Reexamination of Agency Reporting Requirements: Annual Process Under the GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 (GPRAMA)
Released: 2013-05-29T00:00:00

On January 4, 2011, the GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 (GPRAMA) became law. The acronym "GPRA" in the act's short title refers to the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA 1993), a law that GPRAMA substantially modified. Some of GPRAMA's provisions require agencies to produce plans and reports for a variety of audiences that focus on goal-setting and performance measurement. Other provisions, by contrast, establish an annual process to reexamine the usefulness of certain reporting requirements.

Specifically, Section 11 of GPRAMA enacts into law a multi-step process in which the President and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) may propose to Congress that certain plans and reports be eliminated or consolidated. The GPRAMA process covers the plans and reports that executive branch agencies produce "for Congress" in response to statutory requirements or as directed in non-statutory congressional reports. As a consequence of this scope, the GPRAMA process covers some, but not all, reporting requirements. Notably, as a step in this process, GPRAMA requires an agency to consult with congressional committees to determine whether products are considered to be useful or could be eliminated or consolidated.

This Congressional Research Service (CRS) report provides an overview of GPRAMA's processes that relate to the reexamination of agency reporting requirements. The report also will be updated to track some aspects of GPRAMA's implementation. Because GPRAMA's provisions are not the first to focus on agency reporting requirements, the report also contrasts GPRAMA's provisions with related authorities and selected efforts from the past. The report concludes by highlighting potential issues for Congress. To provide some context, the report begins by discussing potential categories, advantages, and disadvantages of reporting requirements.

Background: Potential Categories, Advantages, and Disadvantages of Reporting Requirements

Categories

Reporting requirements have been categorized in varying ways, including by purpose and frequency. To illustrate, purposes might be placed in at least three categories, which may overlap:

notifying Congress in advance of an action ("advance reporting"); reporting on past or relatively recent conditions or actions, or certifying the accuracy or genuineness of a statement ("post facto reporting"); or studying a policy issue and offering analysis, recommendations, proposals, or plans ("policy reporting").

With regard to frequency, reporting may be required

according to a fixed, regular schedule ("periodic reporting"); when a certain event or condition occurs ("triggered reporting"); only once ("one-time reporting"); or from time to time at the discretion of a reporting entity ("indeterminate reporting").

Other categories also may be used. For example, an observer may distinguish between

reports that executive agencies submit to Congress directly without prior OMB review ("direct reporting"), and reports from executive agencies that are reviewed by OMB for potential modification to conform to the President's policy preferences ("OMB-reviewed reporting").

In practice, terminologies that are used to describe reporting requirements may be idiosyncratic to a particular agency or policy area.

Advantages and Disadvantages

Views about the advantages and disadvantages of reporting requirements may be in the eye of the beholder. Congress, and by delegation its committees, have the constitutionally rooted authority to compel the disclosure of information they need from agencies and the President in order to perform Congress's legislative functions. Congress often uses reporting requirements to help inform its study of policy issues, oversight of agencies and programs, and lawmaking. In addition, reporting requirements may be intended to facilitate congressional involvement in how an agency uses discretion and makes decisions, or to indirectly influence an agency's thinking and behaviors. When pursuing any of these activities, Congress may use reporting requirements to cooperate or compete with the President to influence how agencies formulate and implement policy.

When Congress establishes a reporting requirement, Congress may intend to make information available to primary audiences in addition to itself. Additional audiences may include, for example, non-federal stakeholders; personnel within the agency that authors a particular plan or report; other federal agencies and officials; and the broader public. When Congress widens the audience of a reporting requirement beyond itself, Congress may pursue a variety of objectives. For example, Congress may intend to

enhance capacity within an agency; promote interagency collaboration and information sharing; provide information or studies that may be valuable to non-federal stakeholders or the broader public; establish broader transparency and accountability; influence the course of policy discussion; alert agencies to the existence of a problem and influence them to act; facilitate the work of congressional support agencies; or enhance congressional oversight by allowing the public to more easily identify any issues of concern, which, in turn, members of the public may bring to Congress's closer attention.

