An unfunded mandate is a statute or regulation that requires any entity to perform certain actions, with no money provided for fulfilling the requirements. This can be imposed on state or local government, as well as private individuals or organizations. The key distinction is that the statute or regulation is not accompanied by funding to fulfill the requirement.
An example in the United States, would be those federal mandates that induce "responsibility, action, procedure or anything else that is imposed by constitutional, administrative, executive, or judicial action" for state and local governments and/or the private sector.Catherine H. Lovell, Max Neiman, Robert Kneisel, Adam Rose, and Charles Tobin (June 1979). Federal and State Mandating on Local Governments: Report to the National Science Foundation. Riverside, CA: University of California, p. 32
As of 1992, 172 federal mandates obliged state or local governments to fund programs to some extent.Dilger, Robert J., and Richard S. Beth. Unfunded Mandates Reform Act: History, Impact, and Issues. Publication no. 7-5700. Congressional Research Service, 2012. Print.<https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R40957.pdf> Beginning with the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as well as the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the United States federal government has designed laws that require state and local government spending to promote national goals. During the 1970s, the national government promoted education, mental health, and environmental programs by implementing grant projects at a state and local level; the grants were so common that the federal assistance for these programs made up over a quarter of state and local budgets.Salamon, Lester M., and Michael S. Lund. Beyond Privatization: The Tools of Government Action. Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute, 1989. The rise in federal mandates led to more mandate regulation. During the Reagan Administration, Executive Order 12291 and the State and Local Cost Estimate Act of 1981 were passed, which implemented a careful examination of the true costs of federal unfunded mandates.Public law 97-108.United States. Cong. House. House Committee on Rules. Statement. By Alice M. Rivlin. H. Doc. Congressional Budget Office, 1981. Print. More reform for federal mandates came in 1995 with the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA), which promoted a Congressional focus on the costs imposed onto intergovernmental entities and the private sector because of federal mandates.Anderson, Stacy, and Russell Constantine. Unfunded Mandates. Briefing Paper No. 7. Harvard Law School Federal Budget Policy Seminar, 3 May 2005. Web. 8 Apr. 2012. <http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/hjackson/UnfundedMandates_7.pdf>United States. Environmental Protection Agency. Summary of the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act. Print. Familiar examples of Federal Unfunded Mandates in the United States include the Americans with Disabilities Act and Medicaid.
Background An "intergovernmental mandate" generally refers to the responsibilities or activities that one level of government imposes on another by legislative, executive or judicial action.Lex, Leo. "Intergovernmental Mandates in Federal Legislation," CBO Economic and Budget Issue Brief, (July: 2009). According to the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 (UMRA), an intergovernmental mandate can take various forms: An enforceable duty – this refers to any type of legislation, statute or regulation that either requires or proscribes an action of state or local governments, excluding actions imposed as conditions of receiving federal aid.Congressional Budget Office. "Identifying Intergovernmental Mandates," Economic and Budget Issue Brief. Jan 2005. 2. Certain changes in large entitlement programs – this refers to instances when new conditions or reductions in large entitlement programs, providing $5 billion or more annually to state or local governments, are imposed by the federal government. A reduction in federal funding for an existing mandate – this refers to a reduction or elimination of federal funding authorized to cover the costs of an existing mandate.
A 1993 study conducted by Price Waterhouse, sponsored by the National Association of Counties, determined that in fiscal year 1993 counties in the US spent $4.8 billion for twelve unfunded federal mandates.Price Waterhouse letter to the Honorable Barbara Sheen Todd, National Association of Counties, 25 October 1993. Medicaid was one of these twelve unfunded mandates, and comprised the second largest item in state budgets, accounting for almost 13 percent of state general revenues in 1993.Johnston, Jocelyn. "The Medicaid Mandates of the 1980s: An Intergovernmental Perspective," Public Budgeting and Finance (Spring, 1997), 3–34.
Mandates can be applied either vertically or horizontally.Herzfeld, Daniel. "Accountability and the Nondelegation of Unfunded Mandates: A Public Choice Analysis of the Supreme Court's Tenth Amendment Federalism Jurisprudence," George Mason Law Review. 419. (1998–1999) Vertically applied mandates are directed by a level of government at a single department or program. Conversely, horizontally applied, or "crosscutting", mandates refer to mandates that affect various departments or programs.Lovell, Chatherine and Tobin, Charles. "The Mandate Issue," Public Administration Review, Vol. 41, No. 3 (May–June, 1981). 318–31. For example, a mandate requiring county health departments to provide outpatient mental health programs would be considered a vertically applied mandate, whereas a requirement that all offices in a given jurisdiction to become handicap-accessible would be considered a horizontally applied mandate.
