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¹ OMB’s oversight role dates to 1939, when the functions of a Central Statistical Board, created in 1933, were transferred to the then-named Bureau of the Budget (Anderson, 2015; Duncan & Shelton, 1978; Norwood, 1995).

LAWS

Paperwork Reduction Act

The Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) of 1980 (Pub. Law 96-511) codified at 44 USC 3501 and following, reauthorized and amended in 1986 (Pub. Law 99-500) and in 1995 (Pub. Law 104-13), is the central legal foundation for the statistical coordination and management mission of OMB. It affirms OMB’s review power over federal statistical agencies and myriad other agencies throughout the federal government that collect information from individuals and organizations. This review power covers both the burden imposed by information collection and methods and practices for data collection and dissemination.

Background: 1933–1980

The PRA’s origins trace back to Executive Order 6226 (Executive Office of the President, 1933), signed by Franklin D. Roosevelt in July 1933, which established a Central Statistical Board to “appraise and advise upon all schedules of all Government agencies engaged in the primary collection of statistics required in carrying out the purposes of the National Industrial Recovery Act, to review plans for tabulation and classification of such statistics, and to promote the coordination and improvement of the statistical services involved.” Members of the board were appointed by the relevant cabinet secretaries. The board was established in law for a 5-year period in 1935. Its functions were transferred to the Budget Bureau (itself established in 1921) in 1939, when the Budget Bureau was transferred to the Executive Office of the President.

The 1942 Federal Reports Act (Federal Reports Act, 1942) represented another milestone by codifying the authority for the Budget Bureau to coordinate and oversee the federal statistical agencies. Most famously, it provided that no federal agency could collect data from 10 or more respondents without approval of the budget director. The 1950 Budget and Accounting Procedures Act (Budget and Accounting Procedures Act, 1950) further strengthened the statistical coordinating and improvement role of OMB, giving OMB authorization to promulgate regulations and orders governing statistical programs throughout the federal government.

The statistical policy function continued in the budget office in the Executive Office of the President when the Budget Bureau became OMB in 1970. However, in 1977 the statistical policy staff was split into two groups: one group remained in OMB to handle the paperwork clearance and review function for statistical agencies; the other group was moved to

the U.S. Department of Commerce to address statistical policy and standards issues (Executive Order 12013, 1977).²

Paperwork Reduction Act, 1980–Present

The overarching goal of the 1980 PRA (Paperwork Reduction Act, 1980) was to reduce the burden of filling out federal forms by businesses and individuals. The PRA required the newly created Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) to engage in long-range planning to improve federal statistical programs; review statistical budgets; coordinate government statistical functions; establish standards, classifications, and other guidelines for statistical data collection and dissemination; and evaluate statistical program performance.

In furtherance of that work, Executive Order 12318 (Executive Office of the President, 1981) revoked the 1977 order and moved the statistical policy office from the Department of Commerce and moved it under the OIRA; the 1986 reauthorization of the PRA required the appointment of a chief statistician at OMB to carry out the statistical policy functions (Paperwork Reduction Act, 1986).³ In the 1995 reauthorization and extensive revision of the PRA (Paperwork Reduction Act, 1995), the director of OMB was given broad authority over the activities of the federal statistical system, but was directed to appoint a chief statistician who is a trained and experienced professional statistician to carry out the following functions:

1. Coordinate the activities of the federal statistical system to ensure (a) the efficiency and effectiveness of the system; and (b) the integrity, objectivity, impartiality, utility, and confidentiality of information collected for statistical purposes;
2. Ensure that budget proposals of agencies are consistent with systemwide priorities for maintaining and improving the quality of federal statistics, and prepare an annual report on statistical program funding;
3. Develop and oversee the implementation of governmentwide policies, principles, standards, and guidelines concerning
   1. statistical collection procedures and methods;
   2. statistical data classification;

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² Seven months later, a pair of Federal Register notices 43 F.R. 19260 (Department of Commerce, 1978b) and 19308 (Department of Commerce, 1978a) formally transferred the content of and responsibility for various regulatory circulars on federal statistical activities to the Commerce Department—at which time they were designated “statistical policy directives” for the first time.

³ Consequent to congressional hearings, the Reagan administration first appointed a chief statistician in 1983.

3. 3. statistical information presentation and dissemination;
   4. timely release of statistical data; and
   5. such statistical data sources as may be required for the administration of federal programs;
4. Evaluate statistical program performance and agency compliance with governmentwide policies, principles, standards and guidelines;
5. Promote the sharing of information collected for statistical purposes consistent with privacy rights and confidentiality pledges; and
6. Coordinate the participation of the United States in international statistical activities, including the development of comparable statistics.⁴

The law also codified the Interagency Council on Statistical Policy (ICSP), which is headed by the chief statistician. When first configured, ICSP consisted of the heads of the recognized statistical agencies and representatives of other statistical agencies under rotating membership; this configuration changed under the Evidence Act (as described below). In addition, the PRA authorizes training opportunities in statistical policy functions for employees of the federal government who serve on rotational assignments at OMB. The law also requires an annual report to Congress on the statistical programs of the U.S. government, known as the “Blue Book” (Office of Management and Budget, 2023b); see Appendix B for a fuller discussion.

Privacy Act

The Privacy Act of 1974 (issued as Pub. Law 93-579) as amended; codified at 5 USC 552a is a landmark piece of legislation that grew out of concerns about the implications of computers, credit bureaus, proposals for national databanks, and the like on personal privacy. The act states in part (5 USC 552a(b)):

The defined conditions for disclosure of personal records without prior consent include use for statistical purposes by the Census Bureau, for statistical research or reporting when the records are to be transferred in

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⁴ 44 USC 3504(e).

a form that is not individually identifiable, for routine uses within a U.S. government agency, for preservation by the National Archives and Records Administration “as a record which has sufficient historical or other value to warrant its continued preservation by the United States Government,” for law enforcement purposes, for congressional investigations, and for other administrative purposes.

The Privacy Act mandates that every federal agency have in place an administrative and physical security system to prevent the unauthorized release of personal records; it also mandates that every agency publish in the Federal Register one or more system of records notices (SORNs) for newly created and revised systems of records that contain personally identifiable information as directed by OMB.⁵ SORNs are to describe not only the records and their uses by the agency, but also procedures for storing, retrieving, accessing, retaining, and disposing of records in the system.⁶

Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act (CIPSEA)

Protecting the confidentiality of individual information collected under a confidentiality pledge—whether from individuals, households, businesses, or other organizations—is a cornerstone of federal statistics. Federal statistical agencies also strive to respect the privacy of individual respondents through such means as limiting the collection of information to that which is necessary for an agency’s mission. Respect for privacy has a history in federal legislation and regulation that extends back many decades; so, too, does protection of confidentiality, except that not all federal agencies were covered.⁷ With the original passage of CIPSEA in 2002 (see below), a firm legislative foundation was established for confidentiality protection of statistical data governmentwide.

CIPSEA was first enacted as Title V of the E-Government Act of 2002 (E-Government Act, 2002) and was recodified as Title III of the Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018 (see below). CIPSEA provides a strong statutory basis for the statistical system with regard to confidentiality protection and data sharing. CIPSEA has four parts: two original parts cover confidentiality (Part B) and data sharing (Part C; efficiency), respectively, while the other two parts include definitions and Statistical Policy Directive

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⁵ OMB Circular A-130, Managing Information as a Strategic Resource, Appendix II, https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/omb/circulars/A130/a130revised.pdf.

⁶ For example, see https://www.census.gov/about/policies/privacy/sorn.html.

⁷ For example, Title 13 of the U.S. Code, providing for confidentiality protection for economic and population data collected by the Census Bureau, dates back to 1929; in contrast, the Bureau of Labor Statistics had no legal authority for its policies and practices of confidentiality protection until the passage of CIPSEA in 2002 (see NRC, 2003b, pp. 119–121).

