Description:
H.R. 3813 would require the Department of Transportation (DOT) to designate an official to coordinate agency activities designed to prevent and address human trafficking, establish an advisory committee on human trafficking within DOT, and to authorize the use of certain grant funds administered by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) for activities related to preventing human trafficking. Using information from DOT, CBO estimates that implementing the provisions of the bill would require one or two additional employees per year over the 2019-2022 period, at a total cost of $1 million. Such spending would be subject to the availability of appropriated funds.
In recent years, FMCSA has been appropriated $4 million per year for education and outreach grants and about $32 million per year for the Commercial Driver’s License Financial Assistance Program. While H.R. 3813 would expand the eligible expenses that could be covered by those grants, because states already have flexibility in choosing how they use their grant funds, CBO estimates, this additional authority would have no significant cost.
Enacting H.R. 3813 would not affect direct spending or revenues; therefore, pay-as-you-go procedures do not apply. CBO estimates that enacting H.R. 3813 would not increase net direct spending or on-budget deficits in any of the four consecutive 10-year periods beginning in 2028.
H.R. 3813 contains no intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act.
On August 29, 2017 CBO provided an estimate for S. 1536, the Combating Human Trafficking in Commercial Vehicles Act, as reported by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on August 3, 2017. The two pieces of legislation are similar and CBO’s estimated costs are the same.