At times, Congress, agencies, and the President have reexamined reporting requirements to ascertain whether the requirements should continue, change, or be eliminated. Several rationales have been considered for modifying or abolishing reporting requirements. During the 104 th Congress, for example, the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight expressed concern about the burden and cost of outdated or unnecessary reporting requirements. The presence of a reporting requirement might not increase an agency's total costs, if the agency operates under a defined budget amount. However, a requirement may involve an "opportunity cost" where funds and staff time could be used in other ways.

The costs of reporting requirements may be relatively small in some cases. For example, the 104 th Congress considered legislation in 1995 to eliminate and modify more than 200 reporting requirements. Commenting on the measure, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated annual savings of $2 million. CBO explained that some statutory requirements at the time were not being implemented. Hence, their elimination might result in no cost savings. In addition, CBO said periodic reports may reuse generic content and require minimal personnel time for updating. Even if a reporting requirement were eliminated, CBO said that agencies in practice still would collect much of the information for continued use and therefore would not reduce costs.

Reporting requirements also may have non-financial costs. For example, scrutiny that results from reporting may have side effects. If an agency's reporting omits major aspects of an agency's or program's mission, officials may face incentives to concentrate on reported tasks and not others that are integral to accomplishing the mission. Other potential consequences of scrutiny might include delays in the completion of tasks, increases in time that personnel spend responding to scrutiny rather than performing regular duties, and reduced creativity in addressing challenges.

GPRAMA's Statutory Process

Section 11 of GPRAMA establishes an annual, statutory process to reexamine certain reporting requirements. The process may culminate in a presidential proposal to Congress to eliminate, consolidate, or modify certain plans and reports.

Coverage

Most executive branch agencies are required to take part. That said, GPRAMA does not require all entities in the executive branch to participate that may have statutory reporting requirements. For example, GPRAMA's definition of agency does not explicitly include the President or Vice President. As a result, requirements or directives for the President and Vice President to submit plans and reports to Congress do not appear to fall within GPRAMA's scope. In addition, it is unclear if the Executive Office of the President (EOP), the Office of the Vice President (OVP), or an entity located within the EOP, such as OMB, would constitute an "agency" under GPRAMA. OMB or a President nevertheless might choose to implement GPRAMA in a way that incorporates these kinds of reports into GPRAMA's process.

Statutory Process and Outputs

As articulated in statute, the process unfolds in several steps. The Director of OMB is required at the outset to provide guidance to agencies on how to implement the GPRAMA provisions that relate to congressional reporting requirements. Thereafter and on an annual basis, the Chief Operating Officer (COO) at each covered agency is required to undertake several tasks.

Initial List

First, the COO is required to compile a list that identifies all plans and reports the agency produces for Congress, as required by statute or directed in congressional reports (hereinafter "initial list"). It remains to be seen in specific cases how the expression "for Congress" will be interpreted. GPRAMA does not require an agency's COO to release the initial list of plans and reports outside the agency.

Second List

Next, the COO is required to analyze the initial list and identify a minimum percentage of the products as being "outdated" or "duplicative of other required plans and reports." The agency's COO is required to submit this second, smaller list (hereinafter "second list") to OMB, along with a total count of plans and reports that were included on the initial list. GPRAMA does not require an agency to release the second list outside the executive branch. For the first year of GPRAMA's implementation, the law said that the minimum percentage must be at least 10%. Subsequently, GPRAMA authorizes OMB to determine the minimum percentage each year.

Congressional Consultations Regarding Usefulness

Third, the COO is required to consult with congressional committees that receive the products included on the agency's second list. GPRAMA's stated purpose for the consultation is to determine whether the plans and reports are no longer useful to the committees and could be eliminated or consolidated with other products. In cases where a plan or report is required to be submitted to Congress as a whole rather than to a specific committee, it remains to be seen how agencies will implement this consultation requirement.

