Monday was another day with a cavalcade of bills streaming through the House of Representatives.

While you were watching the bailout (just at the moment I’m posting this, the House is debating the rule that would govern its debate on the Senate-passed bailout bill), or perhaps noting the beginning of the new fiscal year without a budget for most federal agencies, Congress was passing bills on half the things under the sun.

[Previous posts in this series: Silly Season on Capitol Hill; Silly Season, Part Deux; and Silly Season, Part C.]

Here are some of the bills that saw action on the House floor Monday:

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Silly season on Capitol Hill. It’s that special time of year when Congress nears the end of its scheduled session and decides to do all its work at once. Dozens of bills fly across the House floor with little debate.

They’re not all bad bills, but nothing prevented Congress from addressing them at a careful pace all through the winter, spring, and summer.

This year has been particularly silly, as Congress didn’t even try to follow its annual budgeting and spending process. It just passed a temporary measure on the fly, funding the government through the first half of the fiscal year in one big bill.

Then along came the financial services crisis. (Or is it a “crisis”? I’m less and less sure that it’s a crisis for anyone more than the investment bankers who overextended themselves.)

Smack dab at the end of the session, right when members want to go home and campaign, they have to think about a $700 bailout of the financial services industry. (Text of the proposal that failed Monday is here.)

Congress comes back Thursday – maybe to consider another bailout proposal. Don’t lose focus on that issue just yet!

But for the moment, let’s take a look at some of what the Congress did while we focused on everything else that Congress was doing. These are the bills that went to the floor of the House of Representatives on Saturday. The bills that were on the House floor last Thursday and Friday are here and here. Monday’s bills coming soon:
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Congress has all the planning skills and foresight of a teenager.

Y’know how when mom and dad are coming back from their weekend away, the kid tries to do all the chores for the weekend in the last hour? That’s Congress.

So as we wrap up the current Session, Congress is racing to do all the things it should have done all year long. Members are throwing every pet project they’ve got at the leadership, hoping to get it through before the Congress ends.

Sure, we’ve got spending decisions for fiscal year 2009, and this financial services bailout, but let’s try to get through dozens of other bills at the same time.

Here’s a look at all the bills that were on the House floor just yesterday. Lots of them are simple and straightforward, but nothing kept Congress from addressing them all through the year.

Congress waited until the last minute and most assuredly isn’t showing these bills, or the really big issues before it, the care it should. We citizens haven’t gotten much of a chance to look them over either.

H.R. 3018
The Family Self-Sufficiency Act of 2007

H.R. 3402
The Calling Card Consumer Protection Act

H.R. 3232
The Travel Promotion Act of 2007

H.R. 6950
The Stephanie Tubbs Jones Gift of Life Medal Act of 2008

H.R. 1014
The Heart Disease Education, Analysis Research, and Treatment for Women Act

H.R. 6946
To make a technical correction in the NET 911 Improvement Act of 2008

H.R. 1343
The Health Centers Renewal Act of 2007
Costs $102.88 per family

S. 2932
The Poison Center Support, Enhancement, and Awareness Act of 2008

S. 1810
The Prenatally and Postnatally Diagnosed Conditions Awareness Act
Costs $0.17 per family

S. 1382
The ALS Registry Act
Costs $0.62 per family

H.R. 6568
The Tom Lantos Pulmonary Hypertension Research and Education Act of 2008

H.R. 6901
The Meth Free Families and Communities Act

H.R. 6469
The Organ Transplant Authorization Act of 2008

H.R. 1157
The Breast Cancer and Environmental Research Act of 2007

H.R. 758
The Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act of 2007
Costs $0.00 per family

H.R. 4544
The Code Talkers Recognition Act of 2007

H.R. 4120
The Effective Child Pornography Prosecution Act of 2007

H.R. 6045
The Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Act of 2008

S. 1046
The Senior Professional Performance Act of 2007
Costs $0.05 per family

S. 928
The Homeowners Protection Act of 2007

What do avocadoes have to do with national security? Nothing!

One of the things the federal government is supposed to be doing is protecting the nation. One of the things the federal government is not supposed to be doing is marketing avocadoes.

But there it is, looking after the marketing of avocadoes grown in southern Florida.

In a Federal Register announcement out this morning, the Agricultural Marketing Service, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is initiating a referendum among producers of avocadoes in south Florida to see if they want the marketing order regulating the handling of their avocadoes to continue.

What are marketing orders? According to the USDA:

Federal marketing orders are locally administered by committees made up of growers and/or handlers, and often a member of the public. Marketing order regulations, initiated by industry and enforced by USDA, bind the entire industry in the geographical area regulated if approved by producers and the Secretary of Agriculture.

