The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has compiled a list of recommendations for consolidating or eliminating congressionally-mandated reports to Congress. The list is based on information supplied by the agencies themselves.

• What congressionally-mandated plans and reports did agencies propose for Congress to consider modifying in response to the GPRA Modernization Act (P.L. 111-352)?

  Federal agencies annually produce thousands of congressionally-mandated plans and reports, and some that were once useful can become outdated, duplicative, or less useful over time. Through the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) Modernization Act of 2010, Congress required Federal agencies to identify for elimination or consolidation plans and reports that are outdated or duplicative. Agencies identified for Congress the linked list of 376 plans and reports as potentially outdated, duplicative, or otherwise warranting modification.

• List of Reports Required by PL 111-352 [Excel file] (Also available here as a PDF file).
• OMB proposes to eliminate, consolidate 376 reports, By Jason Miller, Federal News Radio, (1/9/2013).

  OMB recommends:

  Consolidating 47 reports
  Eliminating 269 reports
  Reducing the frequency of 31
  Streamlining 29

See also:

Sources for Finding Mandated Reports to Congress by U.S. Federal Agencies, Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C., (Last updated on December 14, 2012).

M-12-18, Managing Government Records Directive (August 24, 2012) (7 pages, 2.62 mb).

MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES AND INDEPENDENT AGENCIES Office of Management and Budget From Jeffrey D. Zients, Acting Director, Office of Management and Budget, and David S.Ferriero, Archivist of the United States SUBJECT: Managing Government Records Directive.

This Directive creates a robust records management framework that complies with statutes and regulations to achieve the benefits outlined in the Presidential Memorandum. This Directive was informed by agency reports submitted pursuant to Sec. 2 (b) of the Presidential Memorandum and feedback from consultations with agencies, interagency groups, and public stakeholders.

This Directive requires that to the fullest extent possible, agencies eliminate paper and use electronic recordkeeping. It is applicable to all executive agencies and to all records, without regard to security classification or any other restriction.

This Directive also identifies specific actions that will be taken by NARA, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to support agency records management programs. In addition, NARA will undertake a review to update relevant portions of the Code of Federal Regulations to take into account the provisions of this Directive.

Hello From DC (I mean Shakeytown, it Was My First Quake) Everyone.

As we prepare for our next event around hear and elsewhere along the east coast I thought it might be a good time to share a mountain of news, new resources, and other goodies with all of you.

The material comes from posts Shirl Kennedy and I made to our INFOdocket.com site. This is just a small amount of what we post seven days a week. Plus, we also provide FullTextReports.com. New reports are listed in the left rail (Thanks Jim and James)

We both hope you find and item or two of interest in the following update. More very soon. (-:

1. Hurricane Irene: FEMA’s National Situation Daily Update Available Online & Natl. Hurricane Center Mobile Resources

2. New Web Site: Feds Launch Performance.gov, Now Publicly Accessible

3. Acquisitions: Bloomberg is Buying BNA for $990 Million

4. US Department of Labor Improves Enforcement Databases Including Visualization/Animation Tools

5.U.S. History: “Rare Footage Unearthed Online”

6. New From the Internet Archive: “Understanding 9/11: A Television News Archive”

7.“Google Forfeits $500 Million Generated by Online Ads & Prescription Drug Sales by Canadian Online Pharmacies”
The full text of the statement from the USDOJ and FDA

8. Washington Post Op/Ed: “Don’t Kill America’s Databook” (U.S. Census Statistical Abstract)

9. NLRB — Acting General Counsel Releases Report on Social Media Cases

10. Back to School 2011-2012: Facts About Schools, Students and Teachers From the U.S. Census

11. 1940 U.S. Census to be Free on Ancestry.com

12. Government Information: GPO Releases API For FederalRegister.gov (Formal Announcement)

13. Teen Dating Violence: A Literature Review and Annotated Bibliography
From the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress

14. Update: More Digitized Historic U.S. Government Economic and Banking Documents and Reports via FRASER

15. A Look at a Few Resources Using U.S. Department of Agriculture Open Data

16. Cook County, IL: New online database lets anyone see who has outstanding warrants

17. Federal Agencies Take Action to Digitally Document Nearly 50 Endangered Languages

Recently, President Obama issued an executive ordering the streamlining of federal websites. Last week, OMB Watch sent a letter to the Office of Management and Budget with recommendations for its guidance on implementing the order including the suggestion that "customer service doesn't always look like filling out a form or receiving a payment. Providing information is a major government service...."

