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The $268 billion ceiling, sponsored by Sen. Edmund S. Muskie (D-Maine), and the anti-impoundment language, sponsored by Sen. Sam J. Ervin Jr. (D-N.C.), are actually parts of a single bill approved 13 to 3 Tuesday by Ervin's Government Operations Committee. On the Senate floor yesterday, separate votes were taken when the two parts were offered as a floor amendment to the dollar devaluation bill.

In the only other amendment adopted yesterday, the Senate approved, 68 to 23, a proposal by Sen. James McClure (R-Idaho) to allow private ownership of gold starting Dec. 31. This has been forbidden since 1934, except for artistic and industrial purposes, but McClure argued that since dollars are no longer convertible into gold, private ownership should be allowed.

Westerners said lifting the gold ownership ban would stimulate mining. But the administration opposes the change, saying it would have an unsettling effect on international monetary policies. Pending at day's end was an amendment by Sen. Harry F. Byrd Jr. (Ind.-Va.) forbidding U.S. aid to North Vietnam, despite administration pledges to seek some aid for Hanoi as part of the peace settlement. The Nixon administration opposed both the Muskie $268 billion ceiling and the Ervin anti-impoundment language.

Although the President himself has asked for a $268.7 billion ceiling, he wants complete freedom to determine what programs to cut if necessary to meet the ceiling. The Muskie language denies him this freedom.

It forbids cuts in veterans' and Social Security benefits, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, food stamps, judges' salaries, interest on the national debt or military retirement pay. In cutting other programs if necessary to meet the $268 billion ceiling, the President must reduce them on a roughly across-the-board, proportional basis and not by chopping one program completely without making any cuts in another.

Put forward at this time to counter presidential charges that excessive congressional appropriations are fueling inflation, the Muskie ceiling was carefully set at $700 million below the President's $268.7 billion spending proposals—a demonstration, in the words of Sen. William Proxmire (D-Wis.), that the Senate is even "more fiscally responsible" than Mr. Nixon.

Unlike the Muskie ceiling, which applies only to fiscal 1974 to begin July 1, the Ervin anti-impoundment bill (which had 53 co-sponsors) is permanent legislation. It forbids the President from holding up the spending of congressionally appropriated funds for more than 60 days, unless he goes to Congress and obtains approval of the proposed impoundment by a majority vote in each chamber. A resolution of approval would be a privileged matter and would go to a vote automatically after 10 hours of debate.

The Ervin bill is a response to presidential assertions of power to withhold the spending of any appropriated funds. Under this doctrine, the President this year has cancelled several major programs, partly to hold down spending, partly because he disapproves of the programs. Hundreds of millions of dollars appropriated by Congress are unspent.

Ervin claims this usurps the congressional power of the purse. Others charge it would make the President the sole judge of which programs to fund, letting him cut social programs and pump more money into defense and business aid. In yesterday's voting, both Virginia Senators opposed the impoundment provision while both Maryland Senators backed it; all four backed the spending ceiling.

Early in the day Sens. Henry Bellmon (R-Okla.) and Robert Taft Jr. (R-Ohio) put aside a ceiling and impoundment proposal of their own and joined in backing the Ervin-Muskie proposals.

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AMENDMENT

Intended to be proposed by Mr. ERVIN (for himself, Mr. MUSKIE, Mr. PERCY, Mr. JAVITS, Mr. CHILES, Mr. NUNN, Mr. HUDDLESTON, Mr. MONDALE, and Mr. BENTSEN) to S. 929, a bill to amend the Par Value Modification Act, viz: At the end of the bill, insert the following:

1 TITLE I-IMPOUNDMENT CONTROL PROCEDURES

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SECTION 1. The Congress finds that

(1) the Congress has the sole authority to enact legislation and appropriate moneys on behalf of the United States;

(2) the Congress has the authority to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution its own

powers;

Amdt. No. 77

94-228 O 73 pt. 1 18

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(3) the Executive shall take care that the laws

enacted by Congress shall be faithfully executed;

(4) under the Constitution of the United States, the Congress has the authority to require that funds appropriated and obligated by law shall be spent in accordance with such law;

(5) there is no authority expressed or implied under the Constitution of the United States for the Executive

to impound budget authority and the only authority for

such impoundments by the executive branch is that which Congress has expressly delegated by statute;

(6) by the Anti-Deficiency Act (Rev. Stat. sec. 3679), the Congress delegated to the President authority, in a narrowly defined area, to establish reserves for contingencies or to effect savings through changes in requirements, greater efficiency of operations, or other developments subsequent to the date on which appropriations are made available;

(7) in spite of the lack of constitutional authority for impoundment of budget authority by the executive branch and the narrow area in which reserves by the executive branch have been expressly authorized in the Anti-Deficiency Act, the executive branch has inpounded many billions of dollars of budget authority

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Deficiency Act or any other Act of Congress;

(8) impoundments by the executive branch have

often been made without a legal basis;

(9) such impoundments have totally nullified the effect of appropriations and obligation authority enacted by the Congress and prevented the Congress from exercising its constitutional authority;

(10) the executive branch, through its presentation to the Congress of a proposed budget, the due respect of the Congress for the views of the executive branch,

and the power of the veto, has ample authority to affect

the appropriation and obligation process without the unilateral authority to impound budget authority; and

(11) enactment of this legislation is necessary to clarify the limits of the existing legal authority of the executive branch to impound budget authority, to reestablish a proper allocation of authority between the Congress and the executive branch, to confirm the constitutional proscription against the unilateral nullification

by the executive branch of duly enacted authorization and appropriation Acts, and to establish efficient and orderly procedures for the reordering of budget authority through joint action by the Executive and the Congress,

which shall apply to all impoundments of budget author

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