STATEMENT
OF JOHN D. GRAHAM, PH.D.
ADMINISTRATOR
OFFICE OF INFORMATION AND REGULATORY AFFAIRS
OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET
EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF
THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY POLICY, NATURAL RESOURCES
AND REGULATORY AFFAIRS
COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
April
11, 2002
Good morning,
Mr. Chairman, and Members of this Subcommittee. I am John D. Graham,
Ph.D., Administrator, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
(OIRA), Office of Management and Budget. Thank you inviting me to
testify about the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA). I am pleased to
have this opportunity to discuss how the Federal Government is improving
the quality of the information it collects, uses, and disseminates,
while also reducing the associated burdens that are imposed on the
American public. The Bush Administration, while recognizing the
public benefits of information collections, is committed to reducing
needless paperwork burdens and agency violations of the PRA. I appreciate
this Subcommittee's strong interest in information policy, and I
look forward to working with you and other members of this Subcommittee
on the challenges we face in advancing the objectives of the PRA.
In my testimony,
I will provide an overview of the Federal Government's need for
and use of information, briefly describe OMB's efforts to enhance
the quality of information disseminated by agencies, and discuss
the challenges of achieving and measuring burden reduction.
I would first,
however, like to address a number of issues that you raised in your
letter of invitation. Specifically, you asked that I discuss (1)
OMB's disclosure of changes made during our review of agency information
collection requests, (2) agency efforts to resolve violations of
the PRA, (3) agency progress in reviewing 15 non-Internal Revenue
Service (IRS) regulations with 10 million burden hours, and (4)
specific reductions in reporting and recordkeeping requirements
that agencies accomplished last year and expect to accomplish in
2002.
Disclosure
Measures for OIRA's Role in Paperwork Reduction
I am pleased
to report that OMB is beginning to collect information on whether
an agency's information collection changed during PRA reviews. Specifically,
OMB's computerized database will begin to indicate whether the collection
is "approved without change" from what the agency originally submitted
or "approved with change." The first public reports with this information
will be available by the end of this month.
As you may
know, OIRA is currently working with the Regulatory Information
Services Center (RISC) at the General Services Agency (GSA) to create
a new information system that will replace OIRA's current, somewhat
antiquated, database. GSA has hired Booz-Allen Hamilton to develop
this new system, which will expand on the existing system, the RISC/OIRA
Consolidated Information System (ROCIS), that RISC uses to produce
the Semi-Annual Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory
Actions. Our goal is have the new, enhanced ROCIS fully operational
by November 2003.
ROCIS will
be an internet-based system that will accept paperwork and regulatory
submissions from Federal agencies and provide materials to OIRA
staff for their review. ROCIS will maintain a record of each OIRA
review, including the information submitted by an agency and a record
of OIRA's actions. Almost all the public records that are currently
located in OIRA's Docket Library in paper form will be accessible
to the public in electronic form. Search capabilities in the new
system will make it easy for individuals to search these public
files for information about paperwork and regulatory issues that
might be of interest.
Resolving
Agency Violations of the Paperwork Reduction Act
Over the past
several years, the Subcommittee has expressed concerns about agency
violations of the PRA. We appreciate your interest in this issue
and acknowledge the leadership role you have played in addressing
this problem. I would like to provide a brief summary of OMB's recent
efforts on this front and update you on the progress we are making.
As you know,
at last year's hearing on the Paperwork Reduction Act, the General
Accounting Office testified that agencies were responsible for 487
PRA violations in FY 2000, which was down from the 710 violations
committed in FY 1999 and the 872 violations committed in FY 1998.
This represented a 44 percent reduction in violations during this
time period.
Last October,
to help us prepare the FY 2002 Information Collection Budget (ICB),
we sent OMB Bulletin No. 02-02 to 15 agencies (the Cabinet agencies
and the Environmental Protection Agency). (1)
The OMB Bulletin reminded agencies that OMB is required to report
to Congress violations of the PRA, and requested that they document
their compliance with the information collection provisions of the
PRA. Agencies were specifically asked to report the title of the
information collection, the nature of the violation, and how the
violation was discovered and remedied.
