Description:
S. 35 would require the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to transfer 200 acres of land to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to expand a national cemetery. CBO estimates that any costs incurred by VA to cover administrative expenses associated with the transfer and make improvements to the Black Hills National Cemetery would not be significant.
Under S. 35, the affected lands would be withdrawn from mining and mineral leasing activities. Using information provided by BLM, CBO expects that those activities would not occur over the next 10 years, and we estimate that withdrawing the lands would not affect the federal budget. Because enacting S. 35 would not affect direct spending or revenues, pay-as-you-go procedures do not apply.
CBO estimates that enacting S. 35 would not increase net direct spending or on-budget deficits in any of the four consecutive 10-year periods beginning in 2028.
S. 35 contains no intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act.
On April 7, 2017, CBO transmitted a cost estimate for S. 35, the Black Hills National Cemetery Boundary Expansion Act, as ordered reported by the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on March 30, 2017. The pieces of legislation are similar and CBO’s estimates of their budgetary effects are the same.
