Under current law, the National Telecommunications and Information Agency (NTIA) has certain responsibilities to oversee the Internet Domain Name System (DNS). The DNS is the system that maintains files that link domain names with numerical addresses needed to locate computer services and devices. The agency has announced plans to transfer those responsibilities to the international community; in preparation for that event, NTIA has requested a proposal from global stakeholders outlining a transition plan.
S. 1551 would direct the NTIA to retain those responsibilities for a 30-day period after the agency submits a report to the Congress that contains the proposed transition plan and a certification by the agency that the plan meets NTIA’s criteria for acceptance and that certain accountability measures have been adopted by the group of stakeholders proposing the plan.
Based on information from the NTIA, CBO expects that the new reporting requirement would not have a significant effect on the agency’s workload and would have an insignificant cost. Pay-as-you-go procedures do not apply to this legislation because enacting the bill would not affect direct spending or revenues.
S. 1551 contains no intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act and would not affect the budgets of state, local, or tribal governments.
On June 19, 2015, CBO transmitted a cost estimate for H.R. 805, the Domain Openness Through Continued Oversight Matters Act of 2015, as ordered reported by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on June 17, 2015. The two bills are similar and CBO’s estimates of the budgetary effects are the same.