Informing and engaging the public is a critical government service for many agencies, and improving those services should properly be considered within the scope of the order;

Successfully soliciting meaningful customer feedback requires embracing the principles of participation and collaboration embodied in President Obama’s memorandum on transparency and open government; and

Agencies should be mindful that, although they may use customer service considerations to improve their interactions with regulated entities, their true customers are always the American people and not the regulated community.

-- Letter, (May 13, 2011) to Jeffrey Zients Office of Management and Budget, Re: Executive Order 13571 Streamlining Service Delivery and Improving Customer Service, from Sean Moulton Director and Gavin Baker, OMB Watch.

The letter goes on to note that "regulated entities are not the 'Customer,'" saying: "the order should not be seen as permission to develop an overly familiar relationship with regulated entities or place too much emphasis on the stated needs of their regulated communities. We urge OMB to include guidance that reminds agencies that the public is the primary customer and cautions agencies from overly identifying the regulated entities as customers."

Executive Order 13571 -- Streamlining Service Delivery and Improving Customer Service (April 27, 2011)

This is just too depressing!

OMB prepares for open gov sites to go dark in May
By Jason Miller
Executive Editor
Federal News Radio

Many of the Obama administration's top open government initiatives are set to be turned off by May 31.

Government sources confirm that the Office of Management and Budget is planning to take seven websites dark in two months because of a lack of funding.

One government official, who requested anonymity because they didn't get permission to discuss the topic, said funding will begin to run out on April 20 for public sites IT Dashboard, Data.gov and paymentaccuracy.gov. The source said OMB also is planning on shutting down internal government sites, including Performance.gov, FedSpace and many of the efforts related the FEDRamp cloud computing cybersecurity effort.

The official said two other sites, USASpending.gov and Apps.gov/now, will run through July 30 but go dark soon after.

[HT to John Wonderlich at Sunlight Foundation!]

Online 'Cookies' Crumble Under Tougher Fed Guidelines, by Chris Strohm, Tech Daily Dose (June 25, 2010).

An OMB spokesman said that the federal government is issuing new policies today governing how agencies may use Web "cookie" files and other technologies to collect information from visitors to government Websites.

The Office of Management and Budget has issued an interpretation of the Paperwork Reduction Act and how it applies to government agency use of social media such as Twitter.

The Center for Democracy and Technology says, "Currently, there's a burdensome process for agencies who want to do something as simple as ask the users of their website whether they are pleased with their experience - and there has been widespread confusion about whether asking users on Twitter or other social networks amounted to the same thing. Luckily for those in agencies that want to use social media or blogs to engage the public, today's guidance makes it that much easier to do, clearly stating that most uses of interactive web tools are not, in fact, paperwork."

• It's official: Twitter isn't Government Paperwork, by Heather West, Center for Democracy and Technology (April 7, 2010).
   
• Social Media, Web-Based Interactive Technologies, and the Paperwork Reduction Act (Memorandum For The Heads Of Executive Departments And Agencies, And Independent Regulatory Agencies) Cass R. Sunstein, Administrator Office Of Information And Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget (April 7, 2010).

One of our favorite rss feeds, docuticker, identifies an interesting gov doc in a recent update - Budget of the United States Government — Fiscal Year 2010: The Budget Documents, A New Era of Responsibility: Renewing America's Promise (OMB).

A New Era of Responsibility "... [p]rovides a description of the Obama Administration’s fiscal policies and major budgetary initiatives. This document is an overview of the full Fiscal Year 2010 Budget expected to be released this spring."

It is comprehensible in the way a well written commercial outline can distill an impenetrable appellate decision. In it, the President's Message begins:

"Throughout America’s history, there have been some years that appeared to roll into the next without much notice or fanfare. Budgets are proposed that offer some new programs or eliminate an initiative, but by and large continuity reigns. Then there are the years that come along once in a generation, when we look at where the country has been and recognize that we need a break from a troubled past, that the problems we face demand that we begin charting a new path. This is one of those years..."

That's clear. Think of it as lyric prologue to prose recovery (I'm an optimist) -- The 2010 Budget joins its predecessors at GPO Access ... (and, some day, FDSys as well).

Go ahead and try with this online game called Budget Hero. Fun for the whole family :-)

Here's a reminder (first posted by Susanna last week!) to take the OMB Watch survey to choose your 5 (and only 5) favorite questions on government openness and transparency for congressional and presidential candidates!

OMB Watch Survey

OMB Watch is a nonprofit government watchdog organization whose mission is to promote open government, accountability and citizen participation.