Description:
As ordered reported by the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on November 20, 2014
H.R. 5710 would authorize the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to provide emergency assistance to countries affected by the Ebola epidemic. For 2015, the bill would authorize the appropriation of the same amount that was provided for 2014—about $1.8 billion—for USAID’s International Disaster Assistance (IDA) account. IDA funds are used to provide humanitarian relief such as food, drinking water, and medical treatment following natural disasters and other emergencies; much of the Ebola-related international assistance is being funded through that account. Assuming enactment by the end of calendar year 2014 and appropriation of the specified amounts, CBO estimates that providing that assistance would cost almost $1.8 billion over the 2015-2019 period.
The bill also would authorize USAID to use the services and facilities of, or to procure commodities from, other federal agencies on a nonreimbursable basis. CBO estimates that utilizing resources from other agencies would increase the costs borne by those agencies; however, USAID could not specify how or when it would use that authority and thus, CBO cannot provide a specific estimate of those costs.
Enacting H.R. 5710 would not affect direct spending or revenues; therefore, pay-as-you-go procedures do not apply.
H.R. 5710 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.