Presidential List

As a final step in the statutorily prescribed process, GPRAMA requires the President's budget proposal to include a list of certain plans and reports each year. This presidential list is required to include the "list of plans and reports ... that agencies identified for elimination or consolidation because the plans and reports are determined outdated or duplicative of other required plans and reports." Some ambiguity appears to reside in this provision. The requirement for a presidential list appears to infer that when an agency identifies a product on its second list as outdated or duplicative, the agency also implicitly identifies the product for elimination or consolidation. However, the agency-level requirement for the second list does not actually require agencies to identify reports and plans for elimination or consolidation. Rather, each agency is required to identify an OMB-determined percentage of reports and plans as outdated or duplicative, send this list to OMB, and then consult with congressional recipients about the usefulness of the second list's plans and reports and whether any could be eliminated or consolidated. Consequently, if agencies operate according to the sequence in the statutory, agency-level requirement, the President's list may not reflect agencies' consultations about whether any of the products are considered by recipients to be outdated or duplicative.

Contrast With Current Authorities and Previous Efforts

GPRAMA's annual process for Congress, agencies, OMB, and the President to reexamine agency reporting requirements stands in partial contrast with current authorities and previous efforts. For instance, Congress established ongoing mechanisms within the legislative branch to help monitor reporting requirements. Provisions from the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, for example, require the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to monitor recurring reporting requirements and report annually to Congress on several aspects of reporting. Furthermore, the rules of the House of Representatives require the Clerk of the House to engage in reporting-related activities. At the commencement of every regular session of Congress, the Clerk is required to submit to Members of the House a list of reports that officers or departments are legally required to make to Congress. The list is printed as a House document with the title Reports to Be Made to Congress .

Other legislation authorizes actions to be taken by OMB, the President, and agencies. In the wake of recommendations by the William Clinton Administration's National Performance Review (NPR), Congress considered a variety of management reform options. Congress ultimately acted on provisions related to reporting requirements in 1994 and 2000. One statutory provision is similar to GPRAMA, insofar as it authorizes OMB to include recommendations in the President's budget proposal to consolidate, eliminate, or adjust the frequency and due dates of statutory requirements for periodic reporting. A separate law authorizes executive agencies, with the concurrence of OMB, to consolidate or adjust the frequency and due dates of certain statutorily required reports that focus on financial management and government performance.

In addition to establishing ongoing authorities, Congress and its committees have reexamined reporting requirements many times in the past. At least 11 times in the last century, Congress acted to modify or eliminate groups of reporting requirements across multiple agencies. In contrast with GPRAMA's annual process, these prior efforts were generally one-time in nature. Congress also has modified or eliminated reporting requirements in narrower policy areas. In some cases, committees and Members initiated reviews of reporting requirements. At other times, Congress considered recommendations and draft legislation from a presidential Administration.

One of these past efforts was different from others in a significant respect. The Federal Reports Elimination and Sunset Act of 1995 (FRESA) included not only specific modifications and eliminations, but also a catch-all sunset provision to terminate all legal requirements for certain periodic reports. Specifically, the sunset provision said that all "annual, semiannual, or other regular periodic" reports to Congress or any committee of Congress listed in the January 1993 version of Reports to Be Made to Congress would cease to be effective four years after the date of FRESA's enactment. As a result, FRESA covered reports from all three branches of the federal government. The law also specified numerous exceptions to the sunset provision and did not affect non-periodic (e.g., one-time or triggered) reporting requirements. Furthermore, the four-year grace period was intended to provide time "for Members of Congress to reauthorize those reports deemed necessary for carrying out effective congressional oversight."

In response to FRESA, Congress subsequently restored reporting requirements through provisions in at least 13 public laws between 1999 and 2008. In one case, Congress restored requirements in a broad category—requirements included in "any other law relating to the budget of the United States Government." A related committee report explained this lack of specificity by saying "it would be impractical to sort through the Clerk's list to identify all such requirements. Therefore, [the measure] provides a categorical exemption for budget-related reports." On at least one occasion, the interim period between FRESA's sunset date and the enactment of restoration legislation caused a gap to occur in regular reporting.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, observers have experienced difficulty when assessing the results of FRESA's sunset provision. Uncertainties remain regarding how many reporting requirements were terminated through the sunset provision, how many of these requirements actually were in a state of being implemented at the time of FRESA's enactment, and how many requirements were later restored. Nevertheless, many periodic reporting requirements appear to have been eliminated. The enactment of provisions to restore reporting requirements also suggested that Congress and stakeholders in many cases continued to value receiving a flow of information from agencies and officials of the federal government.