Subsequently,
then-OMB General Counsel Jay Lefkowitz and I sent a memorandum to
agency chief information officers and general counsels that further
emphasized the importance of full agency compliance with the PRA.
We requested more specific information from CIOs on the steps they
were taking to resolve PRA violations that we reported in the FY
2001 ICB. We also asked that they describe the procedures that they
have instituted to prevent future violations, including monthly
reviews of OMB's computer-generated reports, CIO oversight, and
direct CIO participation in their agencies' programmatic functions.
Further, we asked that agency general counsels and solicitors assist
CIOs whenever possible.
In response
to OMB's requests for information on PRA compliance, agencies contributing
to this year's ICB reported 406 violations of the Paperwork Reduction
Act in FY 2001, only 109 of which remain unresolved as of March
12, 2002 (which was the cut-off date for preparing the lists of
violations that appear in the FY 2002 ICB). In the FY 2001 ICB,
these agencies reported 161 unresolved violations. Although we are
reporting fewer unresolved PRA violations than we did last year,
there are still too many, and we are committed to reducing them
further in the future.
Agency Progress
in Reviewing 15 Non-IRS Rules with 10 Million Burden Hours
Mr. Chairman,
your letter of invitation raised an issue relating to OMB's report
to Congress on regulations that impose paperwork burdens of more
than 10 million hours. In this report - which was required by Section
518 of the FY 2001 Consolidated Appropriations Act and was issued
as part of the FY 2001 ICB - OMB limited its evaluation to only
two Department of Labor (DOL) major rules. Subcommittee staff subsequently
identified 15 non-IRS major rules imposing more than 10 million
burden hours that you believe OMB should have addressed in its report.
As we have discussed in previous correspondence with the Subcommittee,
the disagreement over the scope of OMB's report is based on OMB's
interpretation of the statutory language in Section 518, specifically
the time frame that it covered.
I would like
to provide some background on how OMB developed the report, and
then suggest how we may move beyond this issue and work cooperatively
to identify and address paperwork burdens that are unnecessary.
Section 518 required OMB to prepare a report that
(1) evaluates,
for each agency, the extent to which implementation of chapter [44]
of title 31, United States Code, as amended by the Paperwork
Reduction Act of 1995 (Public Law 104-13), has reduced burden imposed
by rules issued by the agency, including the burden imposed by each
major rule issued by the agency;
(2) includes
a determination, based on such evaluation, of the need for additional
procedures to ensure achievement of the purposes of that chapter,
as set forth in section 3501 of title [44], United States Code,
and evaluates the burden imposed by each major rule that imposes
more than 10,000,000 hours of burden, and identifies specific
reductions expected to be achieved in each of fiscal years 2001
and 2002 in the burden imposed by all rules issued by each agency
that issued such a major rule.
In implementing
Section 518, OMB understood it as directing OMB to prepare a report
that assessed the impact that the 1995 PRA amendments have had on
the paperwork burdens that agencies impose on the public through
rules, and in particular through their "major rules." OMB's report
therefore discussed how agency implementation of the PRA has reduced
burden imposed by regulations, including major rules, as defined
by the Congressional Review Act. It also evaluated the burden imposed
by major rules that impose more than 10 million hours of burden.
OMB found that DOL was the only agency that had issued a major rule
that imposes more than 10 million hours of burden. Section 518 further
required that, for agencies that issued such a rule, OMB identify
the expected reductions in FY 2001 and in FY 2002 in the burden
imposed by all of their rules. Accordingly, OMB's report identified
DOL's expected reductions in FY 2002 in the burden imposed by all
DOL rules. Expected reductions in FY 2001 in the burden imposed
by all rules issued by DOL were addressed elsewhere in the FY 2001
ICB.
