As ordered reported by the House Committee on the Judiciary on January 21, 2015
H.R. 159 would make several changes to laws related to human trafficking:
Section 2 would allow the Attorney General to apply preferential treatment when making some public safety grants to states that have adopted certain laws related to trafficking victims, but would not change the funding level for those grants.
Section 3 would require the Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking to expand its reporting on certain trafficking-related crimes. CBO expects the provision would have little effect on the workload of the task force.
Section 4 would require the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to provide funding for a national hotline for trafficking victims. Under current law, HHS already provides a multiyear grant that partially funds the National Human Trafficking Resource Center.
Section 5 would make trafficking victims eligible to participate in the Job Corps if they meet the age and income requirements, but would not change total funding for the Job Corps program.
CBO estimates that enacting the legislation would have no significant effect on discretionary spending and would not affect direct spending or revenues; therefore, pay-as-you-go procedures do not apply.
H.R. 159 contains no intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act and would impose no costs on state, local, or tribal governments.
