Description:
H.R. 1268 would require federal agencies, in consultation with the Office of Management and Budget, the Department of Energy (DOE), and the Environmental Protection Agency, to implement strategies to acquire, use, and maintain information technologies expected to increase energy efficiency. The bill also would direct agencies to pursue activities aimed at enhancing the energy efficiency of data centers and would specify certain administrative and reporting requirements.
Based on information from DOE and other affected agencies, CBO estimates that implementing H.R. 1268 would not significantly affect the federal budget. According to DOE, the bill’s requirements are largely consistent with existing policy and are unlikely to result in material changes in overall federal spending related to energy-efficient technologies. CBO estimates that any increased costs associated with reporting and administrative requirements under H.R. 1268, which would be subject to appropriation, would not exceed $500,000 in any given year.
H.R. 1268 could affect direct spending to the extent that agencies’ strategies for procuring energy-efficient technologies call for obtaining such technologies through the increased use of certain long-term energy-related contracts that involve direct spending; therefore, pay-as-you-go procedures apply. Because the provisions of H.R. 1268 are consistent with the Administration’s existing policy promoting the use of such contracts, CBO estimates that any incremental increase in direct spending stemming from increased use of such contracts under the bill would be negligible. Enacting H.R. 1268 would not affect revenues.
CBO estimates that enacting H.R. 1268 would not increase direct spending or on-budget deficits in any of the four consecutive 10-year periods beginning in 2027.
H.R. 1268 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 October 15, 2015, CBO transmitted a cost estimate for S. 2012, the Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2015, as reported by the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on September 9, 2015. H.R. 1268 is substantively similar to certain provisions of S. 2012, and CBO’s estimates of the budgetary effects of those provisions are the same.
