H.R. 6083 would extend through October 5, 2028, the authority of local governments that administer federal funds under the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) program to provide cash assistance to households to repay disaster loans provided by the Small Business Administration. That authority expired in October 2023.
CBO estimates that extending the authority of local governments to use existing CDBG-DR funds to provide cash assistance for repayment of disaster loans would increase direct spending in the short term and reduce it in later years. In the absence of that extension, those funds likely would be spent on other forms of assistance, such as housing or infrastructure construction, that CBO expects would take longer to spend than providing cash assistance. CBO estimates that enacting the provision would have no effect on net direct spending over the 2025-2034 period.
On April 25, 2024, CBO transmitted a cost estimate for H.R. 7070, the Wildfire Response Improvement Act, as ordered reported by the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure on January 31, 2024. Section 5 of H.R. 7070 is similar to H.R. 6083, and CBO’s estimates of their budgetary effects are the same.
The CBO staff contact for this estimate is Jon Sperl. The estimate was reviewed by H. Samuel Papenfuss, Deputy Director of Budget Analysis.
