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1 [1] (November 22, 2019)

handle is hein.crs/govbbtq0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Firearms-Related Appropriations Riders 10 gm 0 ILI November 22, 2019 Congress's spending power gives it substantial control over the activities of executive branch agencies. For instance, through appropriations riders, Congress can direct agencies to engage, or to refrain from engaging, in particular activities in order to receive appropriated funds. Over the years, Congress has inserted several firearms-related riders into appropriations bills. Perhaps the most well-known riders are the Dickey and Tiahrt Amendments, in reference to the Members of Congress who first advanced them. Still in force today, these riders restrict agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) from engaging in certain activities related to federal firearms regulation. The Dickey Amendment For FY1997, Congress considered various ways of restricting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from certain firearms-related activities. A precursor bill to the eventual omnibus appropriations act proposed reducing the CDC's budget by $2.6 million-the same amount the CDC reportedly spent on gun violence research in the previous fiscal year. See H.R. REP. No. 104-659, at 49 (1996) (Comm. Rep.). The funds remained intact in the omnibus appropriations bill, Pub. L. No. 104-208, 110 Stat. 3009-244 (1996), but, in the accompanying report, Congress earmarked the same dollar amount ($2.6 million) for the study of traumatic brain injuries, H.R. REP. No. 104- 863, at 1040 (1996) (Conf. Rep.). Representative Dickey introduced a proviso stating that none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control. Pub. L. No. 104-208, 110 Stat. 3009-244 (1996). As a rationale for the measure, now known as the Dickey Amendment, he contended that the CDC's previous recommendations related to firearms display [ed] an emotional antigun agenda amounting to inappropriate federally funded political advocacy. 142 CONG. REC. H16, 804-05 (daily ed. July 11, 1996) (statement of Rep. Dickey). Congress has included the Dickey Amendment (or similar language) in the CDC appropriations for each subsequent year. Since 2011, Congress has extended the funding restriction to all agencies within HHS. See, e.g., Pub. L. No. 115-245 § 210, 132 Stat. 2981, 3090 (2018); FY, 125 Stat. 786, 1085 (2011). HHS agencies disagree on exactly how much the Dickey Amendment actually limits them from researching gun violence. In a 2017 report to congressional requesters, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) recounted the CDC's interpretation of the Dickey Amendment: CDC officials said that after the restriction was enacted, the agency interpreted it as a prohibition of activities related to gun control advocacy, but not as a restriction of activities that supported firearm injury-related data collection and scientific research. However, CDC officials added that the agency has limited its firearm-related research over time because, in 1997, its budget was reduced by an amount equal to what the agency had spent on such research, and because it learned that further reductions were possible if the research continued. U.S. Gov'T ACCOUNTABILITY OFF., GAO-17-665, PERSONAL FIREARMS: PROGRAMS THAT PROMOTE SAFE STORAGE AND RESEARCH ON THEIR EFFECTIVENESS 20 (2017). Though the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is also subject to the Dickey Amendment, that agency reported to the GAO that it does not view the Dickey Amendment as so limiting. See id. The GAO explained, NIH continues to have a broad research portfolio that supports violence prevention, including firearm safety, albeit subject to funding instability. See id. In recent years, public officials have sought to clarify the Dickey Amendment's limiting effect. For instance, in a January 2013 presidential memorandum to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Engaging in Public Health Research on the Causes and Prevention of Gun Violence, President Obama directed the CDC to conduct or sponsor research into the causes of gun violence and ways to prevent it . . . consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations. This directive implies that the executive branch did not interpret the Dickey Amendment as precluding the CDC from studying gun violence altogether. That view is consistent with an explanatory statement incorporated into the FY2018 omnibus; Congress remarked that, notwithstanding the Dickey Amendment, the Secretary of Health and Human Services has stated the CDC has the authority to conduct research on the causes of gun violence. Pub. L. No. 115- 141 § 4, 132 Stat. 348, 350 (2018); 164 CONG. REC. H2700 (daily ed. Mar. 22, 2018) (explanatory statement submitted by Rep. Frelinghuysen). The House-passed appropriations bill for HHS for FY2020, H.R. 2740, explicitly allocates $25 million to the CDC for firearm injury and mortality prevention research. An identical amount was earmarked for NIH behavioral research, and an accompanying House report explained that this should include research to prevent self-directed violence, but firearms were not expressly mentioned. See H. REPT. 116-62 (2019). At the same time, however, a provision of the bill applicable to these sections contains