Implementation of GPRAMA's Process

Some Potential Uncertainties

Looking ahead, it remains to be seen in practice how some of GPRAMA's provisions will be implemented in any specific year. As noted at the beginning of this report, GPRAMA's process covers plans and reports that agencies produce "for Congress." A consequence of this scope is that the GPRAMA process covers some, but not all, requirements for agencies to prepare plans and reports. Furthermore, it remains to be seen in specific cases how OMB and the President will interpret the expression "for Congress"—such as whether a requirement to post a report online, without a specific recipient, constitutes a covered report. It is also not clear if OMB and the President will implement GPRAMA to include reports that are produced by entities that are not covered by the act's definition of "agency" (e.g., OMB).

Implementation of GPRAMA's consultation requirement could be subject to some uncertainty, as well. It may be difficult, for example, for a Member or committee to know if an agency engages in consultations with congressional actors, if the agency produces a plan or report for Congress as a whole, as opposed to a specific committee. Even if an agency submits a product to a specific committee, it may not be clear in advance whether the agency will consult about the product's usefulness with the majority, minority, or both. Furthermore, the precise stage of GPRAMA's process at which consultations with Congress will occur may not be clear in advance. As noted earlier, GPRAMA directs agencies to submit lists of products they believe to be outdated or duplicative to OMB before the agencies consult with congressional committees. The law's sequence notwithstanding, OMB has encouraged agencies during GPRAMA's initial years of implementation to engage in consultations with congressional committees several weeks before submitting final lists of purportedly outdated and duplicative reports to OMB.

Finally, it may not be clear in advance how OMB and the President will implement GPRAMA's statutory requirement for a presidential list. In a particular year, for example, it is possible that the President will submit to Congress without modification the second list of products that an agency's COO identifies to be outdated or duplicative. However, an agency's budget request and recommendations on pending legislation typically are subject to OMB review, clearance, and modification to conform to the policy preferences of the current President. Given these practices, the policy preferences of the President are likely to be a significant influence on final proposals. In addition, because GPRAMA does not define the terms "outdated" and "duplicative" or otherwise specify criteria for consolidating or eliminating a report, the criteria that will be used in a particular year for including a plan or report on the presidential list—or excluding a plan or report—may vary across proposals in a single year and in subsequent years.

Developments During the 112th Congress

The section of GPRAMA that provides for reexamination of agency reporting requirements, Section 11, became effective on January 4, 2011, the date of the law's enactment. The President and OMB did not appear to implement GPRAMA's process when formulating the President's FY2012 budget proposal, which was submitted to Congress just a few weeks later.

On August 18, 2011, OMB issued two pages of guidance to agencies regarding the GPRAMA process. The guidance said that over the next few months, OMB would coordinate the process for reexamining agency reporting alongside the process of formulating the President's FY2013 budget proposal. In the meantime, OMB said agencies should immediately begin to compile lists of congressionally mandated products and consult with "appropriate" committees.

The guidance reminded agencies of GPRAMA's first-year requirement for an agency to identify 10% of the plans and reports on an agency's initial list as outdated or duplicative. OMB said this calculation should correspond only to "agency-specific" reports that an agency produces, however, and not to "government-wide" plans and reports where reporting requirements apply broadly to multiple agencies. Any changes to multi-agency reporting requirements would be proposed by OMB, the guidance said. The document added that agencies should be prepared to send several data elements to OMB for each plan or report identified as outdated or duplicative. In addition, the guidance said an agency should make a recommendation for each of these products using one of three possible options: elimination, consolidation, or a third category. The third category addressed a situation where an agency does not find at least 10% of its plans and reports for Congress to be outdated or duplicative. OMB appeared to say that agencies still must achieve the 10% figure—even if the plans and reports are not outdated or duplicative—by identifying beneficial products that have comparatively lower net benefits and recommending them for elimination.

