Approved-By:  RAED@VMD.CSO.UIUC.EDU
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.govdoc-l
Date:         Wed, 9 Sep 1992 11:59:46 CDT
From:         James P Love <LOVE%PUCC@PSUVM.PSU.EDU>
Subject: A-130; TAP comments

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
      Comments on Proposed Revisions of OMB Circular A-130
                     Taxpayer Assets Project
                         P.O. Box 19367
                      Washington, DC  20036
                  Internet:  tap@essential.org

                         August 27, 1992


1.   THE TAXPAYER ASSETS PROJECT

     The Taxpayer Assets Project (TAP) was started by Ralph Nader to
monitor the sale and management of government property.  Among the
public assets that we have investigated are government information
resources, government-funded software, and government-funded information
systems.  We have been particularly interested in issues relating to the
pricing of government information products and services, public access
to taxpayer- funded information and information systems, and the quality
and nature of government information products and services.

     TAP has also undertaken a number of case studies of the impact of
federal efforts to privatize the dissemination of government
information.

     TAP is also engaged in research on a wide range of other topics,
including, for example, the management of federally owned mineral and
timber resources, licensing of federally funded inventions such as
pharmaceutical drugs, the allocation of rights to use public airwaves,
public infrastructure investments, and many other items.

     In *all* of these endeavors, TAP is a consumer of government
information.  We need to obtain information from dozens of federal
agencies on many different topics.  Consider just two examples:

     i.   In our study of federal oil and gas resources, we need access
          to Department of Interior (DOI) databases on OCS oil and gas
          lease auctions, Department of Energy (DOE) databases on oil
          output, consumption, and prices, and Federal Reserve databases
          on bond yields for federal debt.

     ii.  In our research on government licensing of pharmaceutical
          drugs we need access to databases on FDA approvals of new
          drugs, federally funded medical research, patents, and federal
          tax expenditures for orphan drugs.

     For many projects we need access to information on corporations
that are reported in SEC filings, or agency notices that are published
in the Federal Register.  This list could be expanded with countless
other federal information products and services.

     TAP uses these information resources to do research and produce
reports and studies.  Thus, TAP is both a consumer of government
information resources, and a producer of value added information
products and services.


2.   CITIZENS NEED MECHANISMS TO TELL AGENCIES HOW INFORMATION POLICIES
     CAN BE IMPROVED

     The federal government spends billions of tax dollars every year to
collect and store of information.  These expenditures create resources
that often have multiple uses, including uses that are beyond the
agency's mission.  But agencies are often indifferent to the public
interest in the information resources that they manage.

     Agencies should be required to accept comments from the public on a
wide range of information management issues, including policies on the
collection and the dissemination of information.  Citizens should have
mechanisms to regularly inform agencies of changes in policies and
practices that will allow citizens to better utilize federal information
resources.


3.   PUBLIC NOTICE SECTIONS IN A-130 SHOULD BE EXPANDED TO ADDRESS A
     WIDE RANGE OF PUBLIC INTEREST CONSIDERATIONS

     The proposed Circular requires agencies to provide notice and
accept public comments before an agency can create or terminate a major
information program.  This is too narrow a scope for public notice and
comment.  Citizens should have opportunities to tell agencies when
services are inadequate or poorly designed, and citizens should also
have opportunities to ask agencies to create new information products
and services.

     Agencies often commit errors of omission.  Failures to provide
public access to taxpayer-funded information systems, or to embrace new
technologies (online systems, CD-ROMs, etc) or standards are common and
important errors of omission.  Regular opportunities for public comment
on agency information management policies and practices would provide an
important mechanism to identify such errors.

4.   AGENCY PUBLIC NOTICE REQUIREMENTS SHOULD INCORPORATE THE PROPOSALS
     IN H.R. 3459, THE IMPROVEMENT OF INFORMATION ACCESS ACT.

     H.R. 3459, the Improvement of Information Access Act (IIA Act),
provides a model for public notice and comment on federal information
policy.  The proposals in the IIA Act were developed by a large working
group of librarians, researchers, and agency officials.  The public
notice sections would provide the following mechanism:

i.   Every year all federal agencies would be required to publish a
     report which describes:

     -    plans to introduce or discontinue information products and
          services,

     -    efforts to develop or implement standards for file and record
          formats, software query command structures, and other matters
          that make information easier to obtain and use,

     -    the status of agency efforts to create and disseminate
          comprehensive indexes or bibliographies of their information
          products and services,

     -    how the public may access the agencies information,

     -    plans for preserving access to electronic information that is
          stored in technologies that may be superseded or obsolete, and

     -    agency plans to keep the public aware of its information
          resources, services, and products.

i.   Agencies would be required to solicit public comments on this plan,
     including comments on the types of information collected and
     disseminated, the agency's methods of storing information, their
     outlets for disseminating information, the prices they charge for
     information, and the "validity, reliability, timeliness, and
     usefulness to the public of the information." The agency would be
     required to summarize the comments it received and report each year
     what it had done to respond to the comments received in the
     previous year.

