The Paperwork Reduction Act: A Case Study of Legislative Intent Lost in Implementation
BY KATHRYN LUEDKE
Executive Summary
The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA) is an example of a policy with good intentions that got away from what both its authors and implementers likely intended. The intent was to limit the amount of information collected by and the overall burden on individuals interacting with the federal government, but in the implementation of the law, the supporting regulations had the opposite effect. Not only did the PRA increase the amount of information collected, but it also counterintuitively inhibited federal agencies from activities that could improve public information gathering, such as surveys and user research. The PRA provides an example of why legislative and regulatory bodies need to collaborate better to ensure the implementation of law matches the original intent of policymakers.
PRA’s Beginning and Evolution
The PRA was passed by Congress in 1980 with the goal of reducing the burden of information collection on individuals, small businesses, and other groups by the federal government. The law aimed to do this while improving the use and quality of information collected to maximize public benefit, through the advancement of policies that enhanced government decision making, accountability, and openness (described in more detail below). To oversee the implementation of this work, the PRA established the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which sits within the Executive branch of the federal government.
Fifteen years after enactment, Congress amended the act to reinforce its original intent and set objectives for how information should be used to reduce inefficiency and improve management across federal agencies. The PRA of 1995 included language about statistical standards to improve the baseline of information collected and established Chief Information Officers (CIOs) in agencies to improve information management across agencies and promote inter-agency data sharing. The amended act also included provisions on increased public participation in the information collection review (ICR) process, adding two public comment review periods — sixty days initially and an additional thirty days after reviewing — and integrating comments during the first sixty-day period. The act requires the ICRs to be published in the Federal Register for public comment during these periods.
Since then, although Congress has not further amended the PRA, OIRA has been granted additional powers via executive orders (EOs) to review and address perceived regulatory burden on the public and private enterprises, including EO 12291, EO 12866, EO 13563, and EO 13771. EO 12291, signed by President Reagan, added mandates on using cost benefit analysis in the approval process of regulations and ICRs. EO12866, signed by President Clinton, and 13563, signed by President Obama, focused on increased public participation in rule creation and emphasized performance standards — instead of design standards — to minimize burden. EO 13771, issued by President Trump, added a regulatory cap and elimination of existing regulations to offset the introduction of new ones.
Congressional Intent behind the PRA
The overarching goal of the PRA was to address perceived impacts of the administrative state by reducing federal regulatory burden on individuals. The PRA aimed to do this with a three-pronged approach — reducing paperwork, improving IT systems, and being strategic about the information collected. The act even sought to future-proof itself at the beginning of the information age by creating CIOs in federal agencies whose continued role would be to improve the collection, use, and interoperability of federal data collections. The act aimed to increase transparency in the information collection decision making process, allowing the public to view and comment on forms and requiring agencies to integrate that feedback into the forms design. These strategies were designed to improve and maximize citizens’ welfare by making information and government data more efficient and attainable.
Implementation and Impact of the PRA: Hits and Misses
The implementation of the PRA has resulted in a number of unintended effects over the last forty years. It has established a significant administrative burden on federal agencies and, counterintuitively, has actually inhibited their ability to reduce public burden of information collections by reducing their ability to engage in activities to improve burden reduction, such as surveys and user research. In hindsight, although the PRA successfully built a framework around the federal government’s management of information collected through interactions with businesses and individuals, the PRA’s policy implementation was flawed. It emphasized procurement of information technology instead of the actual use of this technology, encouraged rote compliance through rigid processes set at arbitrary thresholds, and provided inefficient guidance to successfully direct implementation.
Successes
Centralized and formalized the review of federal information requests
The PRA was instrumental in codifying and centralizing the federal government’s need to consider end use and impact of information collection on the public and businesses. It marked the first time the government was compelled to consider the necessity of the information it asked of the public and to ensure efficient information collection.
Ongoing improvement on conceptualizing impact
In 2023, OIRA began providing comprehensive information on how to measure burden. This new measurement significantly improves how agencies view a simple form and the impact it can have on an individual — not just physically (i.e., the time spent by an individual to complete the form) but also psychologically (i.e., anxiety while waiting for food benefits to process when you are already food insecure), and in relation to the time spent gathering additional information and completing paperwork to verify data on the form and provide supplemental documents.
Challenges
Defining “burden”
The PRA of 1995 writes about “reducing the public burden of information collections” and asks OIRA to measure that burden in hours. The PRA does not provide guidance on how to measure a burden hour or what elements should be included in the measurement. This ambiguity led to decades of inconsistent and subjective reporting across the agencies, with some federal employees and OIRA desk officers stating that some burden hours were “made up.” It wasn’t until 2023, 26 years after the latest amendment, that agencies received an effective definition of burden.
