United States General Accounting Office

GAO Testimony

Before the Committee on Small Business

U.S. Senate

For Release on Delivery

Expected at

10:00 a.m. EDST

Wednesday

June 5, 1996

PAPERWORK REDUCTION

Burden Reduction Goal

Unlikely To Be Met

Michael Brostek

Associate Director, Federal Management and Workforce

Issues

General Government Division

and

Peter F. Guerrero

Director, Environmental Protection Issues

Resources, Community and Economic Development

Division

G O A

years

1921 - 1996

GAO/T-GGD/RCED-96-186

Summary 

Paperwork Reduction: Burden Reduction

Goal Unlikely to Be Met

The paperwork burden that the federal government imposes on the public,

which is commonly measured in terms of “burden hours,” has increased

significantly since 1980 both governmentwide and in particular agencies.

In 1995, the Internal Revenue Service accounted for about 80 percent of

the total paperwork burden of nearly 7 billion hours.

The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 requires the Office of Management

and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) to set a

goal of at least a 10-percent reduction in governmentwide paperwork

burden for fiscal year 1996 and goals for each agency that reduce burden

to the “maximum practicable” extent. It also requires agencies to follow

certain procedures in developing information collections, including a

60-day notice and comment period. Just before these new requirements

took effect, agencies submitted information-collection requests to OIRA

that substantially increased their burden-hour totals.

As of May 31, 1996, OIRA had not set any burden-reduction goals. However,

even if the planned agency-specific goals are set, they will not sum to

10-percent governmentwide reduction goal. OIRA said that, consistent with

the act, the governmentwide burden-reduction goal for fiscal year 1996

will be 10 percent. However, agencies’ goals, based on their burden-hour

projections, will average about 1 percent. If these projections are accurate,

a 10-percent governmentwide burden reduction will be impossible.

The act does not explicitly require that the agency-specific goals should

sum to the governmentwide goal. However, the act does require OIRA to

keep Congress and congressional committees “fully and currently

informed” of any “major activities.” OIRA has not done so regarding (1) why

it has not set any goals or (2) agencies’ projections indicating that the

10 percent governmentwide paperwork reduction goal will not be

achieved.

Several agencies contend that their burden-reduction efforts are hampered

by statutorily based requirements. In particular, IRS said that it could not

reduce the burden it imposed by more than about 0.9 percent without

substantive changes in the tax code. GAO has not assessed the extent to

which the paperwork burden agencies impose is directly a consequence of

statutory requirements.

Three agencies GAO examined each took different steps to reduce

paperwork burden. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency

(EPA) is attempting to reduce its January 1, 1995, burden-hour total by

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Goal Unlikely to Be Met

25 percent. However, EPA’s efforts have been largely offset by increases in

what some of its officials describe as statutorily required information

collections.

Page 2 GAO/T-GGD/RCED-96-186
Statement 

Paperwork Reduction: Burden Reduction

Goal Unlikely to Be Met

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:

We are pleased to be here today to discuss the implementation of the

Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. As you requested, we have reviewed

selected aspects of the act’s implementation by the Office of Management

and Budget (OMB) and three agencies—the Internal Revenue Service (IRS),

the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Occupational Safety

and Health Administration (OSHA). In your request letter, you noted that

participants at last year’s White House Conference on Small Business

believed these three agencies impose the most significant paperwork

burdens on small businesses.

We will focus on three main issues today: (1) changes in paperwork

burden governmentwide and in the three selected agencies, (2) OMB’s

responsibility to set goals for reducing such burden and whether agencies

will achieve the burden reductions envisioned in the act, and (3) actions

each of the three agencies have taken since the passage of the act. We will

also discuss some measurement issues Congress needs to consider as it

assesses agencies’ progress in reducing paperwork burden.

Background First, however, a little background information is needed. The Paperwork

Reduction Act of 1995 amended and recodified the Paperwork Reduction

Act of 1980, as amended. The 1995 act reaffirmed the principles of the

original act and gave new responsibilities to OMB and executive branch

agencies. Like the original statute, the 1995 act requires agencies to justify

any collection of information from the public by establishing the need and

intended use of the information, estimating the burden that the collection

will impose on the respondents, and showing that the collection is the

least burdensome way to gather the information.