No. 1 (Part A; see below) and Access to Data for Evidence (Part D; see Evidence Act below).

Part A Statistical Policy Directive No. 1

Part A of CIPSEA was added through Title III of the Evidence Act of 2018. Section 3563(a)(1) states the responsibilities of statistical agencies and units, incorporating Statistical Policy Directive No. 1. In addition, section 3563(b) states that the head of each agency (statistical or otherwise) shall enable, support, and facilitate statistical agencies or units in carrying out the responsibilities in section 3563(a)(1). (See Statistical Policy Directive No. 1, below, and Trust Regulation, below.)

Part B Confidential Information Protection

Part B of CIPSEA strengthens and extends statutory confidentiality protection for all statistical data collections of the U.S. government. Prior to CIPSEA, such protection was governed by a patchwork of laws applicable to specific agencies, judicial opinions, and agencies’ practices. For all data furnished by individuals or organizations to an agency under a pledge of confidentiality for exclusively statistical purposes, Subtitle A provides that the data will be used only for statistical purposes and will not be disclosed in identifiable form to anyone not authorized by the title. It makes the knowing and willful disclosure of confidential statistical data a class E felony, with fines up to $250,000 and imprisonment for up to 5 years.

Subtitle A pertains not only to surveys, but also to collections by a federal agency for statistical purposes from nonpublic administrative records (e.g., confidential state government agency records). Data covered under Subtitle A are not subject to release under a Freedom of Information Act request.

Part C Statistical Efficiency

Part C of CIPSEA permits the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), and the Census Bureau to share individually identifiable business data for statistical purposes. The subtitle has three main purposes: (a) to reduce respondent burden on businesses; (b) to improve the comparability and accuracy of federal economic statistics by permitting these three agencies to reconcile differences among sampling frames, business classifications, and business reporting; and (c) to increase understanding of the U.S. economy and improve the accuracy of key national indicators, such as the National Income and Product Accounts.

be stated; determination shall be prompt; and an appeals process shall be established. (This was implemented through M-23-04; see below.)

CIPSEA Implementation Guidance

OMB originally released implementation guidance for CIPSEA in 2007 (U.S. Office of Management and Budget, 2007). The guidance covered such topics as the steps that agencies must take to protect confidential information; wording of confidentiality pledges in materials that are provided to respondents; steps that agencies must take to distinguish any data or information they collect for nonstatistical purposes and to provide proper notice to the public of such data; and ways in which agents (e.g., contractors, researchers) may be designated to use individually identifiable information for analysis and other statistical purposes and be held legally responsible for protecting the confidentiality of that information. Under the Evidence Act, OMB is charged with promulgating guidance for implementation of a process to designate statistical agencies and units.⁸ A total of 16 agencies and units are currently so recognized (see Appendix B).

Privacy Impact Assessments

Section 208 of the E-Government Act of 2002 (E-Government Act, 2002) requires federal agencies to conduct a privacy impact assessment whenever an agency develops or obtains information technology that handles individually identifiable information or whenever the agency initiates a new collection of individually identifiable information.⁹ The assessment is to be made publicly available and cover topics such as what information is being collected and why, with whom the information will be shared, what provisions will be made for informed consent regarding data sharing, and how the information will be secured. Typically, privacy impact assessments cover not only privacy issues but also confidentiality, integrity, and availability issues.¹⁰ OMB was required to issue guidance for development of the assessments, which was done in a September 26, 2003, memorandum (M-03-22) from the OMB director to the heads of executive agencies and departments.¹¹

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⁸ 44 USC 3562(a).

⁹ Section 208 also mandates that OMB lead interagency efforts to improve federal information technology and use of the Internet for government services.

¹⁰ For example, the available privacy impact assessments prepared by the Census Bureau at https://www.census.gov/about/policies/privacy/pia.html/

¹¹ https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/203-M-03-22-OMB-Guidance-for-Implementing-the-Privacy-Provisions-of-the-E-Government-Act-of-2002-1.pdf

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¹² https://www.federalregister.gov/d/R2-59

The next step is to determine the types of information in the system and categorize each according to the magnitude of harm that would result if the system suffered a compromise of confidentiality, integrity, or availability. Succeeding steps are to develop complete system documentation, conduct a risk assessment, put appropriate controls in place to minimize risk, and arrange for an assessment and certification of the adequacy of the controls.

FISMA affects federal statistical agencies directly in that each agency must follow the FISMA procedures for its own information systems. In addition, some departments take the position that all information systems in a department constitute a single information system for the purposes of FISMA: those departments have taken steps to require that statistical agencies’ information systems and personnel be incorporated into a centralized departmentwide system.

Government Performance and Results Act Modernization Act

The Government Performance and Results Act Modernization Act of 2010, which reauthorizes and expands the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, was signed into law on January 4, 2011.¹³ It requires performance assessments of Chief Financial Officers (CFO) Act agencies for purposes of evaluating agency performance and improvement. In carrying out the provisions of the act, the director of OMB coordinates with agencies to develop the federal government performance plan. The act requires all federal agencies, with few exceptions, to establish performance indicators to be used in measuring or assessing progress toward their identified performance goals and an objective, quantifiable, and measurable means by which to compare actual program results with these established performance goals. Additionally, each agency must describe how it will ensure the accuracy and reliability of the data used, including validation of measures, data sources, required level of accuracy, data limitations, and management of those limitations.

The broad scope of agencies affected by this act, and the use of the act in making budgetary decisions based on measured achievement toward program goals, have fostered added focus among many agencies on how to collect high-quality data and produce sound government statistics with which to conduct rigorous program evaluation. In 2016, the addendum to Statistical Policy Directive No. 4 (see below) proposed a program of annual performance reviews for federal statistical products.

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¹³ http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-111publ352/pdf/PLAW-111publ352.pdf

such information. Ultimately, DHS retained its surveillance authority, and statistical agencies modified their confidentiality pledges, as described in a Federal Register notice from the Census Bureau (other statistical agencies have issued similar notices):¹⁴

BLS led an interagency research program to test revised wording with samples of respondents, and agencies revised their pledges accordingly. As an example, the Census Bureau’s revised pledge, provided in 81 Federal Register 94321 (December 23, 2016), states:

National policy on cybersecurity has evolved significantly since the EINSTEIN program was first introduced.¹⁵ As of 2022, 248 federal agencies use EINSTEIN 1 and 2 “representing approximately 2.095 million users, or 99% of the total user population” and 257 agencies use E3A.

Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act (“Evidence Act”)

The Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018 (Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018, 2019) broadened

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¹⁴ Agency Information Collection Activities; Request for Comments; Revision of the Confidentiality Pledge Under Title 13 United States Code, Section 9, 81 Federal Register. See https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2016-30959.

¹⁵ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/05/12/executive-order-on-improving-the-nations-cybersecurity/

the authorities of the PRA to include using data and statistics for evidence, and it further increased the responsibilities of the chief statistician in Titles I and III in the capacity of coordinating data sharing across agencies and improving access to confidential data for evidence building.

Under Title I, Evidence Building Activities, the Act requires that agencies develop evidence-building plans (also referred to as learning agendas), appoint qualified evaluation officers, and appoint qualified statistical officials. It also establishes an Advisory Committee on Data for Evidence Building, chaired by the Chief Statistician of the U.S. at OMB, to recommend ways to facilitate data sharing, enable data linkages, and develop privacy-enhancing methods.

Title II of the Evidence Act is referred to as the OPEN Government Data Act. It requires agencies to make open data the government default for nonsensitive publicly available government data. It requires agencies to create a comprehensive data inventory and appoint qualified Chief Data Officers (CDOs). It also establishes a Chief Data Officer Council and requires the General Services Administration to host and maintain a comprehensive Federal Data Catalogue of all data assets.

