Description:
H.R. 2576 would modify the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the law that regulates the manufacture, importation, and processing of chemicals, with the aim of strengthening the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) ability to evaluate and regulate potentially hazardous chemicals.
CBO estimates that EPA would incur additional costs to conduct safety evaluations of chemical substances over the 2016-2020 period in order to meet the new requirements imposed by H.R. 2576; we estimate that implementing this legislation would cost $64 million over the next five years and $143 million over the 2016-2025 period, assuming appropriation actions consistent with the bill.
Under the legislation, EPA would be authorized to charge two types of fees for some of its work under the legislation. Those fees would have different budgetary treatments. One fee would be classified as a mandatory offsetting receipt and the other would be classified as a revenue. Based on information provided by the agency, CBO estimates that enacting the legislation would increase offsetting receipts, which are treated as reductions in direct spending, by $115 million over the 2016-2025 period; revenues would increase by $121 million over the same period, net of income and payroll tax offsets. Pay-as-you-go procedures apply because the bill would affect direct spending and revenues.
H.R. 2576 would impose intergovernmental and private-sector mandates, as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA), on manufacturers, processors, importers, and users of chemical substances. CBO estimates that the aggregate cost of those mandates would fall below the annual thresholds established in UMRA for intergovernmental and private-sector mandates ($77 million and $154 million in 2015, respectively, adjusted annually for inflation).
