S. 2223 would require the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to transfer 200 acres of land to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to expand a national cemetery. Based on information provided by the affected agencies, CBO estimates that enacting the legislation would have no significant effect on the federal budget.
Because enacting the bill would not affect direct spending or revenues, pay-as-you-go procedures do not apply. CBO estimates that enacting S. 2223 would not increase net direct spending or on-budget deficits in any of the four consecutive 10-year periods beginning in 2027.
Under the bill, the affected lands would be withdrawn from mining and mineral leasing activities. Based on information provided by BLM, CBO expects that those activities would not occur over the next 10 years and we estimate that withdrawing the lands would not affect the federal budget. In addition, CBO estimates that implementing S. 2223 would have insignificant costs for VA to cover administrative expenses associated with the transfer and make improvements to the Black Hills National Cemetery.
S. 2223 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 August 30, 2016, CBO transmitted a cost estimate for H.R. 3839, the Black Hills National Cemetery Boundary Expansion Act, as ordered reported by the House Committee on Natural Resources on June 15, 2016. H.R. 3839 contains a provision that would require VA to pay any costs to decontaminate land that the agency transfers back to BLM if it is not required for the cemetery. CBO determined that it could not estimate the cost of that provision. CBO’s estimated costs to carry out other provisions in the two bills are the same.