The act also reauthorized the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs

(OIRA) within OMB to determine whether agencies’ proposals for collecting

information comply with the act.1

 Agencies must receive OIRA approval for

each information collection request before it is implemented. OIRA is also

required to report to Congress on agencies’ progress in reducing

paperwork. To do so, OIRA develops an Information Collection Budget (ICB)

by gathering data from executive branch agencies on the total number of

“burden hours” OIRA approved for collections of information for the agency

1

The act requires the Director of OMB to delegate the authority to administer all functions under the

act to the Administrator of OIRA, but does not relieve the OMB Director of responsibility for the

administration of those functions. In this testimony, we refer to OIRA or the OIRA Administrator

wherever the act assigns responsibilities to OMB or the Director.

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Goal Unlikely to Be Met

at the end of the fiscal year, and agency estimates of the burden for the

coming fiscal year.2

The 1995 act also makes several changes in federal paperwork reduction

requirements. For example, it requires OIRA to set goals of at least a

10-percent burden reduction governmentwide for each of fiscal years 1996

and 1997, a 5-percent governmentwide burden reduction in each of the

next 4 fiscal years, and annual agency goals that reduce burden to “the

maximum practicable” extent.3

 The act also redefines a “collection of

information” to include required disclosures of information to third parties

and the public, effectively overturning the Supreme Court’s 1990 Dole v.

United Steelworkers of America decision.4 Finally, the 1995 act details new

agency responsibilities for the review and control of paperwork. For

example, it requires agencies to establish a 60-day public notice and

comment period for each proposed collection of information before

submitting the proposal to OMB for approval.

OIRA uses the ICB information to assess whether agencies’ burden reduction

goals are being met. OIRA classifies changes in burden-hour estimates as

caused by either “program changes” or “adjustments.” Program changes

are additions or reductions to existing paperwork requirements which are

imposed either through new statutory requirements or an agency’s own

initiative. Adjustments are changes in burden estimates caused by factors

other than changes in the actual paperwork requirements, such as changes

in the population responding to a requirement or agency reestimates of the

burden associated with a collection of information. OIRA counts both

program changes and adjustments when calculating an agency’s

burden-hour baseline at the end of each fiscal year. However, OIRA does

not count changes that are due to adjustments in determining whether an

agency has achieved its burden reduction goal.

2

Although OIRA consults with agencies in the preparation of their ICB submissions and refers to this

data collection process as a “budget,” OIRA’s information collection budget does not limit the number

of burden hours an agency is permitted to impose in the way that a financial budget limits

expenditures.

3

The original act contained burden reduction goals, but they had expired.

4

494 U.S. 26. The Court ruled that the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980 (as amended) did not provide

OMB with the authority to review agency regulations that mandate disclosure of information by

regulated entities directly to third parties.

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Goal Unlikely to Be Met

Changes in

Paperwork Burden

Over Time

Figure 1 shows changes in reported burden-hour estimates

governmentwide and at IRS between September 30, 1980, and

September 30, 1995—the day before the new act took effect.

Figure 1: Trends in Paperwork Burden

Governmentwide and for IRS

80 82 84 86 88 90 92 94 95

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Burden hours (in billions)

Governmentwide

IRS

Note: Data are as of September 30 each year.

Source: Regulatory Information Service Center and Department of the Treasury.

As you can see, the governmentwide total rose substantially during that

15-year period, from about 1.5 billion burden hours in 1980 to more than

6.9 billion burden hours in 1995. The rate of governmentwide increase was

not consistent during this period; the total rose and fell in the early years,

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rose dramatically in 1989, and rose every year since then with the

exception of 1993.5

 In each year since fiscal year 1989, IRS’ paperwork

burden has accounted for more than three-quarters of the governmentwide

total. Increases or decreases in IRS’ total number of burden hours have had

a dramatic effect on the governmentwide total. For example, the near

tripling of the governmentwide burden-hour estimate during fiscal year

1989 was primarily because IRS changed the way it calculated its

information collection burden, which increased its paperwork estimate by

about 3.4 billion hours.6

 Because the IRS paperwork burden is such a large

portion of the governmentwide total, the success of any governmentwide

effort to reduce burden largely depends on reducing the burden imposed

by IRS.

Figures 2 and 3 show the changes in the paperwork burden at EPA and

OSHA, respectively, during the same 1980 to 1995 period.

