An "intergovernmental mandate" generally refers to the responsibilities or activities that one level of government imposes on another by constitutional, legislative, executive or judicial action.

According to the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 (UMRA), an intergovernmental mandate can take various forms:

If the five-year direct costs of an intergovernmental or private-sector mandate exceed specified thresholds, CBO must provide an estimate of those costs (if feasible) and the basis of the estimate.

H.R. 5019 contains no intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA).

There is no intergovernmental mandate because the OSHA standards do not apply to state and local governments, except in states that have voluntarily elected to adopt an OSHA State Plan.

In addition, the rule neither affects small governments nor contains a significant intergovernmental mandate.

EPA claims that because the expenditures by publically owned electric utilities are so modest the rule does not impose a "significant" federal intergovernmental mandate.

The EPA avers that it has not identified any sources of federal financial assistance to defray the state, local, or tribal expenditures under the rule or other federal resources available to carry out the intergovernmental mandate included in the rule.

In addition, the final rules do not affect small governments or contain a significant intergovernmental mandate.

Yet a combination of intergovernmental mandates and bureaucratic inertia forces the city to spend millions of dollars on questionable or even discredited programs and prevents the city from reallocating its resources to more difficult but productive programs.