What that means is that everybody producing a crop in a certain area has to pay in to a marketing and promotion fund for uses dictated by the majority of producers in that area. Big agribusinesses get to force the small ones to pay for programs that benefit the big agribusinesses because they’re usually the majority of producers and they set the rules. Result? Less competition and less variety in the crops that come to market.

The Agriculture Marketing Service is part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is funded by the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. The Senate version of this bill is S. 3289.

Here’s the current vote on the bill. Click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki article about the bill.

Last week, I wrote here about Congress passing through 10,000 introduced bills even while the annual spending process goes neglected.

Now the Wall Street Journal has picked up the story, coming at it from a slightly different angle. The story is called “As U.S. Economic Problems Loom, House, Senate Sweat the Small Stuff,” and reporter Elizabeth Williamson points out how many symbolic resolutions have been introduced in Congress while the real work of government goes by the wayside.

The 110th Congress, whose term officially ends in January, hasn’t passed any spending bills or attacked high gasoline prices. But it has used its powers to celebrate watermelons and to decree the origins of the word “baseball.”

Williamson’s story emphasizes the small number of bills that have been passed into law, but counting laws is not an appropriate measurement of Congress’ work. A small number of high quality laws would be much better than numerous junk laws.

But like the 10,000 bills post, the story highlights the fact that Congress hasn’t taken care of its basic responsibilities.

Congress, which won’t return to session until September, has yet to pass any 2009 appropriations bills, even though funding the federal budget is its official function. Before leaving town for summer break in August, lawmakers failed to establish August as Heat Stroke Awareness Month, blowing the deadline to make it official.

Now, you won’t find the Heat Stroke Awareness Month resolution or the “we love watermelon” resolution here on WashingtonWatch.com. We have them in our database, but generally don’t display the symbolic bills. The 10,000 bills I wrote about are all substantive and not the symbolic stuff featured in the WSJ story.

But the point is the same. Congress is frittering away its time, while its basic responsibilities are going neglected.

As I finished assembling the WashingtonWatch.com Digest for the week (see it here), I realized that the featured laws represent an interesting cross-section of things the federal government does – though not nearly all of it, of course.

Take Public Law 110-315, the College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007. This is mostly about redistributing wealth. The $1,200 in spending per U.S. family is mostly intended to go toward getting young people through college.

Does it actually get there? Not so sure. And does it go from, say, people who have plenty of money to people in need? Doubtful. This looks like classic middle-class entitlement legislation. Feel free to blast me in the comments if you think it’s not.

Then there’s Public Law 110-314, the Consumer Product Safety Modernization Act. It’s a classic example of public health and safety regulation.

Does it do the job and cost-effectively make us safer? There’s often more to the story, as regulatory agencies can be captured by the companies they regulate. But at thirty cents or so per U.S. family (and whatever costs might be imposed by the regulations – which are very hard to determine), it’s hard to complain about this one compared to one costing $1,200.

Finally, Public Law 110-316, the Animal Drug User Fee Amendments of 2008. This is also health and safety regulation. But . . . it’s about the health and safety of animals.

A buck-fifty per family isn’t a lot, but how many buck-fifty programs at the outer edge or beyond the federal government’s real responsibility are you willing to support? It’s stuff like animal drug regulation that we created the Jack of All Trades – Master of None category for.

WashingtonWatch.com isn’t going to make you an expert on every bill in Congress, but perhaps you’ll be in a better position to make a few judgments about what you like and don’t like. Keep watching.

The variety of things your government does is nearly endless. Here’s an announcement by the Institute of Museum and Library Services in the National Foundation for the Arts and Humanities that they will be studying the impact of free access to computers and the Internet at public libraries. (Yes, there’s an Institute of Museum and Library Services. You’re paying for it.)

Want me to tell you what the impact of free Internet access in libraries is? Some people who otherwise couldn’t can get online for free. Some people who could pay for Internet access don’t because they can get it for free at the library. And some of the people using the Internet at the library look at porn and stuff, which is pretty creepy. There’s your study!

But maybe there’s more to it. Should your tax dollars go to the Institute of Museum and Library Services in the National Foundation for the Arts and Humanities so it can conduct this study?

It’s funded through the Interior Appropriations bill. Alas, neither the House nor the Senate has even introduced an Interior Approps bill. They should have – the new fiscal year starts October 1st, just a few weeks after Congress returns from its August recess.

(Here’s last year’s House and Senate bills – costing about $225 per U.S. family – which were rolled into the big ol’ Consolidated Appropriations Act ($9,400/U.S. family). Congress passed it in late December, 2007 – almost three months into the current fiscal year.)

As you know, I’m constantly on the look-out for undiscovered corners from the business of governing. And this morning I came across a timely item for you.

