CLEAR Act

Bill: 115-hr-4230
Sponsor: full_name: Rep. Meadows, Mark [R-NC-11]
Introduced: 2017-11-02
Policy area: Government Operations and Politics
Subjects: Administrative law and regulatory procedures

Congressional oversight

Government information and archives
Latest action: action_date: 2017-11-21
text: Referred to the Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial And Antitrust Law.

Summaries:
action_date: 2017-11-02
action_desc: Introduced in House
text: <p><b>Comprehensive Listing of Evidence for Assessments of Regulations Act or the CLEAR Act</b></p> <p>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. </p>

tv_txt: I 115th CONGRESS 1st Session H. R. 4230 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.

1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Comprehensive Listing of Evidence for Assessments of Regulations Act or the CLEAR Act . 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.