Statement of House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte Markup of H.R. 2831, “A Bill to Make Technical Amendments to Update Statutory References To Certain Provisions Classified to Chapters 44, 45, 46, and 47 of Title 50, U.S. Code”

Chairman Goodlatte: As I previously stated, the Office of the Law Revision Counsel must occasionally undertake editorial reclassification projects to reorganize areas of law that have outgrown their original boundaries, or to eliminate organizational units that are no longer efficient. H.R. 2831 reflects yet another of the Office’s editorial reclassification efforts, and I thank Ranking Member Conyers (D-Mich.) for cosponsoring this bill as well. H.R. 2831 will update statutory references to provisions classified to title 50. The Office of the Law Revision Counsel has prepared this bill and submitted it to the Committee as part of the Office’s ongoing responsibility to maintain the Code and assist the Committee in the revision and codification of Federal statutes. In May of 2013, title 50 was editorially reorganized to set forth more clearly the provisions of the National Security Act of 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949, the National Security Agency Act of 1959, and certain other related statutes. No statutory text was altered in the reorganization; the provisions were merely transferred from one place to another in title 50. The change was necessary to improve the organizational structure of the material in the United States Code. The decision to transfer provisions in the United States Code is not undertaken lightly by the Office of Law Revision Counsel. After careful study, the Office concluded that certain organizational deficiencies in title 50 needed to be corrected. The Office assures us that the short-term inconvenience of adjusting to these new classifications is greatly outweighed by the benefit of making much needed long-term improvements in the organizational structure of our national security laws. The technical amendments made by this Act update United States Code citations embedded in the text of our public laws to reflect the new Code citations for the provisions. Further, to eliminate any confusion, the Office of Law Revision Counsel provides a comprehensive guide to the old and new code citations for this title on its website: uscode.house.gov. H.R. 2831 is an important bill because it helps ensure that our laws are up-to-date and accurately reflect the location of statutory text in the United States Code. For these reasons, I urge my colleagues to support this important bill. Click here to learn more about today’s markup.