In interpreting
Section 518, OMB found it understandable that Congress would direct
OMB to prepare an oversight report on the 1995 PRA amendments, because
those amendments had been in effect for five years, which was an
appropriate time frame within which to evaluate their impact on
agencies' paperwork activities. In this regard, the direction in
Section 518 that OMB focus on the paperwork burdens imposed by "major
rules" was also understandable, because the time period during which
the 1995 PRA amendments have been in effect (i.e., since the fall
of 1995) overlaps almost entirely with the period during which the
agencies have been issuing "major rules" under the Congressional
Review Act, which was enacted and went into effect in the spring
of 1996.
Because OMB's
report did not address the 15 non-IRS rules you referred to in your
letter of invitation, I do not have information on agency progress
in reviewing them. I would, however, be willing to explore burden
reduction opportunities with respect to these regulations to extent
that there is an analytical basis for doing so. In this regard,
I would need some clarification about the 15 rules you have in mind.
In your letter to OMB Director Mitch Daniels, dated September 6,
2001, you stated that
[U]sing
OMB's August 30, 2001 data on information collections with a primary
purpose of "regulatory or compliance," there appear to be at least
the following seven additional covered agencies: the Departments
of Education, Health and Human Services (HHS), Transportation, and
Treasury, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Federal
Trade Commission (FTC), and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The 15 additional non-IRS "regulatory or compliance" information
collections issued by these agencies and DOL include: one Education;
HHS's "Investigational New Drug (IND) Regulations" (17 million hours),
"Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA)" (10 million
hours), "Bloodborne Pathogens Standard" (13 million hours), and
"Process Safety Management of Highly Hazardous Chemicals (PSM)"
(79 million hours); Transportation's "Hours of Service of Drivers
Regulations" (42 million hours) and "Inspection, Repair, and Maintenance"
(35 million hours); one Treasury; EPA's "Standards for the Use or
Disposal of Sewage Sludge" (13 million hours); and two information
collections each from the FTC and the SEC.
Your letter
identified only seven regulations by name, so I am not clear what
the other eight regulations are. If, however, you could provide
me with a list that identifies all 15 regulations that you would
like agencies to review, I would certainly be willing to evaluate
those 15 and, where appropriate, follow up with agencies to determine
if reductions can be achieved without compromising regulatory benefits.
Alternatively, an outside group with analytical expertise, such
as the National Academy of Public Administration or the National
Academy of Sciences, could be charged with reviewing these rules
and making recommendations to improve them. If you would like to
discuss such an initiative, I would of course be happy to do so.
I know that you are aware of how labor-intensive such reviews can
be.
Specific
Burden Reductions
As we describe
in the FY 2002 ICB, agencies have and are undertaking serious efforts
to improve the quality of Federal information collection and to
reduce burden when it is possible and makes sense to do so. Below
are a number of specific burden reductions that I offer for illustrative
purposes. A complete listing of significant burden changes is provided
in the FY 2002 ICB.
FY
2001 Reductions
- Department
of Education: Application for Child Care Access Means Parents
in School Program. Previously, reports were made at 12, 18
and 36 month periods as well as the final report. Education decided
to eliminate the requirement for the 12 month report in order
to reduce redundancy and burden on the institutions. Reports are
now made at 18 and 36 months, followed by the final report. Change
in burden: -105,000 hours
- Environmental
Protection Agency: Motor Vehicle Emission Standards and Emission
credits Provisions under the Tier 2 Rule. This collection
ensures that vehicle designs meet applicable emission standards
for their useful lives. EPA reduced the number of durability demonstrations
and tests required and increased flexibility in how demonstrations
are conducted. Change in burden: -445,918 hours
- Environmental
Protection Agency: Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) Program; Consolidated
Information Collection Request. The Toxic Substances Control
Act directs EPA to regulate the marking, disposal, manufacturing,
processing, distribution in commerce, and use of PCBs. EPA collects
data to ensure PCBs and PCB wastes are managed in an environmentally
safe manner. EPA promulgated PCB regulations to, among other things,
(1) provide less burdensome mechanisms for obtaining EPA
approval for a variety of activities; (2) clarify and/or modify
the regulations where ambiguity may exist; and (3) address outstanding
issues associated with the notification and manifesting of PCB
wastes and changes in the operation of commercial storage facilities.
