H.R. 915, Jaime Zapata Border Enforcement Security Task Force Act
Cost Estimate
As ordered reported by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on June 29, 2012
CBO estimates that implementing H.R. 915 would cost about $1 million annually, assuming the availability of appropriated funds. Enacting the legislation would not affect direct spending or revenues; therefore, pay-as-you-go procedures do not apply.
As ordered reported by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on June 29, 2012
CBO estimates that implementing H.R. 915 would cost about $1 million annually, assuming the availability of appropriated funds. Enacting the legislation would not affect direct spending or revenues; therefore, pay-as-you-go procedures do not apply.
H.R. 915 would authorize a program known as the Border Enforcement Security Task Force (BEST) within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Under the BEST program (which is currently administered by DHS), personnel from federal, state, local, tribal, and foreign law-enforcement agencies share information and carry out law-enforcement operations to combat criminal activity near the United States borders. DHS expects to spend about $1 million in fiscal year 2012 from appropriated funds to oversee the program, and CBO estimates that DHS’s continued oversight of the program would require appropriations of about that much each year.
H.R. 915 contains no intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act and would impose no costs on state, local, or tribal governments.
On September 29, 2011, CBO transmitted a cost estimate for H.R. 915 as ordered reported by the House Committee on Homeland Security on September 21, 2011. The act would authorize the appropriation of $10 million annually over the 2012-2016 period for the BEST program, and CBO estimated that implementing H.R. 915 would cost $48 million over the 2012-2016 period, assuming appropriation of the authorized amounts. The Senate committee version of the legislation contains no specified authorization level.