5

According to OMB, more than 90 percent of the fiscal year 1993 decline was because of population

changes and other adjustments.

6

For more information on this recalculation, see Paperwork Reduction: Reported Burden Hour

Increases Reflect New Estimates, Not Actual Change (GAO/PEMD-94-3, Dec. 6, 1993).

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Goal Unlikely to Be Met

Figure 2: Trends in EPA’s Paperwork

Burden

80 82 84 86 88 90 92 94 95

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Burden hours (in millions)

Note: Data are as of September 30 each year.

Source: Regulatory Information Service Center.

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Figure 3: Trends in OSHA’s Paperwork

Burden

80 82 84 86 88 90 92 94 95

0

50

100

150

200

250

Burden hours (in millions)

Note: Data are as of September 30 each year, but data were not available for 1980 and 1981. In

1982, 1983, 1993, and 1994, OSHA’s paperwork estimate was less than 2 million burden hours.

Source: Department of Labor.

EPA’s burden-hour estimate rose sharply in the late 1980s, fell somewhat in

1991 (because third-party information collections were no longer being

counted as a result of the Dole decision), and rose again between 1991 and

1995. OSHA’s burden-hour estimate increased gradually through 1987, rose

rapidly in 1988, fell back to its previous level by 1990, and decreased

slightly until it rose sharply between 1994 and 1995.7

7

The increase in 1988 resulted from a court-ordered expansion of the scope of industries covered by

the agency’s Hazard Communication Standard. The burden level decreased by 1990 as industries made

use of a guide OSHA published to simplify compliance with that standard.

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Goal Unlikely to Be Met

Figure 4 shows the month-by-month changes in the governmentwide

paperwork burden between September 30, 1994, and March 30, 1996—the

period including the date the 1995 act was signed by the President

(May 22, 1995) and its effective date (October 1, 1995).

Figure 4: Recent Changes in Burden

Hours Governmentwide

9/94 12/94 3/95 6/95 9/95 12/95 3/96

6.2

6.4

6.6

6.8

7

Burden hours (in billions)

1995 act 

signed

Effective date 

of the act

Note: Data are as of the end of each month.

Source: Regulatory Information Service Center.

The number of burden hours governmentwide rose more than 500 million

hours (more than 8 percent) in the 1-month period immediately before the

effective date of the act—from 6.39 billion hours on August 30, 1995, to

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Goal Unlikely to Be Met

6.90 billion hours on September 30, 1995. IRS increased its burden-hour

estimate by more than 147.6 million burden hours (about 3 percent)

between August and September; EPA’s estimate went up more than

21 million hours (more than 25 percent) during that month. OSHA’s

burden-hour estimate rose most dramatically shortly before the effective

date, from about 1.5 million hours on June 30, 1995, to about 208 million

hours on September 30, 1995.8

Documents we reviewed and officials we talked to indicated that these

increases occurred during this period because agencies were trying to get

proposed information collections approved before the new act took effect

on October 1, 1995.9

 Some of the proposals at OSHA and EPA were

third-party and public disclosures that had previously been removed from

the agencies’ estimates because of the Dole decision.10 Other proposals,

particularly those at OSHA, were third-party and public disclosures that had

been added after the Dole decision.11 By getting these third-party and other

proposed information collections approved before the act’s effective date,

agencies were able to avoid the new requirements imposed by the act,

including the 60-day public notice and comment period at the agencies.

OIRA approved some of these collections of information for less than 1 year

so that the agencies would have to clear the collections under the new

process during fiscal year 1996.

However, submitting the proposals for review and approval before the act

took effect also raised the burden-hour baseline against which the

agencies’ paperwork reduction goals would be judged. For example, the

increase in OSHA’s burden-hour baseline from about 1.5 million hours to

about 208 million hours between June and September 1995 meant that

OSHA had to cut more burden hours to achieve a 10 percent reduction

(20.8 million hours) than it would have had to cut before the increase

(about 150,000 hours).

8

OSHA burden-hour estimates were unavailable for July or August 1995.

9

For example, on May 22, 1995, the OIRA Administrator sent a memorandum to the heads of executive

branch departments and agencies reminding them that, for information collections to be approved by

OIRA on or after October 1, 1995, they would have to comply with the new procedures specified in the

act.

