H.R. 1557 would amend the Notification and Federal Employee Antidiscrimination and Retaliation Act to expand the current process used to investigate and resolve federal employee claims of discrimination by federal employees. The bill also would expand the amount of information that must be reported and made available concerning such discrimination cases.
Based on information from the Office of Personnel Management and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, most of the provisions in the bill would expand current policies and practices of the federal government. Currently, the federal government, through laws, regulations, and agency policies, prohibits discrimination in all phases of employment. CBO expects that under the bill there would be some minor additional costs for agencies to track and report discriminatory acts and to notify the public of violations of antidiscrimination laws. Thus, CBO estimates that implementing H.R. 1557 would increase federal administrative costs by less than $500,000 annually, assuming the availability of appropriated funds.
Enacting H.R. 1557 could affect direct spending by some agencies (such as the Tennessee Valley Authority) because they are authorized to use receipts from the sale of goods, fees, and other collections to cover their operating costs. Therefore, pay-as-you-go procedures apply. Because most of those agencies can make adjustments to the amounts collected, CBO estimates that any net changes in direct spending by those agencies would not be significant. Enacting the bill would not affect revenues.
H.R. 1557 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.