     The issues addressed in H.R. 3459 are the types of things that are
needed to make agencies more responsive to citizens who use federal
information resources.  In comparison, the public notice and comment
provisions of the current draft of A-130 are limited and static.  We
need the flexible and dynamic approach embraced in H.R. 3459, to address
the concerns of data users as technologies change and as the uses of
federal information resources change.


5.   THE USE OF STANDARDS MAKES GOVERNMENT INFORMATION EASIER TO OBTAIN
     AND USE

     Few citizens are highly trained in using computers. Standards for
file formats, software interfaces, query commands and other items will
make it easier for the public to obtain and use agency information
resources.  A-130 should require agencies to use standardized record and
file formats and software interfaces.

     Computer technologies are rapidly changing.  Because technologies
and standards are constantly evolving, agencies should be required to
accept regular and frequent input from data users.


6.   DATA COLLECTION ISSUES ARE IMPORTANT

     Citizens need information to understand the world around them.
Agencies should encourage public debates over information collection
issues.  For example:

     -    The SEC should regularly accept public comments on the types
          of information that should be reported in corporate disclosure
          filings.  Investors or citizens who monitor corporate
          activities should have opportunities to tell the SEC the types
          of the information that should be included on corporate 10k
          reports, insider trading reports, stock prospectuses, and
          other filings.

     -    Historically the taxpayers finance about half of all U.S. R&D
          expenditures.  One measure of the efficacy of those
          investments are patents from inventions that were financed by
          the taxpayers.  The Patent and Trademark Office should collect
          information on patent applications that identify the role of
          federal funds in the development of the inventions.

     -    Prescription drugs are one of the fastest growing elements of
          the nation's enormous health care bill. The federal government
          funds more than $10 billion in medical research, and provides
          a wide array of special marketing monopolies and tax
          expenditures to the pharmaceutical industry.  In order to
          evaluate the reasonableness of the prices for prescription
          drugs, particularly those developed with federal funds, the
          federal government should collect data on the costs of drug
          development.  The government should also collect information
          on drug prices and revenues and the amount of money the
          government spends buying government developed but privately
          marketed drugs through medicaid and medicare.

     -    Many economists say the recent boom and bust in commercial
          real estate was a major contributor to the collapse of the
          savings and loan industry and the weakening of the commercial
          banking system, which has contributed to the current
          recession.  Pensions funds have also lost billions of dollars
          in commercial real estate markets.  The Bureau of the Census
          spends millions of dollars every year on a monthly survey of
          building permits.  This survey collects information on the
          *value* of permits issued.  Most real estate researchers want
          Census to collect information on the *square feet* of building
          permits, since that statistic is a much better predictor of
          real estate supply. Better information on the supply of
          commercial real estate would help prevent costly investor
          mistakes.


        These are just a few of the countless data collection issues
that deserve far more debate.  Agencies are often out of touch with
citizen concerns about information collection issues, and they need to
be required to accept suggestions on these issues.

7.   CONFLICTS OF INTEREST ARE IMPORTANT, AND SHOULD BE ADDRESSED IN
     A-130

        Many agencies contract out data processing services to firms
that sell agency information to citizens.  Conflicts of interest abound.
Frequently the contractor has an interest in restricting public access
to the agency information systems, so the contractor can sell the data
through its own retail outlets.  For example:

     -    Mead Data Central will receive $13.5 million from the SEC to
          provide online full text searching of the EDGAR database
          system.  Mead is also the SEC subcontractor in charge of
          providing public access to the EDGAR database.  But since Mead
          wants to sell SEC information to the public through its own
          LEXIS service, it has restricted public access to taxpayer
          financed EDGAR system.

     -    Westlaw has a contract to create a digital version of federal
          caselaw for the Justice Department's JURIS online database
          system.  But Westlaw wants to sell the public those same
          records thought its own high priced online service, and it has
          obtained a contact that restricted public access to the
          Department of Justice's very important JURIS system.  In doing
          so Westlaw has not only denied the taxpayers access to an
          important government database, but it has also prevented rival
          database vendors from obtaining the JURIS database in order to
          compete with Westlaw and Lexis, the two firms that currently
          enjoy a duopoly in the market for online access to federal
          legal opinions.