Change in burden: -1,256,987 hours
- Department
of Interior: Report of Sales and Royalty Remittance (Form MMS-2014).
This form is used for reporting oil and gas royalties, certain
rents, and other lease-related transactions to Minerals Revenue
Management (MMS). During the reengineering of the MMS core business
processes, the MMS developed a new Form MMS-2014 to incorporate
revised reporting requirements that reduced the volume of lines
reported and processed, and minimized errors and related error
correction workloads. Change in burden: -55,229 hours
FY
2002 Reductions
- Department
of Commerce: Shippers Export Declaration Program. The SED
form and the Automated Export System (AES) electronic equivalent
are the means by which the Census Bureau collects and compiles
U.S. trade statistics. The official export statistics provide
a basic component for the compilation of the U.S. position on
merchandise trade. The AES takes only 3 minutes on average to
complete, whereas the paper SED form takes over 11 minutes. We
are making an extensive effort to encourage shippers and freight
forwarders to switch to using the AES. As more and more respondents
use the AES, the burden keeps decreasing. Change in burden: -340,761
hours
- Department
of Labor: Report on Employment, Payroll, and Hours. The Current
Employment Statistics program provides current monthly statistics
on employment, hours, and earnings by industry. The statistics
are fundamental inputs in economic decision processes at all levels
of government, private enterprise, and organized labor. The decrease
is due to the introduction of a probability-based sample. Some
additional quota sample units needed to produce estimates in smaller
metropolitan areas are being retained until research on small
area estimation is completed. Change in burden: -88,530 hours
- Department
of Transportation: Submissions of Continuous Discharge Book.
The information is collected from Merchant Mariners. The information
is used to determine eligibility for issuance of a Coast Guard
credential (i.e. a license, certificate of registry or merchant
mariner document). DOT revised a number of forms to reduce the
error rate of incomplete/improper submissions. Change in burden: -61,969 hours
- Department
of Justice: State Point of Contact (POC) Final Determination Electronic
Submission. The State POC Final Determination Electronic
Submission is a means to obtain final status for transactions
initiated by POC States. This information will be used for statistical
purposes, for use in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
(ATF) inspections of Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) records,
and to assist in the National Instant Criminal Background Checks
System (NICS) appeal process. The POC information will also enhance
the performance of the NICS by giving it the same information
about the determination on the checks processed by POCs that the
system has about the determination on the checks processed by
the FBI. DOJ plans to require POCs to submit only 2 percent of
denials instead of all denials, resulting in a burden reduction
of 72,534 hours
OMB Initiative
to Improve Agency Performance and Reduce Burden.
The significant
burden reductions that agencies reported in the FY 2002 ICB, some
of which I just mentioned, reflect the ongoing efforts by the Government
to alleviate paperwork whenever possible. To build on these efforts
and make burden reduction an even higher priority, OMB asked agencies
to identify at least two initiatives that:
-
improve
program performance by enhancing the efficiency of information
collections;
-
significantly
reduce the burden per response on the public; or
-
lead to
a comprehensive review of an entire program, including regulations
and procedures.
In response
to this directive, agencies have reported a variety of burden reduction
initiatives that have the potential to make meaningful improvements
for the public. While these initiatives generally fall into two
broad categories, incorporating information technology and simplifying
information collection activities, the majority involve the use
of some type of information technology. This is not unexpected given
the evolving nature of information technology capabilities and potential
to improve the vast amount of information collection activities
by the federal government through harnessing these capabilities.
OMB has listed
the agency initiatives in this year's ICB. I would like to mention
just a few of them now.
