H.R. 2199 would designate roughly 320,000 acres of federal land in and near the Los Padres National Forest in California for wilderness and scenic purposes and would add 160 miles of river segments to the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. The bill would generally withdraw those areas from entry under hardrock mining laws and mineral and geothermal leasing, subject to valid existing rights. That is, the bill would not allow new hardrock mining claims or mineral and geothermal leases on that land.
For this estimate, CBO assumes that the legislation will be enacted in fiscal year 2020. Under that assumption, the federal government could incur some costs in 2020, but CBO expects that most of the costs would be incurred in 2021 and later.
Using information from the Forest Service, CBO estimates that the agency would incur upfront costs of about $3 million to implement the wilderness, scenic area, and wild and scenic river designations. That amount includes costs to develop and update management plans and conduct boundary surveys. H.R. 2199 also would establish a new trail and would authorize the Forest Service to reroute a few existing trails to accommodate the new wilderness areas. Using information from the agency, CBO estimates that those costs would total $2 million over the 2020-2025 period. Finally, we estimate that the Forest Service would spend less than $500,000 annually for additional rangers. In total, implementing H.R. 2199 would cost $7 million over the 2020-2025 period; such spending would be subject to the availability of appropriated funds.
Income from mineral leasing is classified in the budget as offsetting receipts, or reductions in direct spending. Under H.R. 2199, the federal government would forgo receipts because land would be withdrawn from mineral leasing. However, CBO estimates that any increases in direct spending would be insignificant over the 2020-2030 period.