Title III of the Evidence Act is referred to as the Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act (CIPSEA) of 2018, which reauthorized the 2002 law of the same name. Additionally, Part A of the act codified the responsibilities of statistical agencies and units originally issued as Statistical Policy Directive No. 1 (see below). Part D provides statistical agencies with broader statutory authority for accessing and using data assets of other federal agencies, expands secure access to CIPSEA data assets for approved statistical purposes, and establishes a single application process for access to restricted or sensitive data. (See additional information on CIPSEA above.)

OMB is charged with implementing guidance for multiple sections of this law (see below, for example, the final Trust Regulation and memorandum M-19-23).

National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act

The National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act of 2020 (National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act, 2020) assigns a number of responsibilities to federal agencies to research, advise, and develop standards for the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in federal work. The Act calls for the establishment of a National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Office at the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to manage the implementation of this act. It tasks the National Science and Technology Council to establish an Interagency Committee to coordinate federal programs and activities in support of the initiative, and the Department of Energy (DOE) to establish

the National Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee to advise the President and the Initiative Office on matters related to the initiative. DOE must also carry out an AI research and development program to (a) advance AI tools, systems, capabilities, and workforce needs; and (b) improve the reliability of AI methods and solutions relevant to DOE’s mission.

The Act also calls for the National Science Foundation (NSF) to fund research and education activities in AI systems and related fields and specifically, to contract with the National Research Council of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to conduct a study of the current and future impact of artificial intelligence on the workforce of the United States. In addition, the act calls for NSF to establish a program to award financial assistance to eligible entities or their consortia to establish and support Artificial Intelligence Research Institutes.

The Act also calls for the General Accountability Office to conduct a study of AI computer hardware and computing required in order to maintain U.S. leadership in artificial intelligence research and development. It calls for the National Institute of Standards and Technology to develop voluntary standards for AI systems, among other things.

In 2023, OSTP released the final report (Office of Science and Technology Policy, 2023a)¹⁶ of the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource Task Force—a roadmap to ensure equitable access to AI “beyond those at well-resourced companies, organizations, and academic institutions … by providing AI researchers and students with significantly expanded access to computational resources, high-quality data, educational tools, and user support—fueling greater innovation and advancing AI that serves the public good.”¹⁷

CHIPS and Science Act

The CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 provided $52.7 billion to develop semiconductor domestic manufacturing capability, research and development and workforce development programs through the Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, and NSF (CHIPS Act of 2022, 2022).

Part B, Title III, Subtitle F, Sec. 10375. established a National Secure Data Service demonstration (NSDS-D) project at NSF to test models and inform full implementation of a government-wide data linkage and access infrastructure. To implement this effort, the CHIPS and Science Act

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¹⁶ https://www.ai.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/NAIRR-TF-Final-Report-2023.pdf

¹⁷ https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/news-updates/2023/01/24/national-artificial-intelligence-research-resource-task-force-releases-final-report/; See also NIST-AI-600-1, Artificial Intelligence Risk Management Framework: Generative Artificial Intelligence Profile (National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2024).

authorized $9 million for each of fiscal years 2023 through 2027. The NSDS-D is managed by the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics and supported by a contract to America’s Datahub Consortium.

REGULATIONS, DIRECTIVES, AND BULLETINS

Executive branch agencies issue regulations (or rules) to implement laws enacted by the legislative branch. Sometimes these regulations are known by other terms. For example, as an executive branch agency, OMB issues guidance to federal agencies via “circulars,” which are expected to have a continuing effect of 2 years or more, and “bulletins,” which are more limited in their effect.¹⁸

OMB statistical standards and guidance were originally issued as circulars and bulletins; however, after the statistical policy function was temporarily moved to the U.S. Department of Commerce in 1977, the circulars were reissued as “statistical policy directives” (Department of Commerce, 1978b) so as not to cause confusion with other OMB circulars (which were not related to statistical standards and guidance). When the statistical policy function was moved back to OMB in 1981, the statistical policy directives were transferred.

Common Rule

The 1991 Common Rule regulations, promulgated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)¹⁹ and signed onto by nine other cabinet departments and seven independent agencies (in their own regulations), represent the culmination of a series of HHS regulations dating back to the 1960s (see Practice 7 and NRC, 2003b). The regulations are designed to protect individuals whom researchers wish to recruit for research studies funded by the federal government, which include surveys and other kinds of statistical data collection.²⁰ These regulations require that researchers obtain informed consent from prospective participants, minimize risks to participants, balance risks and benefits appropriately, select participants equitably, monitor data collection to ensure participant safety (where appropriate), and protect participant privacy and maintain data confidentiality (where appropriate). Institutional review boards (IRBs)

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¹⁸ https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/information-for-agencies/circulars

¹⁹ https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulations-and-policy/regulations/common-rule/ In addition to Subpart A of 45 CFR 46, HHS and some other departments and agencies have signed onto Subparts B, C, and D, which pertain to pregnant women, human fetuses, and neonates; prisoners; and children, respectively.

²⁰ Of those departments with statistical units, all signed onto the Common Rule with the exception of the Departments of Labor and the Treasury.

at universities and other organizations and agencies, registered with HHS, review research protocols to determine whether they qualify for exemption from or are subject to IRB review and, if the latter, whether the protocol satisfactorily adheres to the regulations. Some federal statistical agencies are required to submit data collection protocols to an IRB for approval; other agencies maintain exemption from IRB review but follow the principles and spirit of the regulations.

An Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, issued in 2011, proposed changes to the Common Rule, including revisions to the provisions for confidentiality protection.²¹ A Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, which indicated responses to the extensive comments on that advance notice, was issued in 2015; it too included a comment period.²² A final rule was published on January 19, 2017,²³ which took effect on January 19, 2018 (for cooperative research involving more than one institution, the effective date was January 20, 2020). Some of the changes from the 1991 version of the Common Rule are listed below.

1. The U.S. Department of Labor became a signatory to the Common Rule; consequently, only one department that houses a federal statistical agency (U.S. Department of the Treasury) is not a signatory.
2. Provisions to exempt research with human participants from IRB review were modified and enlarged and, where appropriate, IRB review is to be focused on the adequacy of confidentiality protection.
3. To assist IRBs in determining the adequacy of confidentiality protection, the Secretary of HHS, after consultation with OMB and other federal signatories, is to issue guidance on what provisions are adequate to protect the privacy of subjects and to maintain the confidentiality of data.
4. Provisions are added for “broad” consent for storage, maintenance, and secondary research use of identifiable private information or biospecimens.

Order Providing for the Confidentiality of Statistical Information

OMB issued this order in 1997 (Office of Management and Budget, 1997b) to bolster the confidentiality protections afforded by statistical agencies or units (as listed in the order), some of which lacked legal authority

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²¹ https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2011-18792. See also (NRC, 2014).

²² https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2015-21756

²³ https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2017-01058

to back up their confidentiality protection.²⁴ Subsequently, CIPSEA (see above) placed confidentiality protection for statistical information on a strong legal footing across the entire federal government.

Trust Regulation

In October 2024, OMB issued a final rule under Title III of the Evidence Act. The Fundamental Responsibilities of Recognized Statistical Agencies and Units regulation, known as the “Trust Regulation,” is intended to promote public trust in federal recognized statistical agencies and units (RSAUs) by providing direction to RSAUs on carrying out four fundamental responsibilities and providing direction to all other federal agencies to “enable, support, and facilitate” the RSAUs in carrying out those four fundamental responsibilities. The four fundamental responsibilities are “produce and disseminate relevant and timely statistical information, conduct credible and accurate statistical activities, conduct objective statistical activities, and protect the trust of information providers by ensuring the confidentiality and exclusive statistical use of their responses” (Confidential Information and Statistical Efficiency Act of 2018, 2019, p. 46 § 3563).

Title III of the Evidence Act (Confidential Information and Statistical Efficiency Act of 2018, 2019) contemplates “a common framework for protecting statistical data, acquiring administrative/program data, and disseminating statistical data securely” (Office of Management and Budget, 2023d, p. 56713). This requires a foundation for such a common framework and the organizational structure necessary to accomplish it. Accordingly, given the unique responsibilities described in Statistical Policy Directive No. 1 (see below), the Trust Regulation explicates where autonomous decision making is necessary for RSAUs, and why (Office of Management and Budget, 2024b).