10The burden-hour increases at IRS were not attributable to the reinstitution of third-party information

collections because IRS never stopped counting them.

11For example, OSHA’s Process Safety Management of Highly Hazardous Chemicals Standard (about

135 million burden hours) was added after the Dole decision.

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Goal Unlikely to Be Met

Burden Reduction

Goals Not Set and

Reductions Likely to

Fall Short of Act’s

Target

One of the key features of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 is the

requirement that OIRA set both governmentwide and agency-specific

burden reduction goals for fiscal year 1996 and for the next 5 fiscal years.

However, as of May 31, 1996, OIRA had not set any such goals. More

importantly, information that the agencies submitted to OIRA indicated that

the burden reduction target that the act specified for fiscal year 1996 is

unlikely to be reached.

Agencies’ Planned Burden

Reduction Goals Will

Average 1 Percent

OIRA staff told us that they plan to set the fiscal year 1996 burden reduction

goals in a soon-to-be-published ICB. As part of the ICB development

process, in September 1995, OIRA asked agencies to project what their

burden-hour levels would be at the end of fiscal year 1996. Agencies

submitted that information to OIRA between December 1995 and

February 1996.

OIRA staff said that they will establish a governmentwide burden reduction

goal of 10 percent for fiscal year 1996, as the act requires. They also said

that agency goals will reflect the end-of-fiscal year 1996 burden-hour

estimates that the agencies provided in their ICB submissions unless

changed as a result of OIRA review. According to unpublished information

we obtained from OIRA and the agencies, the weighted average of the

agencies’ burden reduction projections is about 1 percent. If these

projections are accurate, the fiscal year 1996 goal of a 10-percent

reduction in governmentwide paperwork burden that the 1995 act calls for

will not be accomplished. Figure 5 shows the actual month-to-month

governmentwide paperwork estimates from March 1995 to March 1996

and, according to our calculations, what the number of burden hours

would have been by the end of fiscal year 1996 if the 10-percent burden

reduction goal had been achieved and what the burden-hour total is

expected to be on the basis of agencies’ projections.

Page 11 GAO/T-GGD/RCED-96-186
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Goal Unlikely to Be Met

Figure 5: Governmentwide Trends in

Paperwork Burden and Fiscal Year

1996 Goals for Burden Reduction

3/95 6/95 9/95 12/95 3/96 6/96 9/96

6

6.2

6.4

6.6

6.8

7

Burden hours (in billions)

10 percent goal

Agencies' projections

Actual burden hours

Note: Data are as of the end of each month.

Source: Regulatory Information Service Center, ICB submissions, and GAO calculations.

The act did not explicitly require that the governmentwide goal should be

the sum of the agency-specific goals. It specifies that the governmentwide

burden-reduction goal for fiscal year 1996 should be at least 10 percent

and that the individual agencies’ goals should reduce information

collection burdens to the “maximum practicable opportunity” in each

agency. Therefore, if the OIRA Administrator determines that federal

agencies are only capable of collectively reducing their paperwork burden

by an average of about 1 percent, she is authorized to set agencies’ goals

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that will not add up to the governmentwide goal of a 10-percent reduction

in burden.

Nevertheless, it is logical to assume that agency-specific goals would be

the means by which the governmentwide goal would be achieved. Also,

the 1995 act’s legislative history indicates that Congress contemplated a

connection between the governmentwide and agency-specific goals. For

example, the act’s conference report states that

“individual agency goals negotiated with OIRA may differ depending on the agency’s

potential to reduce the paperwork burden such agency imposes on the public. Goals

negotiated with some agencies may substantially exceed the Government-wide goal, while

those negotiated with other agencies may be substantially less.”

OIRA Did Not Keep

Congress Informed

In addition to setting goals for paperwork reduction, the act requires OIRA

to “keep the Congress and congressional committees fully and currently

informed of the major activities under this chapter.” However, as of

May 31, 1996, the OIRA Administrator had not informed Congress or

congressional committees (1) about why OIRA has not established any

burden reduction goals to date and (2) that agency projections OIRA

received at least 3 months ago indicated that the 10 percent

governmentwide paperwork reduction goal called for in the act would not

be achieved. Both of these issues appear to us to be “major activities”

subject to the act’s requirement that the OIRA Administrator keep Congress

fully and currently informed.

