S. 2183 would require the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to review all legislation that has been reported by any Congressional committee to determine if that legislation includes programs that would duplicate or overlap with programs that GAO has identified in its annual reports on duplicative and overlapping programs. The bill also would require GAO to post this information on its website and to provide the information to CBO. In recent years GAO has prepared annual reports for the Congress on federal programs that it has determined are duplicative or overlapping. In addition, CBO reviews all bills ordered reported by a Congressional committee as part of our statutory requirement to provide cost estimates of those bills. Thus, under the bill GAO would overlap some of CBO’s statutory requirements.
Over the last 10 years CBO has reviewed, on average, about 650 bills a year that have been ordered reported by a Congressional authorizing committee. On that basis and using information from CBO and GAO about the number of people needed for GAO to also review those bills, CBO estimates that the additional work under S. 2183 would in total cost GAO and CBO less than $500,000 annually and $2 million over the 2020-2024 period. Any additional spending would be subject to the availability of appropriated funds.