Lists of products that agencies identified as outdated or duplicative were due to OMB by September 12, 2011, a little less than a month after OMB issued its guidance. OMB elsewhere referred to these agency-submitted lists of products as being "draft" in nature, appearing to confirm that an agency's second list would be subject to review and potential modification by OMB. The presidential list was due to be submitted to Congress by February 6, 2012, as part of the President's FY2013 budget proposal. President Barack Obama submitted the budget proposal to Congress on February 13, 2012. In the FY2013 Budget volume, the Obama Administration said a list of plans and reports that were identified for possible elimination or consolidation had been posted on the Performance.gov website for public comment. However, the actual list did not appear on the website by that date and was not posted during the remainder of the 112 th Congress. CRS has not located any official explanation for this omission.

Notwithstanding the omission, OMB issued the next version of annual guidance for the GPRAMA process on August 3, 2012. This guidance corresponded to formulation of the President's FY2014 budget proposal, which would be due to Congress after the 2012 presidential election. The new guidance was similar to the previous year's guidance. However, the guidance newly said agencies should make their initial lists of plans and reports available to Congress and OMB, upon request. The guidance also told agencies to provide more extensive contextual information to OMB about each proposal (e.g., to whom in Congress the plan or report is delivered), apparently by using OMB's MAX system to populate a database of the proposals.

Developments During the 113th Congress

After reelection of President Obama to a second term, it seemed from OMB's guidance in Circular A-11 that a presidential list of plans and reports would be forthcoming along with the President's FY2014 budget proposal. However, a presidential list was posted on Performance.gov on January 8, 2013, well in advance of submission of the President's FY2014 budget. It was not clear whether this posting was the result of OMB's annual budget process for FY2013, FY2014, or a combination of both years. The Performance.gov website described the posted list as identifying 376 plans and reports that are "potentially outdated, duplicative, or otherwise warranting modification." It may be noteworthy that the Obama Administration characterized the plans and reports as "potentially" outdated, duplicative, or otherwise warranting modification, rather than assert these attributes.

A detailed analysis of the 376 proposals is outside the scope of this CRS report. Nevertheless, several summary observations might be offered. (See also this report's Appendix for more detailed discussion, including Table A-1 , which breaks down the proposals by entity and type of proposed modification.) As a group, the proposals were listed as corresponding to 28 entities: all 15 departments and 13 additional agencies and entities. When looking at the proposals by type of proposed modification, a clear majority of the 376 items were listed as proposals to eliminate reporting requirements rather than modify them. When viewing the proposals broken down by entity, the Department of Defense (DOD) was associated with the most proposals. Many additional items were listed as corresponding to the Executive Office of the President.

Subsequently, the President submitted budget proposals for FY2014 on April 10, 2013. However, the various components of the submission did not include any reference to proposals for elimination or modification of reporting requirements under the GPRAMA process. When this omission is viewed in concert with the FY2013 President's budget proposal (referring to GPRAMA-related proposals but not providing them) and the January 2013 posting of 376 proposals (separate from the FY2014 President's budget), the implications for future events seem unclear. For example, it is not clear if the Obama Administration viewed the January 2013 posting of GPRAMA-related proposals on Performance.gov as corresponding to the President's FY2014 budget submission. If the Obama Administration viewed the January 2013 posting as corresponding to something other than the FY2014 submission, it is not clear if the Administration will pursue the GPRAMA process for reexamining reporting requirements on an annual basis, going forward, notwithstanding GPRAMA's requirement for including this information annually with the President's budget proposal.

OMB's guidance for formulation of the President's FY2015 budget proposal—contained in a revised version of Circular A-11 —is expected to be issued in the summer of 2013. Further insight into the Administration's future plans may be forthcoming in that document.

