MIL-OSI USA: S. 539, PROTECT Our Children Reauthorization Act of 2025

Source: US Congressional Budget Office

S. 539 would reauthorize the PROTECT our Children Act of 2008 and authorize the appropriation of specific amounts for each year from 2026 through 2028 totaling $240 million for programs at the Department of Justice that assist federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies in investigating and prosecuting child exploitation. Most of the authorized funding would support the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) program, a network of task forces that support state and local governments’ efforts to investigate and prosecute child sexual exploitation and other crimes against children committed over the Internet. S. 539 also would limit liability for ICAC task forces in civil and criminal lawsuits filed in federal or state courts with respect to investigations of crimes against children. The underlying authorizations for those programs expired at the end of 2024.

Lastly, the bill would require the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) to provide all supplemental information reported to the CyberTipline to law enforcement agencies. The CyberTipline is the national reporting system for online child sexual exploitation.

Based on historical spending patterns for similar activities, CBO estimates that implementing S. 539 would cost $157 million over the 2025-2030 period and $83 million after 2030, assuming appropriation of the authorized amounts.

The costs of the legislation, detailed in Table 1, fall within budget function 750 (administration of justice).

S. 539 would impose intergovernmental and private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA) by providing certain liability protections against criminal or civil cases arising in federal or state courts with respect to ICAC’s investigations of crimes against children.This would remove a right of action from public and private entities. The cost of this mandate would be the lost financial rewards from successful litigation. CBO cannot anticipate the number of cases that would be prohibited under the bill, the outcome of such cases, or the financial awards from successful litigation. Therefore, CBO cannot determine whether the cost of the mandate would exceed the intergovernmental and private-sector thresholds established in UMRA ($103 million and $206 million respectfully, in 2025, adjusted annually for inflation).

The bill also would impose a private-sector mandate on the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children by requiring NCMEC to include supplemental information with their reports on child abuse to law enforcement agencies. CBO assumes that this information is readily available because NCMEC already compiles this information in the process of creating those reports. Therefore, CBO expects the cost of this mandate would be well below the private-sector threshold established in UMRA.

The CBO staff contacts for this estimate are Jeremy Crimm (for federal costs) and Erich Dvorak (for mandates). The estimate was reviewed by H. Samuel Papenfuss, Deputy Director of Budget Analysis.

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