- Loan
Deficiency Payments (LDP) Program Enhancement -LDPs are
payments made to eligible producers who, although eligible to
obtain a marketing assistance loan, agree to forgo the loan in
return for an LDP. Currently, producers requesting LDPs must:
(1) provide a Department of Agriculture (USDA) county-based
service center a CCC-633 LDP request, in person or by fax; (2)
meet the marketing assistance loan eligibility requirements for
the producer and commodity; and (3) agree to accept such payment
in lieu of obtaining marketing assistance loans. Through this
initiative, USDA is simplifying program polices and developing
a new Internet-based delivery system for processing "eLDP."
- Electronic
Reporting Option for Electric Power Companies - The Department
of Energy's Energy Information Administration (EIA) has developed
a new, completely electronic reporting option for 2002 that respondents
may use to complete the electric power surveys using EIA's web
site. The electric power forms collectively cover the entire range
of companies involved in the generation, transmission, distribution,
and sales of electricity.
- Adverse
Event Reporting System - The Department of Health and Human
Service's (HHS) medical device reporting system currently provides
a capability for some manufacturers to submit files of reports
to the Food and Drug Administration on electronic media. An initial
pilot test of the electronic submission of alternate summary reports
has just begun. The pilot will be expanded to further exercise
the pilot system. It is anticipated that electronic reporting
will reduce administrative processing costs, including data submission,
entry and quality control. The receipt of adverse event information
will be more rapid and data entry errors will be reduced or eliminated.
- Labor-Management
Electronic Reporting Initiative - The Labor-Management Reporting
and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) requires the filing of various reports
by labor organizations, union officers and employees, employers,
labor relations consultants, and surety companies. This Department
of Labor electronic reporting initiative will enhance the efficiency
of agency information collection by permitting reporting entities
to submit these reports electronically. This capability will allow
reporting entities to better file reports on time and with improved
accuracy.
- TRI-ME
- This Environmental Protection Agency initiative involves the
Office of Environmental Information's Toxics Release Inventory-Made
Easy (TRI-ME) software system. The TRI-ME software is an interactive,
user-friendly intelligent software that guides facility managers
through the entire process of completing their annual reports
for their releases and waste management activities for over 600
toxic chemicals. This intelligent software eliminates much of
the analysis required to determine if a facility is subject to
the TRI reporting requirements under the Emergency Planning and
Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA).
- DOD
Acquisition Process Review - This information collection
encompasses 24 million hours of burden (about 26% of the Department's
total) and involves applications for benefits/contracts, including
the acquisition of goods and services under the Defense Federal
Acquisition Regulation Supplement. The initiative will review
these information collection requirements with the intent of reducing
burden by 10 percent.
- Common
Data Definitions - In order for ED to communicate between
and among its external education partners and with its own programs,
there needs to be a common language underpinned by common data
definitions. The collections approved under the Paperwork Reduction
Act and the data elements comprising them are being analyzed to
develop consensus definitions and code sets. Both state and local
education agencies will join ED as partners in this project. Ultimately,
this effort will eliminate duplicative requests of information
and reduce the total volume of data collected while ensuring that
ED collects higher quality and more useful data.
- Mining
Forms Consolidation - DOI's Office of Surface Mining Reclamation
and Enforcement (OSM) is planning to improve program performance
by enhancing the efficiency of agency information collections
across agencies. An effort to combine forms related to coal tonnage
and/or accident information at coal mining sites into a single
mineral industry report system is being considered by OSM, the
Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), and the Energy Information
Administration (EIA).
- RCRA
Review - The EPA's Office of Solid Waste (OSW) recently completed
a comprehensive review of the reporting and recordkeeping requirements
of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) program,
and plans to propose a rule to streamline or eliminate many of
these requirements. This OSW effort will streamline data collection
for RCRA's Biennial Report, which is a major information collection
mechanism for hazardous waste generation and management.
We have asked
agencies to provide OMB with regular status reports on all of their
initiatives so that we can monitor their progress and help ensure
they achieve meaningful outcomes.
