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Statement of Administration Policy: H.R. 3286 - The Adoption Promotion and Stability Act of 1996

May 09, 1996

STATEMENT OF ADMINISTRATION POLICY
This Statement Has Been Coordinated by OMB with the Appropriate Agencies

(House)
(Molinari (R) NY and 6 cosponsors)

The Administration strongly supports H.R. 3286, without the inclusion of Title III. Today, families who seek to adopt children face significant barriers, including high adoption costs and outdated assumptions, the Administration is deeply committed to removing these barriers and making adoption easier. The Administration strongly supports the bill's $5,000 per child adoption tax credit. The tax credit will alleviate a primary barrier to adoption and enable middle class families, for whom adoption may be too expensive, to adopt children. The Administration also supports the adoption and foster care provisions in Title III of the bill. These provisions are consistent with the Administration's current policy.

The Administration strongly supports passage of a Young amendment, which has bipartisan support, to strike Title III from the bill. Title III would allow State courts to pre-empt tribal governments in decisions regarding the custody of Indian children. These provisions raise serious concerns because they would impinge on Indian tribal sovereignty, including the right of tribal courts to determine internal tribal relations.

The Administration will work with Congress to identify more suitable offsets to the lost tax receipts resulting from the bill's adoption tax credit. The Administration opposes the offset provision that would repeal the income exclusion for utility payments to businesses for energy conservation investments; the provision would effectively increase the taxes on these investments. By ending an important market-based incentive to conserve energy, the provision would undercut our ability to achieve clean air and energy security. The bill's other offset — tightening the reporting requirements for U.S. holders of foreign trusts -- is included in the President's balanced budget proposal for purposes of deficit reduction.

Pay-As-You-Go Scoring

H.R. 3286 will affect receipts; therefore it is subject to the pay-as-you-go requirement of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990. OMB's preliminary scoring estimate is presented in the table below. Final scoring of this legislation may deviate from this estimate.

PAY-AS-YOU-GO ESTIMATE
(Receipts in millions)

  1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 1996-2002
Receipts +110 +318 +224 +154 +99 +56 +16 +977

William J. Clinton, Statement of Administration Policy: H.R. 3286 - The Adoption Promotion and Stability Act of 1996 Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/327515

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