REEF Act

Railroad Employee Equity and Fairness Act or the REEF Act

This bill permanently exempts payments made from the Railroad Unemployment Insurance Account from sequestration. Sequestration is a process of automatic, usually across-the-board spending reductions under which budgetary resources are permanently cancelled to enforce specific budget policy goals.

Currently, this exemption ends 30 days after the termination of the COVID-19 national emergency period.

[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 545 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

<DOC>






117th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                 S. 545

  To permanently exempt payments made from the Railroad Unemployment 
  Insurance Account from sequestration under the Balanced Budget and 
                 Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                March 2 (legislative day, March 1), 2021

 Mr. Portman (for himself, Ms. Klobuchar, Mr. Brown, and Mrs. Fischer) 
introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the 
                        Committee on the Budget

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
  To permanently exempt payments made from the Railroad Unemployment 
  Insurance Account from sequestration under the Balanced Budget and 
                 Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLES.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Railroad Employee Equity and 
Fairness Act'' or the ``REEF Act''.

SEC. 2. TREATMENT OF PAYMENTS FROM THE RAILROAD UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE 
              ACCOUNT.

    (a) Amendments.--Section 235 of the Continued Assistance to Rail 
Workers Act of 2020 (subchapter III of title II of division N of Public 
Law 116-260) is amended--
            (1) in subsection (b)--
                    (A) by striking paragraphs (1) and (2); and
                    (B) by striking ``subsection (a)--'' and inserting 
                ``subsection (a) shall take effect 7 days after the 
                date of enactment of the Continued Assistance to Rail 
                Workers Act of 2020.''; and
            (2) by striking subsection (c).
    (b) Applicability.--The amendments made by subsection (a) shall 
apply as if enacted on the date before the date on which the national 
emergency concerning the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak 
declared by the President on March 13, 2020, under the National 
Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.) terminates.
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