Why the
Government Needs Information
As a general
matter, the Federal Government must have information to serve the
American people. Agencies can only deliver services to individuals
if they have information about whether programs are needed, the
extent and nature of those needs, and how these needs are changing
over time. Without information to support planning, management,
and enforcement activities, Government programs may be poorly designed
to address public needs or may fail to adapt to the changing needs
of the American population. If agencies do not have access to accurate
and complete information, they are less likely to understand the
needs and challenges that their programs seek to address. The extraordinary
scope and complexity of Government programs requires agencies to
obtain a broad range of information on program performance, statistical
information, information provided by applicants for Federal benefits,
information demonstrating compliance with regulatory requirements,
and - with April 15th around the corner - taxpayer
information.
To see how
collecting critical information from the public advances our understanding
of the problems faced by our citizens, consider the various ways
in which empirical research on societal and human behavior has contributed
to policy and practice in areas ranging from drug abuse to education,
health, retirement, and welfare. Similarly, supplementing clinical
and biomedical research with empirical investigations of cancer
patterns and associated risk behaviors in the population can stimulate
prevention and education programs as well as increase our basic
knowledge of the causes and effects of this disease. And, while
recognizing the paperwork burden that forms and surveys may impose,
the collection of agricultural production and marketing data from
farmers is key to understanding and addressing issues in the agricultural
economy such as genetic engineering and the changing structure of
agriculture.
Agency Dissemination
of Information
Government
also uses information by providing it to citizens as a public service.
In the Information Age, the public needs timely, accurate information.
Investors need to access public filings from the Securities and
Exchange Commission quickly and easily. Residents want to know if
they are at risk from exposure to pollutants in their communities.
Taxpayers expect quick responses from the IRS and fast refunds.
To ensure
that the public can rely on the information provided by Government,
Congress directed OMB in December 2000 to issue Governmentwide guidelines
designed to maximize the quality of information disseminated by
Federal agencies. Specifically, Congress directed OMB to issue,
by September 30, 2001, Governmentwide guidelines that "provide policy
and procedural guidance to Federal agencies for ensuring and maximizing
the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information
(including statistical information) disseminated by Federal agencies." (2)
OMB's information
quality guidelines apply to Federal agencies subject to the Paperwork
Reduction Act. Agencies are directed to develop information resources
management procedures for reviewing and substantiating (by documentation
or other means) the quality (including the objectivity, utility,
and integrity) of information before it is disseminated. In addition,
agencies are to establish administrative mechanisms allowing affected
persons to seek and obtain, where appropriate, correction of information
disseminated by the agency that does not comply with the OMB or
agency guidelines. Consistent with the underlying principles described
above, these guidelines stress the importance of having agencies
apply these standards and develop administrative mechanisms in a
common-sense and workable manner. Moreover, agencies must apply
these standards flexibly, and in a manner appropriate to the nature
and timeliness of the information to be disseminated, and incorporate
them into existing agency information resources management and administrative
practices.
Achieving
Burden Reduction
While information
plays a critical role in good government, the collection of that
information imposes a cost on the public. It takes time and (often)
money to organize and provide information to the government. To
minimize burden, agencies are expected to collect only the information
necessary to perform their missions. They can do so by ensuring
that they avoid collecting redundant or irrelevant information and
by looking for simpler, easier, and faster ways for citizens to
provide essential information.
An evaluation
of agency efforts to reduce reporting burdens on the American public
would be meaningless without information on reporting burdens and
how they change over time. To address this need, the PRA requires
Federal agencies to produce "a specific, objectively supported estimate
of the burden" for each information collection that they propose
to conduct. (3) Agency estimates
of burden are also reported to OMB so that an agency-by-agency and
Governmentwide accounting of burden can be presented in the annual
Information Collection Budget (ICB). The ICB, which is included
this year's report, thus helps identify each agency's and the Government's
progress toward meeting the burden reduction goals of the PRA.
I
should note that President Bush is committed to improving the Government's
performance, and he has launched an ambitious management agenda that
requires careful evaluation of agency activities. The success of the
President's management agenda will depend largely on the quality of
the measures we use to evaluate the success and progress of agency
programs. These measures must be consistently applied and accurately
reflect performance and may entail additional paperwork burdens on
the public.