     A-130 should address these types of agreements, instructing
agencies to insure that private contractors do not use federal data
processing contracts to obtain unfair advantages over their rivals, or
to deny the public access to information and information systems that
they have already paid for through taxes.

8.   HIGH PRICES FOR INFORMATION PRODUCTS AND SERVICES CREATES LARGE
     DISPARITIES BETWEEN CITIZENS BASED UPON THEIR ABILITY TO PAY

     The Taxpayer Assets Project is a nonprofit organization with a
small budget.  We simply cannot afford to buy many of the commercial
services that provide access to government databases. The groups that
are most able to afford these expensive services are those with large
financial interests in narrow aspects of government policy.  For
example, most pharmaceutical firms have armies of lawyers, lobbyists and
policy analysts who can afford to monitor every actions of the FDA, PTO,
NIH, Congress and other government agencies, not to mention their
private sector rivals. When access to government information is rationed
according to willingness to pay, we find ourselves at an enormous
disadvantage.  Not only do the pharmaceutical companies have the
resources to finance congressional and presidential campaigns, to dangle
high paying jobs to former government officials, and to vastly outstaff
groups that represent consumers and taxpayers, but they also are the
only ones who can afford to use the databases that are funded by the
taxpayers.  This scenario, repeated throughout the government, is among
the reasons that special interest groups can manipulate and control the
government, at the expense of the broader public interest.

     A-130 should instruct agencies to consider the impact of
information management policies on the prices that consumers will pay
for access to taxpayer funded information resources.  For example, if an
agency can produce CD-ROM products for $35 or less, why should citizens
be required to pay $500 to $10,000 to buy the information from
commercial vendors?  Likewise, if it costs between $15 and $35 an hour
to provide online access to the PTO's APS, why should citizens be forced
to pay $340 per hour to receive the same information through Lexis?

     Agencies should avoid policies that deliberately restrict public
access to taxpayer funded information systems in order to bolster the
business interests of commercial vendors, since this leads to even
greater concentrations of political power.  Low cost access to
government information is needed to strengthen citizen involvement in
government policy making.


9.   OMB'S PROPOSED LIMITS ON PRICES FOR INFORMATION PRODUCTS AND
     SERVICES ARE NEEDED

     Among the best features of the proposed A-130 revision are the
provisions that would limit agency prices for information products and
services to the costs of dissemination.  This is sorely needed.


10.  AGENCIES ARE USING NTIS TO RAISE PRICES FOR INFORMATION PRODUCTS
     AND SERVICES FAR ABOVE DISSEMINATION COSTS

     Many agencies now have contracts that give NTIS exclusive rights to
sell information at prices that far exceed dissemination costs.  For
example, the Federal Reserve sells its "bank call" reports on magnetic
tape for $560 per quarter. Information from the Home Mortgage Disclosure
Act (HMDA) is also very expensive.  OMB should clarify an agency's
responsibility to provide access to information at cost, when NTIS is
simultaneously selling the information at huge markups.  This is an
enormous issue, given the large and rapidly growing electronic
collections that NTIS currently manages.


11.  THE FEDERAL DEPOSITORY LIBRARY PROGRAM SHOULD NOT BE SUBJECT TO A
     TECHNOLOGICAL SUNSET

     The federal Depository Library Program (DLP) provides 1,400
libraries with free access to federal information.  This program, which
has been around since the middle of the 19th century, is not a welfare
program.  It serves scholars, business persons, and many others who need
access to federal information.

     We frequently use federal depository libraries.  We cannot afford
to buy all the government publications that we use, but even when prices
are not an issue, we rely upon the library staff's expertise and
indexing resources to discover publications that may be useful to us.
The fact that information is disseminated in electronic formats should
not eliminate an agency's responsibility to this important program.



12.  ACCEPTING PUBLIC COMMENTS VIA ELECTRONIC MAIL

     OMB deserves a pat on the back for its efforts in using electronic
mail networks such as the Internet to disseminate information about the
proposed changes in the Circular, and to receive comments by electronic
mail.  These steps will broaden public awareness of the Circular, and
allow a wider group of citizens to participate in the debate.  We urge
OMB to address this issue in the final draft of A-130.  That is, OMB
should encourage all federal agencies to use electronic mail networks to
disseminate public notices *and* to accept public comments.  It is
particularly appropriate here, when many citizens who are interested in
government information policy have access to such networks.  Of course,
these efforts should supplement and not replace other methods of
providing public notice and accepting comments.
------------------------------------------------------------------
James Love, Director               VOICE:    215-658-0880
Taxpayer Assets Project            FAX:      call
12 Church Road                     INTERNET: love@essential.org
Ardmore, PA  19003
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.govdoc-l