Agencies Contend

Statutory Requirements

Impede Burden Reduction

Information collection is one method by which agencies carry out their

missions, and those missions are established by Congress through

legislation. For the past several years, the ICBs have indicated that

agencies’ burden-hour estimates increased because of congressionally

imposed statutory requirements. For example, the fiscal year 1993 ICB

noted that title IV of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 established

new permitting requirements for emission sources that produce nitrous

oxides, resulting in a 1.8 million hour increase to EPA’s burden-hour

estimate. As a result of such requirements, some agencies contend that

they are limited in the amount to which they can reduce their paperwork

burden. If agencies’ paperwork requirements are truly statutorily

mandated, those agencies may not be able to reduce their burden-hour

estimates by the amounts envisioned in the 1995 act without changes in

the legislation underlying those requirements.

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However, neither we nor OIRA have assessed the extent to which the

paperwork burden agencies impose is directly a consequence of statutory

requirements and, therefore, is out of agencies’ control. Even though a

statute may require an agency to take certain actions, the agency may have

discretion regarding whether paperwork requirements need to be imposed

and, if so, the manner or frequency with which the information is

collected. For example, although several statutes require employers to

provide training to employees, OSHA may have discretion to determine

whether employers need to submit paperwork to demonstrate their

compliance with these provisions.

EPA, IRS, and OSHA

Burden Reduction

Targets and Actions

Differ

As a part of their ICB submissions to OIRA, EPA, IRS, and OSHA each projected

what it believed its total number of burden-hours would be as of

September 30, 1996. Each agency also took different steps to reduce its

paperwork burden.

Environmental Protection

Agency

EPA has its own effort to reduce paperwork that began before the

Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 took effect. EPA has set an internal

burden-reduction target and expects to reach that target by the end of this

year. Despite these efforts, EPA reported that their burden-hour reductions

will be largely offset by increases in statutorily-based information

collections.

In March 1995, the EPA Administrator committed to reducing the agency’s

January 1, 1995, estimated paperwork burden by 25 percent by June 1996.

Initially, EPA estimated that its January 1995 baseline was about 81 million

burden hours, so a 25-percent reduction would bring the agency’s total to

about 61 million hours. In March of this year, we provided a statement for

the record to the House Committee on Small Business indicating that,

despite these planned reductions, EPA projected that its burden-hour total

would increase to about 117 million hours by September 30, 1996—an

increase of about 44 percent from EPA’s January 1995 baseline.12

However, in May 1996, EPA revised its baseline estimate from about

81 million burden hours to about 101 million hours. EPA retained its goal of

reducing paperwork by 25 percent, making its revised burden-hour target

about 76 million hours. EPA also said its burden-reduction effort would not

be completed until December 31, 1996, and revised its burden-hour

12Environmental Protection: Assessing EPA’s Progress in Paperwork Reduction (GAO/T-RCED-96-107,

Mar. 21, 1996).

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projection for September 30, 1996, from 117 million hours to about

100 million hours. EPA officials said their projection was revised because

some planned information collections would not be approved by OIRA by

the end of the fiscal year and because their original estimate did not

include all of the burden-hour reductions that EPA now expects to make by

the end of the fiscal year.

Using EPA’s most recent estimates, figure 6 shows EPA’s burden-hour

baseline as of January 1, 1995, the 25-percent reduction goal that EPA

expects to accomplish by December 31, 1996, and the total number of

burden hours that EPA currently projects will be in place as of September

30, 1996. As you can see, despite EPA’s burden-reduction efforts during this

period, EPA’s burden-hour estimate at the end of this fiscal year is expected

to be about what it was at the start of those efforts. This is because, at the

same time EPA has been reducing its January 1995 paperwork inventory,

new burden hours have been added to that inventory. According to EPA,

those additions are primarily third-party burden hours that are now being

counted as a result of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 and new

information collections associated with the Clean Air Act Amendments of

1990 and the Residential Lead-Based Paint Hazard Reduction Act of 1992.

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Figure 6: EPA Burden-Hour Estimates

Does not include about 9 million hours of third party burden.

Does not include about 5 million hours of TRI burden.

