Description:
H.R. 2215 would establish the San Gabriel National Recreation Area in California. The bill also would expand the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument, and would designate roughly 31,000 acres of federal land in the Angeles National Forest as wilderness. Finally, H.R. 2215 would add 46 miles of river segments to the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. For this estimate, CBO assumes that the bill will be enacted in fiscal year 2020. Under that assumption, the agency could incur some costs in 2020, but CBO expects that most of the costs would be incurred in 2021 and later. Any spending would be subject to the availability of appropriated funds. Using information from the National Park Service (NPS), CBO estimates that the agency would hire a site coordinator for the recreation area at an initial annual cost of $180,000; those costs would increase each year with expected inflation. In addition, it would cost the NPS about $1 million to develop a visitor services plan and to manage advisory groups required under the bill. Using information from the Forest Service, and based on the costs of similar tasks, CBO estimates that the agency would incur upfront costs of $2 million for the monument expansion and for the wilderness and river designations. That amount includes costs to develop management plans, conduct boundary surveys, and update maps and signage. In total, implementing H.R. 2215 would cost $4 million over the 2020-2025 period; such spending also would be subject to the availability of appropriated funds.