A number of communication and coordination roles for RSAUs are described in the final rule, which will strengthen this common foundation. In summary, these include (a) establishing and maintaining RSAU-branded websites in coordination with the Office of the Chief Statistician; (b) RSAU mission statements and authorities; (c) RSAU strategic plans and systematic evaluation of their programs, products, and staff needs; (d) systemwide and agency-specific authorities to achieve the responsibilities of SPD 1; (e) RSAU-specific (as well as cross-agency) program and staffing budget transparency and opportunity for direct participation in the budgetary submission and review process; (f) necessary communication of staff and infrastructure resource needs to enable, where appropriate, shared services; (g) enabling strong and effective stakeholder engagement to gauge

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²⁴ https://www.federalregister.gov/d/97-16934

and deliver statistical products that address user needs, including convening advisor groups; (h) provisions for prompt and appropriate access to data for evidence-building; and (i) advance issuance of a release calendar for routine and non-routine products (consistent with Statistical Policy Directives No. 3 and No. 4). In addition to describing the unique roles and responsibilities of RSAUs, the regulation emphasizes that the capacity of the RSAUs to carry out this rule is a responsibility jointly held by RSAUs and their parent agencies, and should be managed in a collaborative manner (Office of Management and Budget, 2024b).

The final regulation described the manner by which the RSAUs and their parent agencies will be reviewed for compliance with these responsibilities, particularly autonomy and functional separation. This work will be carried out for each RSAU and parent agency at least once every 3 years by the Inspector General of each parent agency according to guidance to be established by a working group of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency. These reviews will be examined by the affected agencies and the Chief Statistician of the U.S. (Office of Management and Budget, 2024b).

The Trust Regulation is broad in scope. Its implementation is certain to affect the functioning of the federal statistical system in fundamental and lasting ways. The next edition of Principles and Practices will be well-positioned to reflect on its impact.

Statistical Policy Directive No. 1—Fundamental Responsibilities of Federal Statistical Agencies and Recognized Statistical Units

Known as the Trust Directive, this directive recognizes the long-held and widely articulated core responsibilities of federal statistical agencies and recognized statistical units to (a) produce and disseminate relevant and timely information; (b) conduct credible and accurate statistical activities; (c) conduct objective statistical activities; and (d) protect the trust of information providers by ensuring the confidentiality and exclusive statistical use of their responses. The directive cites federal, national (including P&P), and international guidance as contributing “to an integrative framework guiding the production of Federal statistics, encompassing design, collection, processing, editing, compilation, storage, analysis, release, and dissemination” (Office of Management and Budget, 2014b, p. 71611).

These four responsibilities were codified in the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018 (Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018, 2019). Importantly, the law retained the requirement that requires heads of departments to “enable, support, and facilitate

statistical agencies or units in carrying out the responsibilities.”²⁵ A final regulation implementing provisions of the Evidence Act corresponding to the Trust Directive was issued in 2024 (Office of Management and Budget, 2024b; see above).

Statistical Policy Directive No. 2—Standards and Guidelines for Statistical Surveys

Statistical Policy Directive No. 2 (Office of Management and Budget, 2006)²⁶ provides comprehensive standards for every aspect of survey methodology from planning through data release. These include (a) survey planning; (b) survey design; (c) survey response rates; (d) pretesting survey systems; (e) developing sampling frames; (f) required notification to potential survey respondents; (g) data collection methodology; (h) data editing; (i) nonresponse analysis and response rate calculation; (j) coding; (k) data protection; (l) evaluation; (m) developing estimates and projections; (n) analysis and report planning; (o) inference and comparisons; (p) review of information products; (q) releasing information; (r) data protection and disclosure avoidance for dissemination; (s) survey documentation; and (t) documentation and release of public-use microdata. OMB also issued the Addendum: Standards and Guidelines for Cognitive Interviews to Directive No. 2 (Office of Management and Budget, 2016c). This addendum recognizes the important role that qualitative cognitive interviewing techniques play in the design of effective survey questions (NRC, 1984, 2006b).

Statistical Policy Directive No. 3—Compilation, Release, and Evaluation of Principal Federal Economic Indicators

OMB first issued Statistical Policy Directive No. 3 in the 1970s, strengthened it in 1985, and revised it again in 2024.²⁷

Directive No. 3’s purposes are “to preserve the time value” of the Principal Federal Economic Indicators (PFEIs), “strike a balance between timeliness and accuracy,” “prevent early access to information that may affect financial and commodity markets,” and “preserve the distinction between the policy neutral release of data by statistical agencies and their interpretation by policy officials” (Office of Management and Budget, 2024d,

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²⁵ 44 USC 3563(b).

²⁶ This document, initially released as Standards and Guidelines for Statistical Surveys, was a combined update and revision of the original Statistical Policy Directive No. 1, Standards for Statistical Surveys and Statistical Policy Directive No. 2, Publication of Statistics.

²⁷ (Norwood, 2016) recounts the history of threats to the integrity of economic indicators that necessitated the directive’s issuance and updating.

p. 11873). Directive No. 3 also provides for the periodic evaluation of each indicator.

Each September, OMB issues the Schedule of Release Dates for Principal Federal Economic Indicators for the calendar year.²⁸ At present, the following agencies issue one or more of the 36 principal economic indicators (federal RSAUs denoted by asterisk*):

1. Bureau of Economic Analysis* (5 indicators);²⁹
2. Bureau of Labor Statistics* (7 indicators);³⁰
3. Census Bureau* (13 indicators);³¹
4. Energy Information Administration* (1 indicator);³²
5. Federal Reserve Board (2 indicators);³³
6. Foreign Agricultural Service (1 indicator);³⁴
7. National Agricultural Statistics Service* (6 indicators);³⁵ and
8. World Agricultural Outlook Board (1 indicator).³⁶

In February 2024, following a public comment process, OMB revised one aspect of the directive: the period of time during which employees of the Executive Branch are prohibited from commenting publicly on the data after official release time was revised from 1 hour to 30 minutes. Specifically,

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²⁸ https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/pfei_schedule_release_dates_2024.pdf

²⁹ These include Personal Income and Outlays, Gross Domestic Product, Corporate Profits, U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services (with Census), and U.S. International Transactions.

³⁰ These include The Employment Situation, Producer Price Index, Consumer Price Index, Real Earnings, Productivity and Costs, Employment Cost Index, and U.S. Import and Export Price Indexes.

³¹ These include Construction Put in Place; New Residential Construction; New Residential Sales; Monthly Wholesale Trade; Advance Monthly Sales for Retail and Food Services; U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services (with BEA) including the subset U.S. Imports for Consumption of Steel Products; Manufacturing and Trade Inventories and Sales; Manufacturers’ Shipments, Inventories, and Orders; Advance Report on Durable Goods Manufacturers’ Shipments, Inventories, and Orders; Quarterly Financial Report: Manufacturing, Mining, and Wholesale Trade; Quarterly Financial Report: Retail Trade; Housing Vacancies and Homeownership; Quarterly Services.

³² Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report.

³³ These include Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization, and Consumer Credit.

³⁴ World Agricultural Production.

³⁵ These include Agricultural Prices, Crop Production, Grain Stocks, Cattle on Feed, Hogs and Pigs, and Plantings.

³⁶ These include World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates.

OMB would include a summary of the year’s evaluations in its annual report to Congress. As of June 2024, this addendum has yet to be enacted. Note that agency evaluations are required by the recently issued Trust Regulation, although they are different in scope from the much more limited 2016 proposal. Forthcoming implementation guidance for the Trust Regulation is anticipated to detail the scope of review.