Potential Issues for Congress

Under the system established by the U.S. Constitution, separate institutions share power and utilize checks and balances as they cooperate or compete for influence over public policy. History demonstrates that Congress has relied extensively on receiving information and viewpoints from agencies and their personnel when performing its constitutional responsibilities. Reporting requirements in particular have been a mainstay of congressional involvement in administration of public laws from the 1 st Congress to the present. In 1789, for example, the statute that established the Department of the Treasury said

it shall be the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury to digest and prepare plans for the improvement and management of the revenue ...; to prepare and report estimates of the public revenue, and the public expenditures; ... to make report, and give information to either branch of the legislature, in person or in writing (as he may be required), respecting all matters referred to him by the Senate or House of Representatives, or which shall appertain to his office.

In practice, reporting requirements may be used to pursue any of several objectives. These include transparency, accountability, public participation, efficiency, and effectiveness. Values like these may, on occasion, trade off against one another. Transparency may enhance accountability and effectiveness, for example, but the collection and presentation of information may affect behaviors and impose incremental costs.

Furthermore, the same information may have several interested audiences with their own priorities. Congress and non-federal stakeholders frequently rely on access to information about the plans and activities of the federal government when they oversee or work with agencies, or when they participate in the lawmaking process. Agencies themselves, OMB, and the President also need access to information to faithfully and effectively execute laws. In specific circumstances, however, different audiences in Congress, the executive branch, and the public may place differing weights on the aforementioned values. Some audiences also may have goals in conflict with one or more of the values. Over time, changes in circumstances and technology may have further implications for the types and formats of information that are feasible and desirable. For example, many reporting requirements were established before the Internet and relatively inexpensive information technology (IT) came into widespread use.

Given this complex institutional, policy, and technological background, GPRAMA's process for the reexamination of agency reporting requirements raises potential issues for Congress. The following two sub-sections highlight several of these potential issues.

Potential Issues When Considering Specific Proposals

Looking ahead to annual implementation of GPRAMA's provisions, the President and OMB may propose the consolidation, modification, or elimination of specific reporting requirements. Members and committees of Congress may consider a specific proposal from several perspectives.

Context. How does a reporting requirement fit in the broader picture of how an agency provides information to its own personnel? How does a plan or report fit in the broader picture of how an agency provides information to, and interacts with, Congress, other agencies, the President, non-federal stakeholders, and the broader public? How does the agency manage relevant information? How does a reporting requirement relate to an agency's mission, priorities, management processes, and IT systems? Consultations. Are consultations with Congress occurring under the GPRAMA process for reexamining reporting requirements? Are the consultations being conducted with sufficient time and depth for a committee or interested Members to have input before changes to a reporting requirement are proposed by the President? For products that are submitted to Congress as a whole rather than to a specific committee, are agencies engaging in consultations? What are Congress's expectations in that regard? Did an agency consult in advance with other, non-federal stakeholders? Does an agency have views that are different from those of OMB and the President about the benefits or costs of a reporting requirement? Will Congress have access to these concerns or opinions? What do non-federal stakeholders think about a proposal? Credibility. Does a proposal for elimination or consolidation of a plan or report appear to be founded on quality analysis and justification? When an agency, OMB, or the President identifies a plan or report as outdated or duplicative, how did they define these terms? Did the relevant agency, OMB, and the President make a credible proposal that justifies a recommendation adequately and acknowledges any trade-offs or disadvantages? How might any of the perspectives that are discussed below figure into an assessment of a proposal's credibility? Usefulness. How useful is a plan or report to its various audiences—including Congress as a whole, congressional recipients, personnel in the federal agency that authors a product, personnel in other government agencies, non-federal stakeholders, and the public? How do they use the plan or report? What impact does a plan or report have on the accountability and incentives of an agency, OMB, or the President? Would disappearance of a plan or report have implications for policy formulation or policy implementation, including Congress's ability to legislate or conduct oversight? Would disappearance of a plan or report have implications for power relationships among Congress, agencies, the President, non-federal stakeholders, or the public? Would consolidation of several products improve or degrade usefulness? Costs and side effects. What are the workload, costs, and side effects that correspond to a reporting requirement? Would changes in statute or report language that eliminate or consolidate a product have any effect on an agency's costs or priorities? Would an agency's data collection or reporting continue even in the absence of a requirement in statute or directive in report language? Would elimination of a reporting requirement entail costs or disruptions for Congress or non-federal stakeholders? Options. After reviewing considerations like those outlined above, do the benefits of a reporting requirement to Congress and other audiences justify the requirement's costs? Are there less costly or more effective options in contrast with the President's proposal? Could a reporting requirement be designed or implemented in a better way? Would better systems or utilization of technology improve the effectiveness of a reporting requirement or reduce its burden? In the age of "wiki" websites on the Internet and the possibility of designing websites to allow bulk-downloading of their contents, what are the implications for agency reporting requirements? Do non-federal stakeholders or congressional support agencies have views to offer regarding what should be done for each item on the presidential list of proposed eliminations and consolidations?

