As ordered reported by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on May 22, 2014
H.R. 4681 would authorize appropriations for fiscal years 2014 and 2015 for intelligence activities of the U.S. government. Since CBO does not provide estimates for classified programs, this estimate addresses only the unclassified aspects of the bill. On that limited basis, CBO estimates that implementing H.R. 4681 would cost about $500 million over the 2015-2019 period, subject to the appropriation of the specified and estimated amounts.
Section 104 would authorize appropriations of $528 million and $505 million for fiscal years 2014 and 2015, respectively, for the Intelligence Community Management Account (ICMA). The ICMA provides the principal source of funding for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and resources for managing the intelligence agencies. Because CBO anticipates that the bill would be enacted near the start of fiscal year 2015, we estimate that this provision would not affect spending in 2014. However, assuming the appropriation of the amount authorized for fiscal year 2015, CBO estimates that implementing section 104 would cost about $330 million in fiscal year 2015 and about $500 million over the 2015-2019 period.
Section 603 would extend through 2018 the authorization for the Public Interest Declassification Board. The board advises the President on the government’s standards and procedures for releasing and declassifying information. Based on information from the National Archives, CBO estimates that implementing this provision would cost less than $500,000 over the 2015-2019 period.
Enacting H.R 4681would not affect direct spending or revenues; therefore, pay-as-you-go procedures do not apply. Section 201 would authorize the appropriation of $514 million for the Central Intelligence Agency Retirement and Disability System for both fiscal years 2014 and 2015 (CIARDS). Appropriations to CIARDS are considered mandatory and fund various unfunded liabilities of the system. However, because the amounts authorized are the same as the amounts projected in the CBO baseline, CBO does not ascribe any additional cost to this provision.
H.R. 4681 contains no intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act and would not affect the budgets of state, local, or tribal governments.
On February 5, 2014, CBO transmitted a cost estimate for S. 1681, the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014, as reported by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on November 12, 2013. S. 1681 would authorize the appropriation of $569 million for fiscal year 2014, or $41 million more than the amount authorized in H.R. 4681. However, unlike our estimate for S. 1681, CBO does not ascribe any cost to that authorization because we expect that H.R. 4681 would not be enacted until near the start of fiscal year 2015. Other differences in the estimated costs of S. 1681 and H.R. 4681 reflect differences between the two bills.