Statistical Policy Directive No. 7—Metropolitan Statistical Areas

Since the 1950s, OMB’s Metropolitan Area Classification Program has provided standards for delineating areas that are “metropolitan” in nature for use throughout the federal government. In general, such an area has a population nucleus plus one or more adjacent communities that have a high degree of interaction with the nucleus. These areas were called “standard metropolitan areas” in the 1950 census publications. For censuses from 1960 through 2000, OMB revised as appropriate the definitional criteria for metropolitan statistical areas before each census and, on the basis of those criteria, issued an updated list of recognized areas after each census.³⁷

The definitional criteria issued before the 2000 census marked a major revision to the coverage of the program. Standards for Defining Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas defined not only metropolitan statistical areas but also, for the first time, micropolitan areas.³⁸ Metropolitan statistical areas are those with a central urbanized core of 50,000 or more people in one or more counties; micropolitan areas are those with a central urbanized core of 10,000 or more people in one or more counties. The list of metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas using the 2000 criteria was initially issued in 2003 and was updated annually through 2008 by OMB on the basis of the Census Bureau’s population estimates. Two years later, OMB issued 2010 Standards for Delineating

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³⁷ Issues of rural area classification were discussed at a Committee on National Statistics workshop sponsored by the Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, in April 2015 (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2016a).

³⁸ 65 F.R. 82228 (December 27, 2000). https://www.federalregister.gov/d/00-32997.

Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas after the proposed revisions were subject to public comment, which largely continued the criteria adopted for the 2000 standards.³⁹ Areas based on these standards, using data from the 2010 census and the American Community Survey (ACS), were announced in 2013.

Beginning with the 2010 census, the revision and updating process was changed to reflect the availability of needed commuting and employment information from the continuous ACS. Under the changed process, OMB will issue as often as annually a list of newly recognized areas by using Census Bureau population estimates; in addition, on the basis of ACS and census data, OMB issued revisions in 2018 and 2023, using population estimates and ACS data on commuting and employment.⁴⁰ Input to the OMB decisions on changes to the standards is provided by an interagency Metropolitan Area Standards Review Committee.

In 2021, OMB revised the standards to account for 2020 census results (Office of Management and Budget, 2021b). In 2023, OMB issued an update of metropolitan, micropolitan, and combined statistical-areas-based population data from the 2020 census (Office of Management and Budget, 2023a), applying the first update following the enactment of the Metropolitan Areas Protection and Standardization Act (MAPS) of 2021, which recognized the importance of maintaining the objective statistical basis of these areas (MAPS Act of 2021, 2021).

Statistical Policy Directive No. 8—North American Industry Classification System

The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) is a standard classification of business establishments enabling measurement of U.S. industrial output across 20 sectors of the economy. It was developed by the United States, Canada, and Mexico to provide a common, contemporary classification system for economic production activity following the enactment of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). NAICS, which is a substantial revision of its predecessor, the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC), was first issued in 1997.⁴¹ Interagency and country working groups (under the aegis of OMB in the United States) have the opportunity to update NAICS every 5 years for years ending in 2 and 7

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³⁹ 75 F.R. 37245. https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2010-15605.

⁴⁰ https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Bulletin-18-04.pdf and https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Bulletin-20-01.pdf

⁴¹ The SIC was originally issued in various sections in 1938–1940, was revised on an irregular basis between 1940 and its last iteration in 1987, and has been discontinued.

so that it reflects changes in the structure of industrial activity in the three countries.

A related classification, the North American Product Classification System (NAPCS), is a hierarchical classification for goods and services. Together, NAICS and NAPCS ensure that industry and product data are collected and published across recognized statistical agencies and units in a consistent and comparable way.

The 2022 revision (Office of Management and Budget, 2022b) updated NAICS and NAPCS on new and emerging industries and removed the mode of sales and delivery (online versus in store/print) as an industry delineation criterion in the Wholesale Trade, Retail Trade, and Information sectors. The 2022 revision also eliminated Statistical Policy Directive No. 9, Standard Industrial Classification of Enterprises, long having been redundant given the development of NAICS. In 2023, OMB convened the interagency Economic Classification Policy Committee to initiate planning on the 2027 revision process for NAICS and the NAPCS.

Statistical Policy Directive No. 10—Standard Occupational Classification

The Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) is used by federal statistical agencies to classify workers into occupational categories for collecting, tabulating, and disseminating data, thereby improving the comparability and utility of those data (Office of Management and Budget, 2017a). The first SOC was published in 1977 in an effort to standardize the collection of occupational data by multiple agencies. It was revised in 1980 but not universally adopted until an interagency process under the aegis of OMB further revised it in 1998 for use in the 2000 decennial census and surveys conducted in the following decade. Work to revise the 2010 SOC was completed in time for its use in 2010 for the ACS,⁴² which provides occupational data in place of the decennial census “long form” sample, and other surveys. It is updated every 10 years through an interagency process to reflect societal changes in occupation. The SOC was last revised for use in 2018, containing 867 detailed occupations, aggregated into 459 broad occupations. These 459 broad occupations are sorted systematically into 98 minor groups and 23 major groups.⁴³ OMB launched the 2028 revision process in December 2023; the final rule is expected before 2028.

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⁴² https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/tech_docs/code_lists/2010_ACS_Code_Lists.pdf

⁴³ https://www.bls.gov/SOC/

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⁴⁴ https://www.census.gov/topics/income-poverty/poverty.html

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⁴⁵ http://www.census.gov/2010census/pdf/2010_Census_Race_HO_AQE.pdf

⁴⁶ Since 2005, the decennial census and American Community Survey (ACS) are required by law to include a “some other race” (SOR) category, thereby adding a sixth minimum race category for these collections (Science, State, Justice, Commerce, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2005). The decennial census and ACS are the only information collections with a statutory requirement for the use of an SOR category.

⁴⁷ https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-census/decade/2020/planning-management/plan/final-analysis/2015nct-race-ethnicity-analysis.html and https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-census/decade/2020/planning-management/plan/op-plans.html

questions posed during the 2016 Federal Register Notice (FRN) in a new 2023 FRN (Office of Management and Budget, 2023e). In addition to requesting comment on issues included in previous FRNs, including combining the race and ethnicity questions and adding a new MENA minimum category, comment was requested on the determination of detailed reporting categories; whether detailed data should be collected by default; and considerations when weighing public benefit versus burden when collecting detailed categories. Public comments were also requested on bridging studies to support the comparison of data if the standard were revised; guidance on the use of proxy reporting; and guidance in the tabular presentation of complex race and ethnicity data.

In 2024, OMB issued the revised race and ethnicity data standards (Office of Management and Budget, 2024g). Specifically, the standards were “revised to collect data using a single combined race and ethnicity question, allowing multiple responses; add Middle Eastern or North African (MENA) as a minimum reporting category, separate and distinct from the White category; require the collection of more detail beyond the minimum race and ethnicity reporting categories by default, unless an agency requests and receives an exemption;⁴⁸ update terminology in Statistical Policy Directive (SPD) 15; and require agency Action Plans on Race and Ethnicity Data and timely compliance” (Office of Management and Budget, 2024g, p. 22182). Additional guidance was provided to support transparency in the proxy collection of race and ethnicity data, and in the presentation of tabular data.

The revised standards are effective as of March 28, 2024. Agencies are directed to begin complying with the 2024 SPD 15 as soon as possible, no later than March 28, 2029. By or before September 28, 2025, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Act agencies and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission must submit to OMB, and make public on the agency’s website, an Action Plan on Race and Ethnicity Data describing how the agency intends to bring new and existing information collections and publications into compliance with the revised standards through OMB’s OIRA’s PRA clearance process.

