Federal Paperwork Reduction Message to the Congress.

To the Congress of the United States:

In the past two and one half years, my Administration has achieved real progress in cutting the paperwork burden government imposes on the public. Today I am announcing steps to expand and accelerate that effort.

I have today signed an Executive Order on paperwork reduction. I am also calling on the Congress to enact two bills which will help eliminate needless forms, cut duplication, streamline those forms which are necessary and strengthen central oversight of Federal paperwork.

Government efficiency is a central theme of my Administration. If we are to restore confidence in government, we must eliminate needless burdens on the public. We have pursued this goal through regulatory reform, civil service reform, reorganization, and other initiatives. Paperwork reduction is an important part of this program.

Some Federal paperwork is needed. The government must collect information to enforce the civil rights laws, compile economic statistics, design sound regulations, and for many other purposes. In recent years, however, government forms, surveys and interviews have mushroomed. Much of this paperwork is unnecessary or duplicates information being collected elsewhere.

My Administration has stopped the paperwork surge and started cutting this burden down to size. We have reduced the amount of time Americans spend filling out Federal forms by almost 15%-127 million hours. That is the equivalent of 75,000 people working full-time for a year. We have evaluated the 520 recommendations of the Paperwork Commission and have already implemented more than half of them.

The Internal Revenue Service made it possible, for example, for five million taxpayers to switch from the long tax form to the short one. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration exempted 40,000 small businesses from reporting requirements. The Interstate Commerce Commission sliced a 70-page report required from 13,000 carriers down to 8 pages. The Labor and Treasury Departments slashed the paperwork burden that was crushing the small pension plans. I am today announcing that we are consolidating three reports required from the States on welfare and food stamp programs; this will eventually save 500,000 hours and $10 million per year.

The progress in cutting Federal paperwork has been substantial, but we must do more. Congress is enacting new requirements in energy, environmental protection, and other programs that will add to the paperwork burden. To continue our success in eliminating Federal paperwork, we need the broad management program I am announcing today.

The Executive Order I have signed establishes strong management tools for the Executive agencies. First of all, it creates a "paperwork budget." Each agency will submit an annual estimate of the numbers of hours required to fill out all its forms. The Office of Management and Budget will then hold agencies to that total or order it cut. The process will be similar to the spending budget; it will give agencies incentives to set priorities and to eliminate or streamline burdensome forms.

The Order creates a Federal Information Locator System, which will list all the types of information collected by Federal agencies. Before an agency collects information, it will check in this System to see if another agency already has the data.

The Order also requires agencies to consider the special paperwork problems of small organizations and small businesses. Data gathering that may be easy for a corporation with computerized records may be very costly for a small business person who keeps records by hand. Some reports must necessarily be universal and uniform, but in many cases agencies can meet their information needs while providing exemptions or less burdensome reports for small businesses. Some agencies already have started doing so. The Executive Order requires all agencies to review each form to identify those cases where small organizations can be exempted or given simpler forms. Senator John Culver deserves credit for leading the development of this concept of special consideration for small organizations.

Finally, the Order mandates a "sunset" process. This process will be similar to the legislation I am supporting to mandate sunset reviews for regulations, spending programs, and tax expenditures. The Paperwork Order requires that each form terminate every five years unless a new decision is made to continue it.

We also need legislation to build a complete paperwork control program and extend it to all agencies. Representatives Jack Brooks, Frank Horton, and Tom Steed and Senator Lawton Chiles have taken the lead in developing a Paperwork Reduction Act which will strengthen and unify existing paperwork oversight. The Federal Reports Act is insufficient in this regard. It gives OMB power to disapprove many agencies' forms, but the independent regulatory commissions are reviewed by the General Accounting Office and tax, education, and health manpower programs have no central review at all. These loopholes represent 81% of the total paperwork burden, of which tax forms are 73%.

This legislation will close these loopholes, providing central oversight for all forms. It also strengthens the paperwork clearance process by allowing members of the public to refuse to fill out forms that have not been properly cleared.

The legislation will provide additional tools to cut duplication in paperwork requirements. When several agencies want to collect overlapping data, the bill will empower the OMB to assign one agency to do the job. The bill will also deal with the special problems of statistical systems. One cause of duplication is that agencies collect statistical data under pledges of confidentiality, and these pledges hamper sharing the data. The bill will authorize such sharing while strengthening safeguards to ensure the data is used only for statistical purposes and never to abuse personal privacy. These provisions will also strengthen our Federal statistical systems, which are crucial to economic and other policymaking.

While controlling the paperwork imposed on the public, we must also hold down paperwork within the Government itself. I am therefore submitting to the Congress the Reports Elimination Act of 1979. This bill, together with administrative action we are taking now, will eliminate or simplify 278 annual agency reports, saving at least $5.5 million per year.

This overall paperwork reduction program has been developed in a cooperative effort with the leaders of the Senate Governmental Affairs and House Government Operations Committees. Working together, we will continue the progress on cutting away red tape.

I urge the Congress to act promptly on the two bills I have discussed.

JIMMY CARTER

The White House,

November 30, 1979.