CIO’s missed opportunities to improve efficiency
Original legislation created these positions to consider the information infrastructure and interoperability of data collection/information sharing across agencies. The CIOs focused largely on technology acquisition and missed opportunities to reduce burden through data sharing.
Culture of meaningless compliance – lack of deep engagement
According to interviews we conducted with federal employees, many agency members do everything they can to avoid working with OIRA and the PRA process, including creating workarounds to avoid triggering the process. Agencies view the process more as compliance, something to check the box and not as an opportunity to improve information collection. Implementation of the PRA varies wildly based on the desk officer assigned to the agency and can either inhibit or advance the agency's information collection activities.
Archaic nature
The authors of the original act likely could never have imagined what today's information and digital world looks like. It maintains the use of the Federal Register to solicit feedback, which is not successful in engaging the public, with many information collection reviews receiving under ten comments or none at all, which does not follow best practices around user and customer research. Feedback should be collaborative and guided, encouraging conversation instead of transaction. Technology today allows us to reach more people than ever before and gather information that can be used to improve processes. Locking the information collection review process into an archaic process, such as only posting in the Federal Register, inhibits agencies from being able to integrate public feedback into better processes.
Overlap with more recent policies and acts, creating redundancy
Additional legislative items signed into law have caused redundant activities to be completed across federal agencies or within the agencies. For example, the Evidence Act which pushed evidenced based policy and high statistical standards. OIRA was already tasked with this under PRA and had been doing so. The Evidence Act created additional “C suite” (chief executive level) positions in agencies to improve statistical analysis, on top of review from OIRA for ICRs
What the PRA can teach today’s Congress:
Among the lessons one can glean from both the PRA’s specific successes and challenges, the PRA also stands as a lasting example of a legislative proposal that demonstrates broad principles for how Congress can improve legislative drafting.
Drafting effective policy
The PRA serves as an example of how ambiguous policy writing can lead to long, arduous, implementation journeys that take decades to have an impact. Additional attempts to clarify and improve the legislation resulted in further bureaucratic red tape such as applying for fast track status, expanding the definition of burden (although necessary), or providing unnecessary review when agency personnel are already subject matter experts. Documents providing guidance or clarification often were lost or ignored due to fear of condemnation or retribution. An example of clarification getting lost is OIRA guidance on user research: OIRA clarified that user research is outside of the PRA and does not require ICR clearance, but according to interviews with federal employees many teams and organizations either do not know that or chose to avoid it for fear of triggering the PRA process from a lack of trust.
The PRA showcases that legislative intent in relation to intended policy impact should be very clearly articulated. Furthermore, any new legislation crafted to address problems in implementation should consider existing legislation as a foundation to build off of and perfect, rather than introduce new solutions independently without context of ongoing implementation efforts. For example, in the Evidence Act, Congress called for the creation of additional Chief Data Officers to oversee data sharing and statistical analysis of agencies even though these positions and responsibilities were already within the purview of OIRA under the PRA.
Responding to changes in Chevron Deference
With the overturning of the Chevron doctrine, there is great potential for legislators and regulators to partner to ensure specificity about how new legislation will be implemented. Some ambiguity in policy is a feature, not a flaw, but policymakers are going to need to explicitly give permission to the federal agencies to interpret the language to prevent frivolous litigation. The PRA provides examples of how legislation written without implementation in mind can result in decades of confusion and implementation pitfalls for federal agencies. The recent changes in Chevron may potentially improve the legislative and regulatory divide by empowering lawmakers and their staff to take a more refined, intentional approach to considering how their legislation is to be implemented.
For example, in the PRA, lawmakers aimed for the federal government to “reduce burden hours” but deferred to OIRA and the agencies to define a “burden hour” for themselves. This resulted in differing definitions and inconsistent measurements, resulting in the PRA’s implementation being fundamentally flawed due to lack of standardized measurements of effect.
Conclusion
The Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) of 1995, despite its well-meaning intentions, serves as a cautionary tale of how legislative intent can be lost in the complexities of implementation. While the PRA sought to reduce the burden of information collection on the public and improve the management of federal data, its execution often led to the opposite effects — creating additional bureaucratic hurdles and stifling agencies' ability to gather and use information effectively. The PRA’s journey from inception to the present highlights the critical importance of clear legislative drafting and close collaboration between lawmakers and regulatory bodies to ensure that the implementation of policies aligns with their original intent. As Congress and policymakers navigate future legislative challenges, particularly in a post-Chevron deference landscape, the lessons from the PRA underscore the need for precision in crafting laws and foresight in considering their practical impacts. By learning from the PRA’s missteps, future legislation can better achieve its goals and avoid the pitfalls of ambiguous language and unintended consequences.