OMB committed to establishing and convening, through the U.S. Chief Statistician, an Interagency Committee on Race and Ethnicity Statistical Standards to undertake reviews of the standards every 10 years and to maintain and carry out a governmentwide research agenda to address topics identified by the Working Group and OMB along with any additional topics to examine before the next review of SPD 15. Information about the review and revision process, updates on ongoing implementation efforts,

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⁴⁸ Such an exemption from OMB’s OIRA could be granted in circumstances where the potential benefit of the detailed data would not justify the additional burden to the agency and the public or the additional risk to privacy or confidentiality.

bridging guidance and programs, and additional resources can be found at https://spd15revision.gov.

EXECUTIVE POLICY MEMORANDA

Executive policy memoranda are issued by the Executive Office of the President (EOP) to provide instructions and implementation guidance to federal agencies. Although not statute or regulation, these memoranda nonetheless carry considerable weight by directing agencies in how to carry out their missions in areas that intersect with Administration priorities and legislative requirements. Two EOP offices in particular have issued key memoranda relevant to federal statistical and information policy: OSTP and OMB (which houses the OIRA and, within, the Office of the Chief Statistician of the U.S.).

Presidential Memorandum on Scientific Integrity

The Executive Office of the President issued a memorandum on scientific integrity on March 9, 2009, stating:

Presidential Memorandum on Restoring Trust in Government Through Scientific Integrity and Evidence-Based Policymaking

This 2021 memorandum reaffirms and builds on the Presidential Memorandum of 2009 (Scientific Integrity), and the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy’s Memorandum of December 17, 2010 (Scientific Integrity). It contains several key provisions; a few of them are highlighted here.

Section 1: Directs the OSTP Director to “ensure that executive departments and agencies (agencies) establish and enforce scientific-integrity policies that ban improper political interference in the conduct of scientific

research and in the collection of scientific or technological data, and that prevent the suppression or distortion of scientific or technological findings, data, information, conclusions, or technical results.”⁴⁹

Section 3: Directs heads of agencies to ensure that all agency activities associated with scientific and technological processes are conducted in accordance with the Presidential Memorandum of March 9, 2009, and the OSTP Director’s Memorandum of December 17, 2010.

Section 5: Reaffirms the data access provisions of the Evidence Act. It also requires the statutory positions required to be designated by agencies by the Evidence Act, which include the Evaluation Officer, the Chief Data Officer (CDO), the Statistical Official, incorporate scientific-integrity principles consistent with this memorandum into agencies’ data governance and evaluation approaches.

Section 6: Directs the head of each agency engaged in scientific work to designate a senior agency employee for the role of chief science officer, science advisor, or chief scientist (“Chief Science Officer”) and a scientific-integrity official

Section 7: Directs heads of agencies to review their current and future needs for independent scientific and technological advice from federal advisory committees, commissions, and boards. The review should consider relevant and highly qualified external experts, with proper safeguards against conflicts of interest. These reviews should also consider demographic and professional diversity.

OSTP Memorandum on Scientific Integrity

The Presidential Memorandum of 2009 directed OSTP to develop a strategy to ensure scientific integrity in government decision making. In response, the OSTP Director issued a memorandum on December 17, 2010, that called for executive departments and agencies to develop policies to “ensure a culture of scientific integrity,” “strengthen the actual and perceived credibility of Government research,” “facilitate the free flow of scientific and technological information, consistent with privacy and classification standards,” and “establish principles for conveying scientific and technological information to the public” (Office of Science and Technology Policy, 2010, pp. 1–2). The memorandum included guidance on the selection of candidates for scientific positions, independent peer review, whistleblower protections, promoting access to scientific and technological information in online open formats, and agency communications. It also provided guidance on public communications, use of federal advisory

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⁴⁹ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/27/memorandum-on-restoring-trust-in-government-through-scientific-integrity-and-evidence-based-policymaking/

committees, professional development of government scientists and engineers, and implementation.

OSTP Memorandum on Increasing Access to the Results of Scientific Research

On February 22, 2013, the OSTP Director issued a memorandum for heads of executive departments and agencies on Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research. Citing the importance of scientific research for driving improvements in “areas such as health, energy, the environment, agriculture, and national security” (Office of Science and Technology Policy, 2013, p. 1), the memorandum outlined the administration’s commitment to

The memorandum directed federal agencies with more than $100 million in annual research and development expenditures to develop a plan “to support increased public access to the results of research funded by the Federal Government. This includes any results published in peer reviewed scholarly publications that are based on research that directly arises from Federal funds…” (Office of Science and Technology Policy, 2013, p. 2). The memorandum further directed agencies to develop plans for ensuring the archiving of and access to data underlying federally funded research and the associated documentation or metadata. It listed various topics to be covered in each agency’s plan and directed that the plan be posted on the agency’s website and provide for protection of the confidentiality of individual respondents’ information.

OSTP Memorandum Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research

A limitation of the 2013 OSTP Memorandum is the optional 12-month embargo from public access of any publication resulting from federally funded research, which had the effect of limiting “immediate access of federally funded research results to only those able to pay for it or who have privileged access through libraries or other institutions” (Nelson, 2022, p. 2).

(Office of Management and Budget, 2005, p. 33). The Bulletin also applies stricter minimum requirements for the peer review of highly influential scientific assessments, which are a subset of influential scientific information. Even for these highly influential scientific assessments, the Bulletin leaves significant discretion to the agency formulating the peer review plan.

Memorandum M-13-13: Open Data Policy-Managing Information as an Asset

Pursuant to Executive Order of May 9, 2013, Making Open and Machine Readable the New Default for Government Information, memorandum M-13-13 (Office of Management and Budget, 2013b) established a framework to promote interoperability and open access to federal data throughout the information lifecycle, with the aim of increasing efficiency and utility. This includes promoting the adoption of machine-readable and open formats, data standards, and common core and extensible metadata for all new information creation and collection efforts. It requires federal data inventories. It also includes reviews of data privacy and confidentiality processes to ensure appropriate levels of security are in place. The statutory impact of M-13-13 can be seen in Title II of the Evidence Act (OPEN Government Act).

Memorandum M-14-06: Guidance for Providing and Using Administrative Data for Statistical Purposes

Memorandum M-14-06 was issued to recognize the informational value and potential efficiencies to be achieved by using already collected federal administrative data for federal statistics (Office of Management and Budget, 2014a). First, it “calls for departmental and agency leadership to: (i) foster greater collaboration between program and statistical offices; (ii) develop strong data stewardship policies and practices around the statistical use of administrative data; (iii) require the documentation of quality control measures and key attributes of important administrative datasets; and (iv) require the designation of responsibilities and practices through the use of agreements amongst these offices.” Second, it “encourages Federal departments and agencies to promote the use of administrative data for statistical purposes [… while] continu[ing] to fully protect the privacy and confidentiality afforded to the individuals, businesses, and institutions providing the data.” Third, it “provides some ‘best practice’ tools, including detailed guidance on the interaction of the Privacy Act requirements and the use of administrative data for statistical purposes, as well as a model interagency agreement for…sharing data for statistical purposes.”

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⁵⁰ https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/omb/memoranda/2015/m-15-14.pdf

also describes available tools for collaboration, such as use of the 1933 Economy Act, which authorized departments and agencies to buy goods and services from each other, and the new Category Management model for federal contracting. This model could, for example, facilitate obtaining a single license for governmentwide use of statistical software in accordance with the 2014 Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA; see below).

Memorandum M-19-15: Improving Implementation of the Information Quality Act

This memorandum (Office of Management and Budget, 2019a) interprets and clarifies federal agency responsibilities with regard to the Information Quality Act (Information Quality Act, 2000) as an update to the best practices in information collection, management, and use provided through prior guidance (Office of Management and Budget, 2002, 2005). Citing (NASEM, 2017a; Office of Management and Budget, 2014a) among others, this memorandum is an example itself of how statistical programs must self-assess and continuously innovate to adopt best practices. Examples of updates to the 2002 guidance include: (a) identifying influential information; (b) complying with OMB peer review when using third-party scientific information; (c) sharing responsibility among federal agencies when sharing data with the public, including required documentation to permit public determination for fitness for use; (d) considering down-stream potential uses of existing data for statistical purposes, including the quality of administrative data with potential for use in statistical products; (e) sharing computer code used in specialized analysis with the public; and (f) increasing wider access to influential data, particularly tiered data access. More information on how this guidance is applied and interacts with other related policies promulgated by OMB and OSTP can be found in Improving Implementation of the Information Quality Act: Frequently Asked Questions (Office of Management and Budget, 2023f).

