Press reports indicate that House conservatives are pushing for budget process reform changes as a condition of securing their votes on the upcoming House budget resolution, and their demands include a controversial proposal for a program sunset commission. The House GOP leadership may give serious consideration to such a proposal in order to pass a budget resolution this year. In attempts to appease conservatives concerned that the budget resolution that passed the House Budget Committee last Wednesday does not go far enough, the GOP leadership met with the conservative House Republican Study Committee (RSC) last week and made public calls for budget process reforms, including the president's line-tem veto proposal, earmark reforms, and consideration of more radical changes, such as biennial budgeting and sunset commissions. It is unclear if these promises will be enough to hold conservatives in the face of increased discretionary spending. The House plans to vote on the budget resolution at the end of this week. The sunset commission idea, which in the past has cropped up as stand-alone legislation and as a proposal in the White House budget, would force government programs to plead for their lives every ten years or face elimination. Programs up for review would have to submit a report justifying their continued existence. Congress would then have to affirmatively vote to keep the program, or it would be automatically eliminated. The RSC has named the sunset commission proposal as a top priority for budget process reform. According to Congress Daily (subscription-only), the RSC has asked House leadership for a "date certain" for debate of sunset commissions, though such a debate has yet to be scheduled and the prospects of budget process reform passing are still unknown. If the sunset commission proposal were to go through, it could be devastating for public protections, by tying up ever-diminishing agency resources in defending their own existence rather than fulfilling congressional mandates to protect public health, safety, the environment and civil rights. Moreover, Congress already has the authority to restructure government programs and agencies when it determines the need to do so. Congress creates the agencies by statute in the first instance, and it revisits their effectiveness and continued existence each year through the budget process. The White House's proposal would usurp power from Congress by entrusting unelected commissions with important decisions about the structure and function of all government services. Several bills to implement sunset commissions have been introduced in this Congress, but only one has so far been the subject of a hearing. No bill has been marked up or reported out of committee.