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.
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! With respect to the second amendment, the conference report may
propose that the House recede from its disagreement to the Senate
amendment and then concur in it--in other words, that the Senate’s
position should prevail.
! And with respect to the third amendment, the conference report may
propose, first, that the House recede from its disagreement to the Senate
amendment and then concur in it with a House amendment, the text of
which is printed in the conference report, and, second, that the Senate
also concur in this House amendment--in other words, that a compromise
between the House and Senate positions should prevail.
The conference report itself only contains formal statements of whatever procedural
actions the conferees propose that one or both houses take, and the formal legislative
language the conferees propose that the two houses approve. Thus, the conference report
is essentially comparable to the text of a bill that a standing committee reports to the
House or Senate. The joint explanatory statement, on the other hand, corresponds to the
written report that the standing committee usually prepares to accompany the bill and to
explain the committee’s decisions. Clause 7(d) of House Rule XXII and paragraph 4 of
Senate Rule XXVIII describe the purpose of this statement in comparable terms. The
Senate rule states in part that the “statement shall be sufficiently detailed and explicit to
inform the Senate as to the effect which the amendments or propositions contained in [the
conference] report will have upon the measure to which those amendments or propositions
relate.”
The joint explanatory statement typically identifies each major matter in disagreement
that was submitted to the conferees. The statement then summarizes the House position,
the Senate position, and the conferees’ recommendation. When the conferees have
negotiated over a series of numbered amendments, the statement of managers is likely to
discuss each of these amendments in sequence. When the conferees have negotiated over
a bill passed by one house and an amendment in the nature of a substitute approved by the
other, a situation that often arises, the statement is likely to discuss the House, Senate, and
conference positions on each of the major issues that the two versions of the bill address.
Like standing committee reports accompanying bills, joint explanatory statements often
contain explanations of the conference committee’s intent that may prove informative as
legislative history. Unlike standing committee reports, however, joint explanatory
statements may not contain statements of minority or additional views.
Each conference report and joint explanatory statement are printed in the House
portion of the Congressional Record; in addition, they are printed together as a single
House report. Senate Rule XXVIII also requires that the report and statement be printed
as a Senate report. By unanimous consent, however, the Senate normally waives this
requirement because the report and accompanying statement are printed as a House report,
and there is no need for the same documents to be printed twice.