Memorandum M-19-18: Federal Data Strategy—A Framework for Consistency

This memorandum (Office of Management and Budget, 2019c) describes 10 principles and 40 practices for federal agencies to use in implementing data innovations to improve value and protect privacy. The principles include ethical governance (principles 1–3), conscious design (4–7), and learning culture (8–10). The practices include building a culture that values data and promotes public use (1–10); governing and protecting data (11–26); and promoting efficient and appropriate data use (27–40). These

principles leverage concepts articulated in other frameworks, including the Fair Information Practice Principles (FIPPs),⁵¹ CIPSEA (E-Government Act of 2002, 2002), and Statistical Policy Directive No. 1 (Office of Management and Budget, 2014b). Agencies are directed to implement the strategy in their annual action plans. M-19-18 influenced the development of agency learning agendas required through the Evidence Act, further refined in subsequent memoranda (see below).

Memorandum M-19-23: Learning Agendas, Personnel, and Planning Guidance

This memorandum provides initial guidance to implement Phase 1 requirements from the Evidence Act (Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018, 2019). Phase 1 requires agencies to develop learning agendas, designate and develop roles and responsibilities for new personnel, and undertake planning activities.

First, agencies were required to start the process of developing and implementing a multiyear learning agenda that coincides with the 4-year time frame defined for agency strategic plans and to submit them with their budget requests to OMB.

Second, the Evidence Act created three new roles related to data and evidence. Heads of agencies were required to appoint a CDO, an Evaluation Officer, and a Statistical Official. Memorandum M-19-23 also required agencies to establish an agency Data Governance Body, to be chaired by the CDO, with participation from relevant senior-level staff in agency business units, data functions, and financial management. The memorandum also required the designated key officials to participate with their peers on their respective interagency councils: CDO Council, Evaluation Officer Council, and the ICSP.⁵²

Third, agencies were required to begin the process of developing their first Annual Evaluation Plan, including the key questions for each planned “significant” evaluation study, as well as the key information collections or acquisitions the agencies plan to begin. Agencies were also required to begin to plan how they will assess the coverage, quality, methods, effectiveness, and independence of their statistics, evaluation, research, and analysis efforts.

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⁵¹ Privacy Act of 1974, 5 USC § 552a, as amended. The FIPPs are a set of eight principles that are rooted in the tenets of the Privacy Act of 1974.

⁵² As described elsewhere in this report, the ICSP has existed since the late 1980s, but it was expanded by the Evidence Act to include the Statistical Officials, which added 13 new members to the Council (11 of the heads of the recognized statistical agencies and units serve as Statistical Officials for their departments and remain on the ICSP). The CDO Council was newly created by the law. The Evaluation Officer Council was established by OMB.

functions who support the development and use of evaluation, using technical expertise and knowledge of evaluation methodology and these standards for evaluation and related analytic activities within federal agencies.

Memorandum M-23-04: Establishment of Standard Application Process Requirements on Recognized Statistical Agencies and Units

The Evidence Act and CIPSEA (Confidential Information and Statistical Efficiency Act of 2018, 2019; Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018, 2019) require federal recognized statistical agencies and units to produce and disseminate relevant, timely, credible, and objective statistical activities in a manner that protects the trust of data subjects by ensuring confidentiality and the exclusively statistical use of their responses. Memorandum M-23-04 describes the Standard Application Process adopted by recognized statistical agencies and units through “which agencies, the Congressional Budget Office, state, local, tribal, and territorial governments, researchers, and other individuals may apply to access confidential data assets accessed or acquired under CIPSEA by a statistical agency or unit for purposes of developing evidence” (Office of Management and Budget, 2022a, p. 1). Although processes have existed for federal statistical agencies and units to allow individuals to access confidential data for exclusively statistical purposes on approved projects, these processes varied across federal statistical agencies, and approvals did not transfer to other federal statistical agencies.⁵³

Memorandum M-24-10: Advancing Governance, Innovation, and Risk Management for Agency Use of Artificial Intelligence

Among the requirements established by Executive Order 14110, Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence (Executive Office of the President, 2023),⁵⁴ is the establishment of a chief artificial intelligence officer (CAIO) in each federal agency. Among other functions, M-24-10 describes the roles, responsibilities, seniority, position, and reporting structures for agency CAIOs. The memo “requires each agency identified in the Chief Financial Officers Act (CFO Act) to develop an enterprise strategy for how they will advance the responsible use of AI.” In addition to existing requirements, the memo “[…] establishes new requirements and recommendations that, both independently

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⁵³ See also https://ncses.nsf.gov/initiatives/standard-application-process/annual-reports.

⁵⁴ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2023/10/30/executive-order-on-the-safe-secure-and-trustworthy-development-and-use-of-artificial-intelligence/ (Executive Office of the President, 2023).

and collectively, address the specific risks from relying on AI to inform or carry out agency decisions and actions” (Office of Management and Budget, 2024f, p. 1). To achieve these requirements, CAIOs must work closely with leadership engaged in statistics, information technology, data security, privacy, and civil liberties (Office of Management and Budget, 2024f, p. 1).

Specifically, CAIOs must “[…] identify and remov[e …] barriers to the responsible use of AI in the agency, including through the advancement of AI-enabling enterprise infrastructure, data access and governance” including “ensure[ing] that custom-developed AI code and the data used to develop and test AI are appropriately inventoried, shared, and released in agency code and data repositories” (Office of Management and Budget, 2024f, p. 7). Because federal statistical agencies provide key resources to the training of AI tools, and have missions closely engaged in ensuring information quality and security, Statistical Officials will need to work closely with CAIOs in implementing this policy.

STATISTICAL AND SCIENCE POLICY GUIDANCE

Best practices in federal measurement and statistical production are valuable. They support a common culture and lexicon, and the exchange of experiences in a growing and diverse federal data ecosystem. In some cases, best practices are issued as guidance (rather than a law or regulation) because selecting a single approach is not warranted, or the best approach is not yet agreed upon. This is especially the case for emerging measurement domains where best practices take time to develop and mature. As part of its convening responsibility, the Office of the Chief Statistician of the U.S. (formally known as the Statistical and Science Policy Office within the OIRA in OMB) forms interagency working groups and/or partners with other advisory groups to gather and share the emerging methods and encourage further testing and refinement.

Guidance for Surveys and Other Agency Information Collection Activities

In January 2006, the OMB Statistical and Science Policy Office released “Guidance on Agency Survey and Statistical Information Collections—Questions and Answers When Designing Surveys for Information Collections.”⁵⁵ Rather than a “one size fits all” set of instructions, the

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⁵⁵ See https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/legacy_drupal_files/omb/assets/OMB/inforeg/pmc_survey_guidance_2006.pdf. This was updated in October 2016 (Office of Management and Budget, 2016d) to incorporate reference to the standards and guidelines for cognitive interviewing (Office of Management and Budget, 2016c).

guidance is a set of 81 questions and answers that attempts to demystify the OMB clearance process (required by the PRA) for surveys and other statistical information collections. Its purpose is to explain OMB’s review process, assist agencies in strengthening their supporting statements for information collection requests, and provide advice for improving information collection designs.

The Guidance covers such topics as its purpose; submission of information collection requests (ICRs, often called clearance packages) to OMB; scope of the information collection (e.g., calculation of burden hours on respondents); choice of methods; sampling; modes of data collection; questionnaire design and development; statistical standards; informing respondents about their participation and the confidentiality of their data; response rates and incentives; analysis and reporting; and studies using stated preference methods (which ask respondents about the use or nonuse value of a good in order to obtain willingness-to-pay estimates relevant to benefit or cost estimation). The Guidance includes a glossary of terms and ICR supporting statement instructions.

