[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 157 (Friday, September 11, 2020)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E829]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       COST ESTIMATE FOR H.R. 2694, PREGNANT WORKERS FAIRNESS ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                     HON. ROBERT C. ``BOBBY'' SCOTT

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                       Friday, September 11, 2020

  Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Madam Speaker, I am hereby including in the 
Record the cost estimate prepared by the Congressional Budget Office 
for H.R. 2694, the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. The cost estimate was 
not available at the time of the filing of the Committee report.

                                                   U. S. Congress,


                                  Congressional Budget Office,

                                Washington, DC, September 9, 2020.
     Hon. Bobby Scott,
     Chairman, Committee on Education and Labor, House of 
         Representatives, Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Chairman: The Congressional Budget Office has 
     prepared the enclosed cost estimate for H.R. 2694, the 
     Pregnant Workers Fairness Act.
       If you wish further details on this estimate, we will be 
     pleased to provide them. The CBO staff contact is Sofia Guo.
           Sincerely,
                                                Phillip L. Swagel,
                                                         Director.
       Enclosure.

  H.R. 2694, PREGNANT WORKERS FAIRNESS ACT--AS ORDERED REPORTED BY THE
       HOUSE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR ON JANUARY 14, 2020
                  [By fiscal year, millions of dollars]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                    2020        2020-2025     2020-2030
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Direct Spending (Outlays).....            0             *             *
Revenues......................            0             0             0
Increase or Decrease (-) in               0             *             *
 the Deficit..................
Spending Subject to                       0             3           not
 Appropriation (Outlays)......                                estimated
------------------------------------------------------------------------
* = between zero and $500,000.

       Statutory pay-as-you-go procedures apply? Yes.
       Increases on-budget deficits in any of the four consecutive 
     10-year periods beginning in 2031? No.
       Mandate Effects:
       Contains intergovernmental mandate? Excluded from UMRA.
       Contains private-sector mandate? Excluded from UMRA.
       H.R. 2694 would require all public-sector employers and any 
     private-sector employers with more than 15 workers to make 
     reasonable accommodations for the known limitations related 
     to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions of 
     employees and job applicants.\1\ The bill would not require 
     employers to make any accommodation that would impose an 
     undue hardship on business operations. Under the bill, the 
     Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) would be 
     required to issue regulations to implement the bill within 
     two years of enactment.
       Using information from the EEOC, CBO expects that for the 
     first three years after the regulations are issued, the EEOC 
     would receive roughly 500 more claims related to pregnancy 
     discrimination (an increase of about 20 percent) each year. 
     (The EEOC expects that after three years, the number of 
     pregnancy discrimination claims would return to prior levels 
     as employers comply with the new regulations.) To meet that 
     workload, CBO estimates that the commission would need seven 
     additional employees, at a cost of about $3 million over the 
     2021-2025 period. Such spending would be subject to the 
     availability of appropriated funds. For fiscal year 2020, the 
     Congress appropriated about $390 million for all of the 
     EEOC's operations.
       Enacting the bill could affect direct spending by some 
     agencies that are allowed to use fees, receipts from the sale 
     of goods, and other collections to cover operating costs. CBO 
     estimates that any net changes in direct spending by those 
     agencies would be negligible because most of them can adjust 
     amounts collected to reflect changes in operating costs.
       CBO has not reviewed H.R. 2694 for intergovernmental or 
     private-sector mandates. Section 4 of the Unfunded Mandates 
     Reform Act excludes from the application of that act any 
     legislative provisions that would establish or enforce 
     statutory rights prohibiting discrimination. CBO has 
     determined that the bill falls within that exclusion because 
     it would extend protections against discrimination in the 
     workplace based on sex to employees requesting reasonable 
     accommodation for pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical 
     conditions.
       The CBO staff contacts for this estimate are Sofia Guo (for 
     federal costs) and Lilia Ledezma (for mandates). The estimate 
     was reviewed by H. Samuel Papenfuss, Deputy Director of 
     Budget Analysis.

       \1\ Current law provides protections to pregnant workers 
     who are denied reasonable accommodations by their employers. 
     However, the Supreme Court has ruled that a pregnant worker 
     may bring a claim against an employer only if the petitioner 
     can demonstrate that the employer has provided accommodations 
     to workers with similar limitations who are not pregnant 
     (Young v. United Parcel Service, Inc., 575 U.S. 12, 1226 
     (2015). https://go.usa.gov/xG4jx, PDF, 230 KB). H.R. 2694 
     would allow pregnant workers to bring such claims without 
     meeting that requirement.

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