Foundations for EvidenceBased Policymaking Act

Katharine G. Abraham 

University of Maryland 

September 21, 2020
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• Commission grew out of bipartisan 

agreement between Congress and the Obama

administration that, with more and better 

evidence, the federal government could make 

better decisions on the budget and in 

authorizing and reforming programs 

• Created by legislation co-sponsored by Speaker Paul Ryan and 

Senator Patty Murray, enacted March 30, 2016 (P.L. 114-140)

• Members appointed by the President, Speaker of the House, House 

Minority Leader, and Senate Majority and Minority Leaders – 

• 1/3 with expertise in privacy and confidentiality

• 2/3 experts on program administration, data, or research

Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking
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• Commission spent 8 months gathering 

 input from multiple perspectives 

• Following its fact-finding, Commission 

 met in closed session to consider all 

 of the input received 

• Areas of agreement distilled into 22 recommendations 

• Endorsed unanimously by all 15 Commissioners

• Final Commission report sent to President and the Congress on 

September 7, 2017

Developing the Commission’s recommendations
• Improved access to data – Improve access to data for statistical 

purposes by program administrators and researchers, facilitate 

linking of data sets 

• Stronger privacy protections – Strengthen privacy protections by 

making them more uniform across government and more dynamic in 

the face of changing risks associated with the use of data 

• Greater capacity – Fill existing gaps in capacity for creating and 

using evidence to inform policy

Themes in Commission’s recommendations

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• Recommendations widely endorsed – More than 100 

organizations issued statements supporting the report’s 

recommendations and 36 former statistical agency heads 

endorsed them

• Key recommendations incorporated into proposed 

legislation – Co-filed in the House and Senate by Speaker 

Paul Ryan and Senator Patty Murray in the fall of 2017 

• Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act 

enacted – After being passed by Congress, signed into law by 

President Trump on January 14, 2019 (P.L. 115-435) 

Commission’s final report became a blueprint

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• Presumption of access to data for statistical purposes – 

Where not prohibited by law, data held by agencies to be made 

available to statistical units for purpose of developing evidence 

• Data inventories – Inventories of available data, with 

appropriate metadata, to be created and maintained 

• Researcher access – Single process for researcher access to 

be developed 

• Advisory Committee – Advisory Committee on Data for 

Evidence Building to be created; committee charged to “review, 

analyze, and make recommendations on how to promote the 

use of Federal data for evidence building”

Evidence Act provisions related to data access

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• Codification of Statistical Policy Directive No. 1 – Among 

other provisions, information collected for statistical purposes 

shall be used exclusively for such purposes 

• Chief Data Officers – Agencies required to designate chief 

data officers with responsibility for managing and protecting 

data assets 

• Risk assessments – Agencies required to carry out risk 

assessments prior to public release of data assets

Evidence Act provisions related to privacy

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• Learning agendas – Agencies required to develop evidencebuilding agendas 

• Evaluation Officers – Agencies required to appoint an 

evaluation officer with responsibility for developing and

implementing learning agendas 

• Recognition of evaluation profession – Office of 

Personnel Management directed to recognize the evaluation 

field with a new occupational series

Evidence Act provisions related to capacity

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• Recently appointed Advisory Committee on Data for 

Evidence Building will play a critical role -- Creating an 

institutional structure that facilitates access to data for 

statistical purposes central to realizing full promise of the 

Evidence Act

• Much that can be done in the meantime – Very much look 

forward to hearing from my fellow panelists

Evidence Act creates many opportunities

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