As luck would have it – just in time for those summer vacations – the Food and Drug Administration put a note in the Federal Register this morning announcing the availability of a draft guidance entitled “Labeling OTC Skin Protectant Drug Products.”

A “guidance” is a document that agencies put out to clear up the ambiguities in their regulations. Now, regulations are supposed to clear up the ambiguities in the statutes that Congress has passed, but, hey, sometimes that’s hard. So you’ve got to have a guidance to clear up what’s in the regulation that cleared up what’s in the statute. There’s one last step to know about: if the guidances don’t actually clear things up – or if the guidances conflict with one another – another important part of the regulatory process kicks in: you’re screwed.

Anyway, the FDA this guidance is on “Labeling OTC Skin Protectant Drug Products.” That’s your sunscreens and burn creams and whatnot. “OTC” means “over-the-counter,” so we’re talking about the junk you go buy at the drug store when you’re heading out to get some sun, or when you’ve already gotten too much sun, or when your outdoor adventures brought some poison ivy in contact with your thighs, or whatever.

So, each of the active ingredients in these topical ointments has specific labeling requirements. But what do you do when there is more than one active ingredient? You’re looking at some serious label clutter! And is it even allowed? That’s where this FDA publication comes in: “This guidance is designed to clarify the permitted combinations of active ingredients along with the corresponding required labeling.” The summer’s looking bright indeed . . .

Now the FDA only told us in the Federal Register about the availability of the guidance. It didn’t actually put it in there. But luckily I was able to go dig it up on Regulations.gov using a search of the docket number. (Who wants to go out in the sun anyway when you can be searching Regulations.gov?)

So without further ado, we present the FDA’s “Guidance for Industry: Labeling OTC Skin Protectant Drug Products.” Download it and take it to the beach or the lake with you this summer. Give it a read over and see if you understand it. ‘Cause it looks like a whole bunch of gobbledegook to me. But that gobbledegook is there to make your summer ointment a smooth and creamy one. Thank you, FDA!

Before leaving for its August recess last week, Congress saw the introduction of its 10,000th bill. Meanwhile, not a single one of the twelve annual bills that direct the government’s spending priorities in 2009 has passed the Senate and only one has passed the House. Congress is neglecting its basic responsibility to manage the federal government, and is instead churning out new legislation about everything under the sun.

The current Congress is on pace to easily beat the record 10,537 bills introduced in the 109th Congress. In the 109th (2005-2006), the 10,000th bill was introduced on September 18th, well after the August recess.

The number of bills introduced in each Congress has been rapidly increasing over the last twelve years. In the 104th Congress (1995-1996), there were 6,542 bills introduced. In the 105th (1997-1998), 7,529. The 106th (1999-2000), 107th (2001-2002), and 108th (2003-2004) saw bill introductions in the high 8,000s, and in the 109th (2005-2006), the number of bills first pierced through 10,000.

Yet, each year, Congress has failed to timely complete the annual appropriations process, which divides taxpayer dollars among different federal agencies and programs, guiding the government’s priorities.

The current 2008 fiscal year began on October 1, 2007, but Congress didn’t finish the spending process until nearly three months later, on December 26th. Congress didn’t finish work on the government’s priorities for fiscal 2007 until mid-February of that year, more than a third of the way through the fiscal year. Currently, congressional leaders may already be planning on letting the spending process collapse.

So what is Congress focused on instead? We’ve been cataloguing a few of them here.

Our “Jack of All Trades – Master of None” series has been listing bills where Congress is wandering away from the basic responsibilities of the federal government or into trivia. The latest example? A bill that would require the postal service to issue a commemorative postage stamp on the subject of inflammatory bowel disease.

Our “. . . and a Pony” series point out where Congress overpromises what it can do. There seem to be a lot in the area of health care these days. Health care for all Americans! – as if saying it confidently enough will make it so. Members of Congress should be getting back to basics and passing spending bills on time – not posturing or introducing fanciful bills.

A particularly annoying recent bill was introduced simply for political posturing. It would have moved the detainees from Guantanamo Bay to the grounds of the Supreme Court. This is not a Congress that takes its job seriously.

In case you’re curious, H.R. 6641 was the 10,000th bill introduced in the current Congress. (We didn’t count joint resolutions, concurrent resolutions, and all the rest). The bill would put small businesses in the queue for federal largesse if they’re in an area that has suffered a disaster. The bill was introduced by the five members of Congress representing Iowa. Y’know, the Iowa that just saw all the flooding. What the state lost in corn may be made up in pork.

This is one stamp that had better be self-adhesive . . . .

Here’s the current vote on H.R. 6753, which provides for the issuance of a commemorative postage stamp on the subject of inflammatory bowel disease.