Potential Issues When Considering Changes to GPRAMA's Process

Congress also may evaluate how well the GPRAMA process is working. If Congress perceives a problem or the potential for improvement, Congress may consider amending the law to change aspects of how the process operates. A number of topics might be examined.

Coverage. The GPRAMA process covers plans and reports that agencies produce "for Congress" but does not cover all reporting requirements. As noted earlier, a statute may require that a plan or report be produced by an entity whose status as an "agency" is ambiguous, like OMB. A statute also may require that a plan or report be produced for the benefit of audiences in addition to Congress, such as the public through posting on the Internet. GPRAMA also does not explicitly cover an agency's reporting to Congress—or for that matter, an agency's reporting to the President—that occurs through the use of discretion by agencies, OMB, and the President. What might be the advantages and disadvantages of taking a broader view of reporting requirements in GPRAMA's process? Would broader coverage that explicitly includes the President and entities in the Executive Office of the President, for example, paint a more useful picture? Would expanding the scope to include some reporting inside the executive branch (e.g., from agencies to OMB) offer more potential for identifying efficiencies and ways to generate and share information more effectively? Consultations. GPRAMA's process requires agencies to consult with congressional committees. Unlike other provisions in GPRAMA, however, the consultation requirement does not specify that an agency consult with both the majority and minority of a committee or, furthermore, require an agency to consult with non-federal stakeholders. In addition, some plans and reports may be submitted to Congress as a whole, as opposed to a specific committee. If agencies are perceived as not adequately consulting with Congress or non-federal stakeholders about proposals to eliminate or consolidate plans and reports, would any changes to GPRAMA be desirable? Might other mechanisms for consultation be considered? For example, what might be the advantages and disadvantages of amending GPRAMA to require agencies to publish elimination and consolidation proposals in the Federal Register for public notice and comment? Justification of proposals. GPRAMA does not address how agencies, OMB, and the President are to analyze reporting requirements or justify proposals to Congress. For example, the statute is silent about how agencies are to justify their identification of products as being outdated or duplicative. The requirement for the presidential list of plans and reports similarly does not address how proposals for elimination or consolidation are to be justified. Past experience suggests that a perception of poor justification may diminish the credibility of proposals for Congress. In that light, what might be the advantages and disadvantages of providing more explicit structure in GPRAMA for how agencies, OMB, and the President are to document their analyses and justify their proposals? For example, Congress might consider establishing criteria for designations of a plan or report being considered "outdated" or "duplicative" or, alternatively, require OMB to do so in its guidance. Would any of the topics from the previous sub-section of this report—such as context, consultations with stakeholders, usefulness, and costs (see " Potential Issues When Considering Specific Proposals ")—merit being required as topics for an agency or OMB to address in an agency's analysis or a presidential proposal? Coordination within Congress. Under GPRAMA, large group-repeal-and-modification proposals may become an annual occurrence. In that light, Congress might consider strategies for how it wishes to consider proposals for many modifications and eliminations of reporting requirements. In the past, Members and committees of Congress have used several strategies to manage consideration of ad hoc proposals from agencies, OMB, and the President. These proposals typically crossed the jurisdictions of many committees. In response, a single subcommittee sometimes coordinated the consideration of proposals within a chamber of Congress. The subcommittee then solicited feedback from committees of jurisdiction to develop a draft bill that could be introduced. Looking ahead to annual implementation of GPRAMA's process, might similar approaches be used? In addition, some reporting requirements may correspond to different committees and still be closely interrelated. Might there be opportunities for committees to coordinate their efforts when they have jurisdictions and reporting requirements that are closely related? OMB's activities and interactions with agencies. For the FY2013 round of GPRAMA's process, OMB's guidance to agencies addressed the situation where an agency may not find at least 10% of its plans and reports for Congress to be outdated or duplicative. In such cases, OMB appeared to say agencies still must achieve the 10% figure. To achieve that rate, OMB said agencies should recommend products for elimination that have comparatively lower net benefits, even if they are not outdated or duplicative and by implication still may be useful to recipients. For subsequent years, GPRAMA gives authority to OMB to determine a minimum annual percentage of plans and reports that agencies are required to identify as outdated or duplicative. GPRAMA currently contains no requirement for OMB to inform Congress of such a percentage, if OMB chooses one. If OMB's exercise of this authority were of interest, Congress might consider options for exercising oversight over OMB's use of the provision, including the extent to which OMB uses analysis to determine this minimum percentage. If Congress were interested in the views of agencies about the value of certain reporting requirements before potential modification by OMB to suit the President's preferences, Congress might consider options to better understand how an agency's second list of plans and reports changes after OMB's review. These options might include conducting hearings on the topic, asking GAO to look into specific cases, or amending GPRAMA to require an agency to submit its second list to Congress concurrently with its submission to OMB or, alternatively, later when the President submits his or her budget proposal. This would allow Congress to see what, if any, changes OMB made. Institutional roles and responsibilities. GPRAMA establishes several roles and responsibilities for agencies, OMB, and the President. Looking ahead, Congress may consider how well this system is working. If Congress perceives a problem or the potential for improvement, Congress may consider changes. To illustrate, GPRAMA requires each covered agency to compile a list of all plans and reports that it produces for Congress in accordance with statute or report language. The law does not require compilation of these data into an overall database that is available to agencies, OMB, Congress, and the public. As a consequence, it is conceivable that agencies' efforts to create parallel databases to manage this task may be vulnerable to duplication of effort. GPRAMA's provisions may also create some duplication of effort when viewed in the context of the House Clerk's Reports to Be Made to Congress document. Furthermore, efforts to analyze reporting requirements across agencies may be difficult in the absence of a more global view. If options for a single database were considered, numerous questions might arise. What agency or agencies might be best positioned to set policy for the database, administer it, and host it on the Internet? Under current law and practice, individual agencies, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), and the General Services Administration participate in federal records management with a statutory division of labor. What might their respective roles be in a hypothetical, integrated system?

