S. 1621 would require the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to conduct a rulemaking to establish a methodology for collecting information about the availability of commercial mobile data services for Universal Service Fund programs.
On the basis of costs reported for similar FCC rulemakings, CBO estimates that implementing S. 1621 would cost the agency $1 million over the 2018-2022 period. Because the FCC is authorized under current law to collect fees sufficient to offset the costs of its regulatory activities each year, CBO estimates that the net cost to the FCC to implement S. 1621 would be negligible, assuming appropriation actions consistent with that authority.
Enacting S. 1621 would not affect direct spending or revenues; therefore, pay-as-you-go procedures do not apply. CBO estimates that enacting S. 1621 would not increase net direct spending or on-budget deficits in any of the four consecutive 10-year periods beginning in 2028.
S. 1621 contains no intergovernmental mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA) and would impose no costs on state, local, or tribal governments.
If the FCC increases annual fee collections to offset the costs of the rulemaking and analysis required by the bill, S. 1621 would increase the cost of an existing private-sector mandate on commercial entities required to pay those fees. On the basis of information from the FCC, CBO estimates that the incremental cost of the mandate would be small—no more than $1 million over the 2018-2022 period—and would fall well below the annual threshold established in UMRA for private-sector mandates ($156 million in 2017, adjusted annually for inflation).
