CBO estimates that implementing H.R. 1656 would increase spending subject to appropriation by less than $500,000 annually. Because enacting H.R. 1656 would affect direct spending and revenues, pay-as-you-go procedures apply, but CBO estimates that any such effects would be negligible. CBO also estimates that enacting the legislation would not increase net direct spending or on-budget deficits in any of the four consecutive 10-year periods beginning in 2027.
H.R. 1656 would authorize the United States Secret Service to hire additional law enforcement personnel and construct facilities for training those individuals. The act also would direct the agency to establish an office to provide ethics training for employees. According to the Secret Service, the agency is already hiring the personnel and constructing the facilities that would be specifically authorized by the act. Consequently, implementing H.R. 1656 would not affect spending for those activities. Based on information from the Secret Service, CBO estimates that it would cost less than $500,000 annually to operate the ethics office required by the legislation; such spending would be subject to the availability of appropriated funds.
H.R. 1656 also would broaden the coverage of current laws against accessing restricted buildings and threatening a Vice President of the United States. Because CBO expects that the legislation would apply to a relatively small number of offenders, any increase in costs for law enforcement, court proceedings, or prison operations would not be significant.
Because those prosecuted and convicted under H.R. 1656 could be subject to criminal fines, the federal government might collect additional fines under the act. Criminal fines are recorded as revenues, deposited in the Crime Victims Fund, and are available to spend without further appropriation action. CBO expects that any additional revenues and subsequent direct spending would not be significant because of the small number of cases likely to be affected.
H.R. 1656 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 July 31, 2015, CBO transmitted a cost estimate for H.R. 1656, the Secret Service Improvements Act of 2015, as passed by the House of Representatives on July 27, 2015. The two versions of the act are similar and CBO’s estimate of the budgetary effects are the same.