Appendix. Plans and Reports Proposed to Congress for Modification ("Presidential List")

January 2013 Proposals (Obama Administration)

On January 8, 2013, the Obama Administration proposed a group of plans and reports for modification under the process established by GPRAMA. The proposal was posted on the Performance.gov website, located in the website's "FAQ" section. In the web page's text, the Administration characterized the plans and reports as "potentially outdated, duplicative, or otherwise warranting modification." The text also linked to a spreadsheet file available for downloading. The spreadsheet file identified 376 items as being proposed for modification. As a group, the proposed items were listed as corresponding to 28 entities: all 15 departments and 13 additional agencies and entities. Each listed item provided the following information:

name of entity; title of plan or report; type of modification (identifying one of four categories, including "eliminate," "consolidate," "reduce frequency," and "streamline"); and description of the rationale for modification.

Table A-1 shows tallies of the 376 items, broken out by entity and type of modification.

When looking at the proposals by type, a clear majority of the 376 items were listed as proposals to eliminate reporting requirements (269 out of 376, or 72% of the total). When looking at the proposals by entity, the Department of Defense (DOD) was associated with the most proposals, 71 items (19% of the total). That total does not include three additional items associated with the Army Corps of Engineers. Another 27 of the 376 items were listed as corresponding to the Executive Office of the President (EOP). As noted earlier in this report, GPRAMA's definition of "agency" does not explicitly include the EOP or the entities located within it. Consequently, the scope of the Obama Administration's January 2013 proposal could be interpreted as going beyond GPRAMA's specific requirements.