As you know,
throughout the history of the PRA, Congress has used Governmentwide
paperwork burden reduction goals as a means to evaluate agency performance.
In 1980, 1986, and 1995, Congress established annual 5 percent or
10 percent paperwork burden reduction goals, which together called
for a burden reduction of 85 percent between 1981 and 2001. During
this time period, OMB's inventory indicates - as a rough estimate
- that the total annual burden of Federal information collections
increased by over 50 percent. (4)
Although this
record may be disappointing to some, I view it in a different light.
Most importantly, I would point out that the decision to set targets
at 5 and 10 percent was not based on an analysis of the amount of
burden reduction that agencies could and should achieve. Rather,
Congress set goals that agencies should aspire to meet while also
performing their missions. Because the PRA calls on agencies and
OMB to reduce reporting burdens only when information is unnecessary
or not practically useful, burden reduction can be achieved only
to the extent that it does not interfere with agencies' ability
to meet their programmatic responsibilities. The aspirational nature
of the PRA's burden reduction goals thus reflects the need for agencies
to achieve a proper balance between reducing burden and performing
their missions.
Moreover,
in assessing the efforts by agencies to achieve burden reduction
- while also ensuring that Government information is of high quality
and useful to the public - we must remember that the demand for
public services has increased over time. Since the PRA was first
enacted in 1980, the size of the U.S. population has increased by
over a quarter and U.S. gross domestic product has more than tripled.
In addition
to the steady expansion of Government services over time, Federal
agencies may also need to respond quickly to emerging challenges
that require the public to provide information. For example, in
FY 2001, the total paperwork burden imposed by the Department of
Justice (DOJ) increased by 8.3 %, the largest increase reported
in this year's ICB. This increase was due largely to the creation
or modification of information collections by DOJ to implement the
Legal Immigration Family Equity Act of 2000 (LIFE Act). Similarly,
the IRS had to create two forms and revise 56 others in response
to the Victims of Terrorism Tax Relief Act of 2001.
Mr. Chairman,
in focusing on the upward trend in the level of Government paperwork,
I would not want important PRA success stories to be overlooked.
I would therefore like to provide a few examples illustrating how,
during recent OIRA reviews of agency information collections requests,
we were able to work with agencies to improve program performance.
-
Department
of Education: School and Community Prevention Activities: A
National Study of the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Program--Phase
I. The Safe and Drug-Free Schools program is the largest
and broadest school-based drug and violence prevention program
nationally. When the Department of Education originally requested
OMB approval last fall of a 5-year evaluation study, it focused
almost exclusively on assessing program implementation and quality.
This study consisted of national surveys and extensive longitudinal
case studies. Yet, the availability of program outcomes was
going to be assessed only in a feasibility study to be conducted
in year 3. Additional design and investigation would then be
required to examine the actual effects of the program on drug-use
and school violence outcomes. OMB asked the Department to refocus
the study to include program outcomes. Based on our feedback,
Education redesigned this investigation study so that a thorough
feasibility study would be conducted first. Based on the information
from this study, the Department will then examine quality and
outcomes in the next phase of the research, thereby providing
more rigorous data much earlier and enhancing the practical
utility of this information collection.
-
Environmental
Protection Agency: Printers' Simplified Total Environmental
Partnership (PrintSTEP). EPA requested OMB approval of
an information collection to evaluate an EPA pilot project designed
to identify the impact PrintSTEP has on three stakeholders:
printers, community residents, and the State agencies administering
the program. EPA withdrew its request after OMB's initial review
and resubmitted a revised request that incorporated OIRA-recommended
design changes. The design changes that improved the practical
utility of the data collected include: the use of a control
group, inclusion of methodology for calculating quantitative
values, and the addition of actions to improve response rates.
-
Department
of Health and Human Services - The National Study on Child Protective
Services Systems and Reform Efforts. This study was developed
to examine State and local practices in Child Protective Services
(CPS) to provide a comprehensive picture of the CPS system.
Given the tremendous variation among State and local CPS service
delivery systems, HHS hopes that this study will enable it to
understand these variations between as well as within States.
