible can receive all of their guaranteed benefits. However, N.A.P.F.E. does not support setting up a program for personal accounts since it would cost billions to set up and drain benefits from those currently receiving benefits.

  Also, N.A.P.F.E. supports the immediate and complete repeal of the Government Pension Offset and Windfall Elimination provisions so that eligible individuals and their survivors can receive the full Social Security Benefit earned by their spouses.