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1 (January 24, 2001)

handle is hein.crs/crsmthaahaw0001 and id is 1 raw text is: 
                                                             Order Code 98-382 GOV
                                                             Updated January 24, 2001



 CRS Report for Congress

              Received through the CRS Web



                  Conference Reports and

              Joint Explanatory Statements

                              Stanley Bach
               Senior Specialist in the Legislative Process
                    Government and Finance Division


    When a conference committee completes its work successfully, the committee
presents and explains its agreements in two documents: first, a conference report; and
second, a joint explanatory statement, sometimes called a statement of managers.

    The conference report presents the formal legislative language on which the
conference committee has agreed. The joint explanatory statement explains the various
elements of the conferees' agreement in relation to the positions that the House and Senate
had committed to the conference committee.

    Two copies of each document must be signed by a majority of the House conferees
and by a majority of the Senate conferees. One pair of the signed documents is retained
by each house's conferees. Thus, a conferee who supports the conference agreement signs
four signature sheets, two for the conference report and two for the joint explanatory
statement. Of course, conferees who do not support the agreement are not expected to
sign any of the signature sheets.

    The House and Senate create a conference committee to resolve the disagreements
that result when one house passes a bill and the other house then passes the same bill with
one or more amendments. It is those amendments that are in disagreement between the
houses and that are the subjects of conference negotiations. In their conference report, the
conferees propose a way to resolve the disagreement created by each of the amendments.

    Assume, for example, that the House passed a bill and that the Senate later passed
the same bill with three discrete amendments. These Senate amendments are numbered
in the order in which they would affect the House bill, and the conference report addresses
each of them in turn. There are essentially three ways in which conferees can propose to
dispose of each amendment: both houses can accept the Senate amendment, both houses
can reject it, or both houses can agree to a compromise between the Senate amendment
and the corresponding provision of the House-passed bill.

    * With respect to the first amendment, the conference report may propose
       that the Senate recede from its amendment--in other words, that the
       House's position should prevail.


       Congressional Research Service      The Library of Congress

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