Remarks on Signing Executive Order 12174 on Federal Paperwork Reduction

THE PRESIDENT. Ever since I've been involved in public life, in the minds of many Americans, government—particularly the Federal Government—and redtape have been synonymous phrases.

In my first Cabinet meeting here after I was inaugurated President, the first item of business that I brought up was my determination to eliminate redtape and paperwork from the Federal Government. I've been in office now almost 3 years, and with the help of these Members of Congress behind me and executive agencies, we've had a substantial degree of success.

We have been able to reduce the total number of hours devoted to Federal paperwork by 15 percent, which is a substantial achievement. This amounts to 130 million hours of filling out paperwork each year. That's as though every person in Dubuque, Iowa, to take a typical State— [laughter] —was working 40 hours a week the whole year. That's how much paperwork we've already eliminated. That's 15 percent, but we've still got a long way to go.

And I'm very deeply grateful to the men standing behind me, particularly Senator Chiles, who's in the forefront this year, Congressman Brooks, and Congressman Frank Horton. Obviously, others have done a great deal of work, including Senator Nelson and others.

A while back Frank Horton delivered to me the result of a long study of paperwork elimination. It consisted of several hundred recommendations. We have already implemented, Frank, more than half those recommendations, and we're working on the implementation of the others.

Today, I'm going to sign an Executive order that will go as far as I can legally go in reducing paperwork further. This sets a definite limit, or paperwork budget, that cannot be exceeded by any one of the Federal agencies without my direct approval; further, to reduce the amount of paperwork that they require either within Government or outside of the Federal Government.

Secondly, I'm eliminating every degree of interagency duplication. Quite often the same data from an American citizen are required by more than one Federal agency, and their sharing of information when it comes in can greatly eliminate or reduce the amount of paperwork involved. If forms and reports are necessary—and many of them are—we're trying to reduce the number of forms required, to cut down on the length of those particular forms, and also to reduce the frequency with which reports and other data have to be submitted to the Federal Government.

In addition, we're implementing sunset provisions so that after a certain period of time, the paperwork required is automatically eliminated, unless it's reassessed by the Federal agencies and determined still to be of urgent need for the carrying out of the Government's business. Quite often, once a form or report or request is initiated into a requirement, it perpetuates itself long past the time when it's no longer needed.

Under the sponsorship of these men behind me, there has already been introduced the paperwork and redtape reduction act of 1979. I strongly support that legislation and will be working with these leaders to get it implemented. It will put real legal teeth into additional steps that I cannot legally do now because I don't have the authority. But under their sponsorship, I'll have a new law with which I can work closely with the congressional leaders to reduce paperwork throughout the Federal Government.

And the last thing that I'd like to mention is that we are sending to the Congress today an administration proposal to reduce congressional reports that are required by the executive branch. This will either completely eliminate or substantially reduce 224 different reports that have been required by the executive branch of Government, by Congress, in days gone by, years gone by, decades gone by. And these have now been assessed, and we believe that this number can be eliminated or drastically reduced or consolidated and eliminate a great deal of burden on the executive branch of Government and also the Congress.

As everybody knows, many of these reports are never looked at. Nobody ever sees them after they are evolved with tremendous input by the private sector of American economy, by local and State governments, and particularly by small business, where they are a very serious and onerous burden.

And we are doing everything we can to cut down redtape and paperwork, and I'm deeply grateful for the leadership that's been shown by the congressional representatives here this morning.

I'd like to ask Senator Chiles if he has a comment to make, and then following that, Chairman Brooks and, also Chairman Frank Horton. Lawton, would you speak to—

SENATOR CHILES. Well, Mr. President, I think you're indicating your support of and your attack on paperwork as you did when you first came to this office, as you said, in your first Cabinet meeting. I think the ball is now in our court with the bill that we now have. And I think with your sponsorship and with the bipartisan group that we've put together in both the House and the Senate, we're going to be able to move that bill quickly.

I find the great problem is that I know we've made some progress, but as I go around my State, I can't find anybody that's felt that progress yet. They all are waiting to see when we're going to reduce it. And so, I think that it's something that we have to take additional steps. But I think that we've got the ball moving there, and with your help, we'll continue to move.