1/1/95 Baseline 12/31/96 Goal 9/30/96 Projection 

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

101

76

100

Burden hours (in millions)

a

a

b

a b

Source: EPA.

It is also important to point out that the burden-hour totals in figure 6 do

not include some types of paperwork that were being imposed on the

public. For example, the first two bars do not include about 9 million

hours of third-party disclosures and the last bar does not include about

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5 million hours of burden associated with the Toxic Release Inventory

(TRI).13

Although EPA’s efforts to reduce burden hours have been almost totally

offset by new information collection requirements, EPA’s attempt to reduce

its paperwork burden may prevent what would otherwise be a significant

increase in the agency’s paperwork burden. As of May 1996, EPA said that it

had completed reductions of about 15 million hours and had identified

about 8 million more hours of burden for elimination. If these figures are

accurate, EPA would need to eliminate the 8 million burden hours it had

identified and identify and eliminate about 2 million more hours to reach

its goal of reducing its 101 million burden-hour baseline by 25 percent.

Without the burden-hour reductions EPA says it has accomplished or has in

progress, the agency’s paperwork burden could have increased by

25 percent by the end of the year.

Although EPA’s initiative to reduce the burden it imposes is promising, its

burden-reduction claims warrant continued scrutiny. As we reported in

our March 1996 statement for the record to the House Small Business

Committee, some of EPA’s February 1996 burden reduction estimates were

overstated. For example,

• EPA initially claimed that a recently adopted TRI reporting option reduced

the burden associated with TRI by about 1.2 million hours. However, EPA

did not offset this reduction by the additional paperwork burden it

created—about 800,000 hours—that would be incurred by those choosing

this option. Therefore, the real burden reduction was about 400,000 hours.

• EPA estimated that it had reduced the burden associated with its land

disposal restrictions program by 1.6 million hours, but its January 1, 1995,

baseline indicated that the entire program only accounted for about

800,000 hours.

As we observed in our previous testimony on this issue, EPA has changed

the way that it counts its burden reductions to more accurately reflect the

effects of the agency’s actions. This was one factor that caused the agency

13Third-party information is not included in EPA’s January 1, 1995, baseline because the baseline was

established before the Dole decision was overturned by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995.

Although EPA’s baseline included burden hours associated with TRI, its burden-hour projections for

OIRA do not include all of the burden associated with TRI. TRI estimates were removed from

burden-hour totals submitted to OIRA in 1993 because the form used to collect TRI information was no

longer submitted to OIRA for clearance. In EPA’s appropriation for fiscal year 1993, Congress

exempted the TRI Form R from the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act until EPA

promulgates a revision to the form. Since then, EPA has not submitted a revised form to OIRA for

clearance.

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to revise its January 1, 1995, baseline from which the burden-hour

reductions are being taken.

Internal Revenue Service Reducing burden on the taxpayer is one of the primary goals in IRS’s

Business Master Plan, in which the agency identifies a number of

burden-reduction actions that it plans to take. In its ICB submission, IRS

said that it plans to reduce its measured paperwork burden by about

50 million hours (0.9 percent) during fiscal year 1996 by simplifying forms

and instructions, changing reporting thresholds, and moving eligible

taxpayers to “E-Z” versions of required forms.

IRS officials said they are limited in the amount to which they can reduce

the agency’s paperwork burden because most of IRS’ information

collections are statutorily mandated in the tax code. They said that unless

changes are made to the substantive requirements in the code, IRS will not

be able to substantially reduce its paperwork burden.

IRS officials also said that significant portions of the agency’s efforts to

reduce its burden focus on types of burden that are not covered by the

Paperwork Reduction Act. For example, they said that a major part of the

real paperwork burden on the taxpayer comes from responding to IRS

notices, and IRS has a major initiative under way to determine which

notices can be eliminated, combined, or simplified. However, they said

that notices are not covered by the act because they focus on information

collected from a single individual in the course of an investigation or

inquiry.

Occupational Safety and

Health Administration

OSHA officials said that they assumed their agency would be responsible for

reducing its burden by 10 percent during fiscal year 1996 as its share of the

governmentwide goal. In its 1995 ICB submission to the Department of

Labor, OSHA said that it would reduce its fiscal year 1995 paperwork

burden by 8.7 million hours (about 4 percent) during fiscal year 1996 by

dropping a number of certification requirements.14 Although OSHA has

begun the process of eliminating these certification requirements, in the

spring of 1996 OSHA officials told us that the process may not be completed

in time to eliminate the requirements by the end of the fiscal year.