OMB also issued several memoranda to clarify particular interpretations and applications of the PRA to agency activities.⁵⁶ Topics covered include an overview of PRA requirements, PRA implications of social media and web-based interactive technologies, the use of generic clearances, options for streamlining the PRA process for scientific research, a fast-track process for qualitative customer service delivery feedback, and answers to PRA questions related to challenges and prizes.

Supplemental and Official Poverty Measures

With input from the observations of an Interagency Technical Working Group on Developing a Supplemental Poverty Measure (Census Bureau, 2010), the Census Bureau released a new Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) in fall of 2011 (referencing poverty in calendar 2010), using thresholds developed by BLS from the Consumer Expenditure Survey (CE). The thresholds, which included expenditures on food, clothing, and shelter (including utilities), plus “a little more,” not only varied by family size and composition according to an equivalence scale and treated cohabiting partners as families, but also reflected geographic variation in the cost of housing. The resource measure was defined as money and near-money disposable income (i.e., including non-cash benefits, such as school lunches, and tax credits received, while subtracting taxes paid, dependent care and other work expenses, child support paid, and out-of-pocket medical expenditures). These features of the SPM were derived in large part from the 1995

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⁵⁶ https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/information-regulatory-affairs/federal-collection-information

CNSTAT report (NRC, 1995). The SPM, which is designed to be a useful tool for policy evaluation, is issued annually, as is the official measure.

In 2019, OMB established an Interagency Technical Working Group on Consumer Inflation Measures, which was to evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, and best practices for the application of the primary consumer inflation measures produced by federal statistical agencies, and to develop a recommendation on the consumer inflation measure most appropriate for conducting annual adjustments to the Official Poverty Measure. The group issued its report in May 2021. Based on its findings that low-income groups have different budget shares from the overall urban population and tend to experience higher inflation, it recommended that BLS pursue development of a low-income consumer price index and use that new index to adjust the official poverty thresholds (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021b). The 2022 CNSTAT report, Modernizing the Consumer Price Index for the 21st Century, similarly recommended that BLS develop separate price indexes for different income groups of the population (NASEM, 2022b). BLS is pursuing research in this area.

Also in 2019, OMB established an Interagency Technical Working Group on Evaluating Alternative Measures of Poverty. This group issued its final report in January 2021, which addressed public comments on questions posed in its interim report (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021a). The working group recommended an “extended” income poverty measure, which would define resources similarly to the SPM and use the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic supplement data corrected for underreporting of income with administrative records. It also recommended a consumption poverty measure derived from the CE Interview Survey, which would include the value of service flows for owner-occupied housing and vehicles. It recommended that both income and consumption measures be published with and without a value for health insurance in the thresholds. BLS and the Census Bureau are conducting research related to these recommendations.

Following the NRC (1995) recommendation to evaluate the supplemental poverty measure every 10 years and revise as needed, OMB established an Interagency Technical Working Group on the SPM in 2016 to provide advice on challenges and opportunities brought before it by the Census Bureau and BLS concerning data sources, estimation, survey production, and processing activities for development, implementation, publication, and improvement of the SPM.⁵⁷ This working group decided to establish a process to review and vote on changes to the SPM to be implemented in 2021. In the newer methodology, telephone services were separated from

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⁵⁷ https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/supplemental-poverty-measure/technical-documentation/spm_techdoc.pdf

other utilities. and the internet and value of select in-kind transfers were added to the basic threshold bundle of food, clothing, shelter, and utilities. Additionally, technical adjustments were made to estimating thresholds, and state values for Women, Infants, and Children program benefits were used instead of a national value in estimating resources (Census Bureau, 2021).⁵⁸

In 2020, the Census Bureau requested a study from CNSTAT to evaluate the SPM and recommend improvements to the measure. The report of the study panel, An Updated Measure of Poverty: (Re)Drawing the Line, was issued in 2023. Its recommendations, which call for including the value of health insurance and other changes to the derivation of the thresholds and corresponding changes to the resource definition (e.g., adding health insurance benefits to income), are under review at the Census Bureau (NASEM, 2023e).

Framework for Federal Scientific Integrity Policy and Practice

This guidance document builds on the review published in January 2022 by the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) entitled Protecting the Integrity of Government Science, which identified good agency practices on scientific integrity and areas in need of consistency across agencies. The guidance document “[…] provides a federal definition of scientific integrity, a roadmap of activities and outcomes to achieve an ideal state of scientific integrity, a Model Scientific Integrity Policy, as well as critical policy features and metrics that OSTP will use to iteratively assess agency progress” (National Science and Technology Council, 2023, p. 3).

BEST PRACTICES FOR COLLECTING SEXUAL ORIENTATION AND GENDER IDENTITY DATA ON FEDERAL SURVEYS

Federal surveys play a vital role in generating the data that the public, businesses, and government agencies need to make informed decisions. Measuring the sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) of the population in federal surveys improves understanding of the LGBTQI+ population and supports evidence-based policymaking. Changes in terminology, among other social changes, could impact the ways SOGI data should be collected to meet the purposes of various surveys, so measurement practices for SOGI data need to be flexible and adapt over time to maintain usefulness. In January 2023, the Office of the Chief Statistician of the U.S. published “Recommendations on the Best Practices for the Collection of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Data on Federal Statistical

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⁵⁸ See also https://www.bls.gov/pir/spmhome.htm.

Surveys,” fulfilling the requirement of Section 11(e) of Executive Order 14075, “Advancing Equality for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex Individuals.” This report includes recommendations that were built on a long history of robust federal effort to develop and refine SOGI measurement best practices (Office of Management and Budget, 2024a, pp. 95–96) and were informed, in part, by the work of a CNSTAT panel on SOGI measurement (NASEM, 2022c).

Natural Capital Accounting and Environmental Economic Statistics

The National Strategy for Statistics for Environmental-Economic Decisions (National Strategy) was issued in January 2023 under the joint leadership of OMB, OSTP, and the Department of Commerce. This 15-year strategy is expected to result in a new, reliable, regularly updated statistical series of data that will connect the environment and the economy to better inform decisions about the environment. The Office of the Chief Statistician of the U.S. plays a leading role in coordinating work across the Executive Branch to develop comparable, consistent statistical series and relevant statistical classification systems (Office of Management and Budget, 2024a, p. 95).

As a first step, the Office of the Chief Statistician of the U.S. launched an Environmental-Economic Accounting interagency technical working group focused on “building economic classifications for what the National Strategy names as Phase I natural capital accounts, plus “Forests” from Phase II.”⁵⁹ It is expected that these new account classifications will be consistent with international statistical standards, particularly those of the United Nations Standard National Accounts and System of Environmental-Economic Accounting. Recommendations for new account classifications will be delivered to the Chief Statistician of the U.S. by the end of 2025.

In addition, the Office of the Chief Statistician of the U.S. and BEA are “leading technical cooperation for the U.S. under a trilateral Agreement among the U.S., Australia, and Canada to work on natural capital accounting topics of common interest to their respective national economic accounts.” This is consistent with international interest in more explicitly measuring humans’ relationships with the environment (Office of Management and Budget, 2024a, p. 95).

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⁵⁹ OSTP, OMB, and Department of Commerce. 2023. National Strategy to Develop Statistics for Environmental Economic Decisions (Jan. 2023), available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Natural-Capital-Accounting-Strategy-final.pdf (Office of Management and Budget, 2023c).

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⁶⁰ https://www.federalregister.gov/d/02-13892

⁶¹ For an example, see: https://www.census.gov/about/policies/quality/guidelines.html.

⁶² See page 4 in http://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/about/about-the-bureau/policies_and_notices/scientificintegrity/Scientific_Integrity_Statement_of_the_Principal_Statistical_Agencies.pdf.