CBO's activities under the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act, 1996-2000

Original publisher: [Washington, DC] : Congress of the U.S., Congressional Budget Office, [2001] OCLC Number: (OCoLC)49338210 Subject: Government spending policy -- United States. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER ONE THE FUNDAMENTALS OF THE UNFUNDED MANDATES REFORM ACT 3 The CBO mandate statement must also include an assessment of whether the bill authorizes or otherwise provides funding to cover the costs of any new federal mandate. In the case of intergovernmental mandates, the cost statement must, under certain circumstances, estimate the appropriations needed to fund such authorizations for up to 10 years after the mandate takes effect. If CBO cannot estimate the cost of a mandate, its statement must assert that such an estimate is not feasible and explain why. Conference committees must " to the greatest extent practicable " ensure that CBO prepares statements for conference agreements or amended bills if those measures contain mandates that were not previously considered by either House or if they impose greater direct costs than the version considered earlier. At the request of a Senator, CBO must estimate the costs of intergovernmental mandates contained in an amendment the Senator wishes to offer. The Congress may also call on CBO to prepare analyses at other stages of the legislative process. If asked by the Chairman or Ranking Minority Member of a committee, CBO will help committees analyze the impact of proposed legis-lation, conduct special studies of legislative proposals, or compare a federal agency's estimate of the costs of proposed regulations implementing a federal mandate with CBO's estimate of those costs made when the mandate was considered by the Congress. UMRA set the cost threshold for intergovernmental mandates at $ 50 million in What thresholds does UMRA 1996, adjusted annually for inflation. CBO estimates that for fiscal year 2000, set for CBO to provide the threshold was $ 55 million. For private-sector mandates, the annual threshold estimates...