During the course of OIRA's review, we identified several weaknesses
in the study's methodology that would limit the quality of the
data obtained, and would impair the ability of the agency to
answer their basic research questions. Key limitations included
(1) the sample size was too small to produce nationally
representative estimates or allow for comparisons between groups
of counties; (2) several larger counties were hand-picked
for participation, which introduced bias into the sample; and
(3) local sites were not selected for visits in a systematic
way, but were rather hand-picked, which implied that the agency
was endorsing these approaches rather than objectively examining
them. HHS agreed to double the sample size, so as to make their
national estimates more precise and to facilitate meaningful
comparisons between groups of counties. HHS also agreed to use
a stratified random sampling methodology and decided not to
hand-pick certain counties for survey participation. Due to
these and other changes, HHS will be much better informed regarding
the CPS system.
OMB
is also seeking public input to identify opportunities to address
paperwork burdens. In OMB's Draft Report to Congress on the Costs
and Benefits of Federal Regulations, which we issued on March 18,
2002, we solicited public comment on a broad range of issues. In
particular, we requested public nominations of "specific regulations,
guidance documents, and paperwork requirements that impose especially
large burdens on small businesses and other small entities without
an adequate benefit justification."
Measuring
Burden Reduction
Although burden
hours alone do not provide a valid PRA performance measure, I do
believe that - to the extent they are used in an analytically sound
manner - they can provide useful information. First, burden
estimation techniques should be applied consistently across the
Government to ensure that, to the extent possible, a burden hour
reported by one agency represents an amount of burden equal to that
of a burden hour reported by any other agency. The methodologies
used by agencies to estimate paperwork burden, however, vary significantly
throughout the Government. One reason that methodologies differ
is that the need for precise burden estimates increases with the
size of information collections. Agencies would not be expected
to utilize identical techniques to measure, for example, the burdens
of a collection with several million respondents and of a collection
with several dozen respondents.
Second, for
burden measurement to be accurate, it should incorporate recent
developments in estimation methodology and data collection, as well
as reflect the changes that have occurred in the collection, storage,
processing, preparation, and transmission of information.
The manner in which taxpayers provide information to IRS,
for example, has changed dramatically in recent years, particularly
in the use of technology to computerize recordkeeping systems and
electronically file tax returns.
Given the
scale of its information collection activities, IRS confronts a
particularly daunting challenge to measure burden in a meaningful
way. I recently met with IRS and Treasury officials to learn about
a major, multi-year effort by IRS to develop a quantitative model
to more accurately estimate paperwork burden and forecast the burden-reduction
consequences of alternative reforms of tax administration and tax
policy. I believe that this important initiative will significantly
improve the ability of IRS to measure taxpayer burden, and that
what IRS learns will benefit other agencies.
That concludes
my prepared testimony. I would be happy to answer any questions
you may have.
___________________________
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The
agencies that participated in the development of this year's
ICB did not include 12 independent agencies that had contributed
to previous ICBs. OMB decided to exclude the independent agencies
for several reasons. First, OMB's authority over the independent
agencies is limited, so our ability to influence their information
collection policies through OMB oversight is constrained. Second,
most of the independent agencies have total burden inventories
of under 10 million hours. Finally, and perhaps most importantly,
OMB recognizes that it too has limited resources, and it is
our judgement that we can improve our PRA oversight by focusing
on those agencies that impose the most paperwork burden and
over which we have the most direct authority under the PRA to
approve or disapprove information collections.
-
Section
515 of the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act
for Fiscal Year 2001 (Public Law 106-554; H.R. 5658).
-
44
U.S.C. 3506(c)(1)(A)(iv).
- The
total annual burden of Federal information went from 1.53 billion
hours in 1981 to an expected 7.44 billion hours in 2001. In 1988,
the Department of the Treasury reviewed all of its burden estimates
and adjusted them upward by approximately 3.4 billion hours. We
calculated the 50% increase by dividing 7.44 by 1.53 plus 3.4.
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