Title: CLEAR Act
Policy area: Government Operations and Politics

Summary:
Comprehensive Listing of Evidence for Assessments of Regulations Act or the CLEAR Act
This bill requires each federal agency to publish the research source code, data, and documents it used when assessing a new regulation, such as in an assessment of the costs and benefits of the regulation.

[Congressional Bills 115th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 4230 Introduced in House (IH)]

<DOC>






115th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 4230

To require the timely publication of any research source code and data 
  used by a Federal agency in assessing the costs and benefits of new 
                  regulations, and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            November 2, 2017

  Mr. Meadows (for himself, Mr. MacArthur, Mr. Biggs, Mr. Norman, Mr. 
  Yoho, Mr. Perry, Mr. Jordan, and Mr. Buck) introduced the following 
       bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To require the timely publication of any research source code and data 
  used by a Federal agency in assessing the costs and benefits of new 
                  regulations, and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Comprehensive Listing of Evidence 
for Assessments of Regulations Act'' or the ``CLEAR Act''.

SEC. 2. REQUIREMENT TO PUBLISH RESEARCH SOURCE CODE AND DATA.

    (a) In General.--At any time during a rulemaking process that an 
assessment of any new regulation is completed, including the costs and 
benefits of such regulation, and not later than the issuance of such 
rule, the head of each agency, to enable entities outside the Federal 
Government to replicate the assessment, shall publish the following 
related to such assessment:
            (1) Any research source code and data used by that agency, 
        including--
                    (A) any program used for any model, including 
                intermediate and final;
                    (B) any source code, data, and other materials used 
                for any estimate or assumption used as a component in 
                the overall model; and
                    (C) each data preparation routine, including 
                cleaning, statistical matching, replacement of missing 
                data with substituted values, and other data steps used 
                in turning raw data into the data set used and the 
                assessment.
            (2) Any unprocessed data that is not prohibited from 
        disclosure by statute.
            (3) With regard to any unprocessed data that is prohibited 
        from disclosure by statute--
                    (A) a complete list of all data variables for such 
                data; and
                    (B) descriptive statistics for all data variables 
                for such data (including averages, standard deviations, 
                number of observations, and correlations to other 
                variables), in lieu of but analogous to the original 
                data, to allow the research source code and data to 
                function as intended.
            (4) Any supplemental documentation, including that which 
        documents--
                    (A) changes to the methodology and changes between 
                versions of software implementation code; and
                    (B) instructions that are sufficient to allow an 
                individual outside of the Federal Government or not 
                employed by the agency to run the model on their own.
    (b) Issuance to Congress.--If the result of an assessment described 
in subsection (a) is requested privately and is issued to a Member of 
Congress or to a committee, such source code, data, and other materials 
shall be released to the private recipient, who may then choose to 
release the information publicly.
    (c) Agency Defined.--In this section, the term ``agency'' has the 
meaning given that term in section 551 of title 5, United States Code.
    (d) Effective Date.--This Act shall take effect 6 months after the 
date of the enactment of this Act.
                                 <all>