14Certifications are prepared in response to regulatory provisions requiring employers to conduct tests,

inspections, maintenance checks, or training and to prepare and keep on file a signed record indicating

what was done and the date the action was taken.

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After submission of its ICB, OSHA officials discovered that they could claim

additional burden reductions. OSHA’s Process Safety Management of Highly

Hazardous Chemicals Standard is a third-party information collection that

the agency added to its burden-hour total in August 1995. At that time,

OSHA officials estimated the paperwork requirements associated with the

standard at 135 million burden hours. In keeping with a schedule

established by the standard when it was issued in 1992, the burden

imposed on employers declined in May 1996 because they were no longer

required to perform certain recordkeeping functions after that date. OSHA

officials said that they initially considered the decline in employer

responsibilities an adjustment, which could not be counted toward the

agency’s 10 percent burden reduction goal in their ICB submission.

However, they said the Department of Labor paperwork clearance official

told them the change should be considered a program change, and

therefore should be counted as part of OSHA’s paperwork reduction effort.

Consequently, OSHA reduced its 135 million burden-hour estimate by

17 million hours—8 percent of OSHA’s total fiscal year 1995 burden.

Measurement Issues As Congress exercises oversight in this area, it is important that it keep in

mind several measurement issues. As noted previously, OIRA does not

count any adjustments (because of reestimates or population changes)

that agencies submit with their information collection requests in

determining whether an agency has met its paperwork burden reduction

goals. Therefore, an agency that initially submits a high estimate and later

revises it downward does not get credit from OIRA for the reduction.

Conversely, if an agency initially submits a low paperwork estimate and

later increases the estimate, OIRA never counts the increase against the

agency for goal attainment purposes. In fact, the governmentwide increase

of about 1 billion burden hours between 1990 and 1995 was primarily

driven by adjustments that never counted against agencies’ goals. OIRA

staff told us they were not aware of any evidence that agencies were

systematically underestimating the burden associated with their

information collections and then revising them upward.

It is also important that Congress recognize the difference between the

government’s “measured” paperwork burden that is reflected by the

number of burden hours an agency reports and the “real” burden that is

felt by the public and others. For example, the public did not feel the

3.4 billion burden-hour increase caused by IRS’ 1989 reestimate; the burden

had been there all along, and IRS simply improved its method for gauging

that burden. This example underscores the care that must be taken in

Page 19 GAO/T-GGD/RCED-96-186
Statement 

Paperwork Reduction: Burden Reduction

Goal Unlikely to Be Met

interpreting the official burden-hour statistics. Most or all of the

burden-hour increase may have actually existed since 1980 when the

original Paperwork Reduction Act became effective. If this were the case,

the statistics available to policymakers would seriously underestimate the

burden actually imposed on the public, and figure 1 would overstate the

degree to which paperwork burden actually increased since 1980.

The increase in measured burden as a consequence of the inclusion of

third-party and public disclosures in September 1995 was similar to the IRS

reestimate; the burden already existed but had just not been previously

measured. Likewise, the burden felt by the public does not diminish when

an agency recalculates a lower estimate of its paperwork burden without

eliminating any existing requirements.

Relatedly, it is important that Congress be aware that certain elements of

agencies’ information collection burden are not reflected in some

burden-hour estimates. As we mentioned earlier, OIRA does not count

about 5 million hours of paperwork burden associated with EPA’s TRI

reporting form because the form is not submitted for OIRA approval. IRS’s

burden-hour estimates do not include such information collections as

notices involving errors, nonfilings, and delinquencies because they are

exempted from coverage under the act.

Finally, as we have said in previous reports and testimonies, users of

paperwork burden-hour estimates should proceed with great caution. The

degree to which such estimates reflect real burden and the factors that

cause changes to the burden-hour totals are often unclear. Nevertheless,

they are the best indicators of paperwork burden available, and we believe

that they can be useful as long as their limitations are borne in mind.

Mr. Chairman, this completes our prepared statement. We would be

pleased to answer any questions.

(410027/160347) Page 20 GAO/T-GGD/RCED-96-186
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