H.R. 3210 would amend current law to require the National Background Investigations Bureau (NBIB), within the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), to provide various reports to the Congress. Those reports would cover information about the backlog in federal investigations for security clearances, the process for conducting security clearances for the Executive Office of the President, and the costs to NBIB and the Department of Defense for such investigations. In addition, OPM and the Director of National Intelligence would be directed to report on the status of modernizing security clearance procedures. Finally, H.R. 3210 would require OPM to review, update, and report on security clearance designations for federal employee and contractor employment positions.
Information from OPM indicates that the information required for H.R. 3210 is already compiled for other efforts. Thus, CBO estimates it would cost less than $500,000 over the 2018-2022 period to prepare the reports; such spending would be subject to the availability of appropriated funds.
Enacting H.R. 3210 would not affect direct spending or revenues; therefore, pay-as-you-go procedures do not apply.
CBO estimates that enacting H.R. 3210 would not increase net direct spending or on-budget deficits in any of the four consecutive 10-year periods beginning in 2028.
H.R. 3210 contains no intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act.
On July 25, 2017, CBO transmitted a cost estimate for H.R. 3210, as ordered reported by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on July 19, 2017. The two pieces of legislation are similar, although the Senate version would require more reports; CBO’s estimates of the budgetary effects of the two bills are the same.