History Federal unfunded mandates can be traced back to the post-World War II years, when the federal government initiated national programs in education, mental health services, and environmental protection.Smith, Tom W. 1990. "Liberal and Conservative Trends in the United States since World War II." Public Opinion Quarterly 54:479–50 The method for implementing these projects at the state and local level was to involve state and local governments. In the 1970s, the federal government utilized grants as a way to increase state and local participation, which resulted in federal assistance constituting over 25 percent of state and local budgets.
The first wave of major mandates occurred in the 1960s and 1970s, concerning civil rights, education, and the environment.Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief. 1982. Reagan administration achievements in regulatory relief for state and local governments: A progress report. Washington, D.C. The arrival of the Reagan administration ostensibly undermined various federal mandate efforts, as the executive branch promised to decrease federal regulatory efforts. For example, the passage of Executive Order 12291 required a cost-benefit analysis and an Office of Management and Budget clearance on proposed agency regulations, and the State and Local Cost Estimate Act of 1981 required the Congressional Budget Office to determine the state and local cost effects of proposed federal legislation moving through the Legislative Branch. However, the U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (ACIR) reported that, during the 1980s, more major intergovernmental regulatory programs were enacted than during the 1970s.Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, Federal Regulation of State and Local Governments: The Mixed Record of the 1980s, A-126 (Washington, DC: ACIR, 1993).
According to a 1995 Brookings Institution report, in 1980 there were 36 laws that qualified as unfunded mandates. Despite opposition from the Reagan administration and George H. W. Bush administration, an additional 27 laws that could be categorized as unfunded mandates went into effect between 1982 and 1991.Dilulio, John and Don Kettl, Fine Print: The Contract with America, Devolution, and the Administrative Realities of American Federalism (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1995), p. 41.
The U.S. Supreme Court has been involved in deciding the federal government's role in the U.S. governmental system based on constitutionality."A Brief Overview of the Supreme Court" (PDF). United States Supreme Court. Retrieved 2009-12-31. During the period between the New Deal era and the mid-1980s the court generally utilized an expansive interpretation of the interstate commerce clause and the 14th Amendment to validate the growth of the federal government's involvement in domestic policymaking.Lawson, Gary. "The Rise and Rise of the Administrative State". Harvard Law Review. 1237–41 (1994). For example, the 1985 Supreme Court case Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority affirmed the ability for the federal government to directly regulate state and local governmental affairs.Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 105 S. Ct. 1005 (1985).
The increase of mandates in the 1980s and 1990s incited state and local protest.Gullo, Theresa A. and Janet M. Kelly, "Federal Unfunded Mandate Reform: A First-Year Retrospective", Public Administration Review, Vol. 58, (Sept. 1998). 380. In October 1993, state and local interest groups sponsored a National Unfunded Mandates Day, which involved press conferences and appeals to congressional delegations about mandate relief. In early 1995, Congress passed unfunded mandate reform legislation.Public Law 104-4, 109 Stat. 48.
In 1992 the court determined in various cases that the US Constitution provides state and locality protections concerning unfunded mandate enactments.New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144 (1992). For example, in the 1992 case New York v. United States, the Court struck down a federal law that regulated the disposal of low-level radioactive waste, which utilized the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution to require states to dispose of the radioactive material.
Examples Unfunded mandates are most commonly utilized in regulation of civil rights, anti-poverty programs and environmental protection programs.Lowi, Theodore J., Benjamin Ginsberg, Kenneth A. Shepsle, and Stephen Ansolabehere. "Federalism and the Separation of Powers." American Government Power and Purpose. 11th ed. New York: W W Norton & Co, 2010. 59-60.
Clean Air Act The Clean Air Act was passed in 1963 to support the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), established on December 2, 1970, in developing research programs looking into air pollution problems and solutions."History| Clean Air Act | US EPA." EPA. Environmental Protection Agency. Web. 17 Apr. 2012. <>. The EPA received authority to research air quality. The 1970 Amendments to the Clean Air Act established the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, authorized requirements for control of motor vehicle emissions, increased the federal enforcement authority but required states to implement plans to adhere to these standards.Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. § 110 (1970). The 1990 Amendments to the Clean Air Act of 1970 expanded and modified the National Ambient Air Quality Standards and expanded and modified enforcement authority. The amendments increased the mandates on states to comply with the federal standards for air quality. States have had to write up State Implementation Plans, have them approved by the EPA and must also fund the implementation.
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990