Description:
H.R. 4254 would modify the requirements of certain National Science Foundation (NSF) grant programs in order to promote the use of those grants for internships and fellowships with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Department of Energy’s national laboratories. Those changes would apply to NSF grants awarded on or after October 1, 2018. The act also would direct NASA to develop a process to encourage the recruitment of qualified women and people in other historically underrepresented groups in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and computer science internships and fellowships. CBO expects that implementing H.R. 4254 could lead to a small increase in the administrative work of the NSF and NASA to modify program requirements. Using information from those agencies, CBO estimates that implementing the legislation would cost less than $500,000 over the 2019-2023 period; such spending would be subject to the availability of appropriated funds. Enacting H.R. 4254 would not affect direct spending or revenues; therefore, pay-as-you-go procedures do not apply. CBO estimates that enacting H.R. 4254 would not increase net direct spending or on-budget deficits in any of the four consecutive 10-year periods beginning in 2029. H.R. 4254 contains no intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act. On December 5, 2017, CBO transmitted a cost estimate for H.R. 4254, the Women in Aerospace Education Act, as ordered reported by the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology on November 15, 2017. The two versions of the legislation are similar, and CBO’s estimates of their budgetary effects are the same.