THE PRESIDENT. One of the things that I've done is to have in this same room all of the State school superintendents, for instance, and in a different meeting, I've had 18 or 20 representatives of the university system, and also mayors and Governors' representatives, to come in here and give me specific examples of what paperwork or reports or applications could be eliminated. And when they've done it, they've immediately gone to OMB, and we've cut them out. And
we've made good progress so far. Chairman Jack Brooks.

REPRESENTATIVE BROOKS. Thank you, Mr. President.

I would just like to commend you, Mr. President, for the results that you have already made in cutting down on the paperwork burdens and the results you've already achieved. And this is not a subject that's going to attract a lot of attention, and it won't help in the polls very much, but it's of tremendous importance to all the people, particularly the business community, because they're going to realize substantial benefits from what you're initiating today.

Now, I'm very pleased to say that the legislation that we're working on—that has been promoted substantially by Senator Chiles and others, and Frank Horton and myself, and your people; we're working on that legislation—I anticipate that it will be introduced this session, and we'll be ready to act on it the first of next year, very shortly after the beginning of the year.

With the legislation, with the Executive order in place, with the Government reorganizations and reforms that you have already put through, you will have clearly carried out your pledge to the American people to improve the efficiency of the Government, and I want to congratulate you on that achievement.

THE PRESIDENT. Thank you very much.

I might say that we've had remarkable success with our reorganization efforts under the leadership of these men here. I had the authority given to me early in my term to submit to the Congress reorganization plans, and so far, under the able leadership of Jack Brooks and Senator Ribicoff and Senator Nelson and others, we're batting a thousand, right? Haven't lost one yet.

Frank, would you like to say a word?

REPRESENTATIVE HORTON. Mr. President, speaking as the past Chairman of the Paperwork Commission, I'd just like to also add my congratulations to the administration for its determination and dedication to doing away with paperwork.

That was quite an interesting work that we did on the Paperwork Commission. I might say parenthetically, its life was 2 years. It self-destructed at the end of 2 years. And in October of 1977, I furnished to you the final report, which was right on time. In addition to finishing our work on time and not asking for an extension, we also turned back $1.4 million, which is also unheard of.

But as a result of what we suggested, some 60 percent of those recommendations have been carried out by the administration, and I'm sure, as a result of this Executive order, many more are going to be followed up on. The legislation that you referred to, that is sponsored in the House by Jack and myself and Tom Steed—who is also a member of the Commission and who's here with us today-that legislation will go a long way to carry out the legislative mandates that would have to be done in order to carry out the work of the Commission.

The other thing I'd like to say is that it's my feeling, in dealing with the people in my district, that they feel that there's what I call strangulation by regulation. And the manifestation of that strangulation is paperwork. And if we can do away with some of that paperwork, then they're going to be then aware of the fact that something is being done to eliminate that regulation.

Another thing is that Tom Steed, at our very first meeting, made the point that paperwork is like weeds: You can cut it down; it'll grow back. So, you've got to get to the root cause, and that's what this does and also what this legislation will do.

So, thanks a lot for your dedication, your personal interest in it, and making certain that this administration is carrying out the mandate. And I'll say that as a Republican, because I'm the one that gives it the bipartisan— [Laughter] —like Tip O'Neill said when I gave him the report—he said, "How'd a Republican get to be Chairman of this Commission?" [Laughter]

THE PRESIDENT. Because of your good work.

I might say that it's a great pleasure for me to sign the Executive order now. Frank, this Executive order was originally five pages long. [Laughter] And it's now 2 1/4 pages long. So, we've already started on the good work.

[At this point, the President signed the Executive order.]

Well, that's a major step forward to getting redtape and paperwork burden off the shoulders of the American people, and I'm very grateful to all of you. Good luck to you.

One other point is—as a very important postscript—John Culver just said that our legislation that would provide for reduction in regulations, our deregulation legislation, is moving forward and they'll take a major stride, I think, next week. John, thank you very much. Thank you all.