PRESS RELEASE

Contact: Anna Oman, 202/234-8494, aoman@ombwatch.org

Congress should not use reauthorization of the Paperwork Reduction Act as an occasion to keep the public in the dark and threaten existing regulations that protect health and safety, and the environment, OMB Watch will tell Congress today.

Instead, it should be an occasion to promote information technologies that reduce costs to government, make compliance easier for industry, and improve transparency.

"Industry groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have been working in coalitions led by the lobbying firm Valis Associates," OMB Watch's regulatory policy director Robert Shull will testify today before the Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs of the House Government Reform Committee. "The corporate lobbying coalition has been working in backroom meetings with the White House to plot ways to use PRA reauthorization as a vehicle to promote ideas that would benefit corporate special interests at the expense of the public interest."

According to Shull's prepared statement, industry groups have been considering proposals such as adding "mandatory expiration dates for regulations, even proven protections such as the ban on lead in gasoline."

"These proposals would threaten existing protections and gut the government's capacity to develop new protections to meet the public's needs," Shull's testimony will argue. "They must be excluded from reauthorization."

Shull will also testify that Congress should use the reauthorization of the Paperwork Reduction Act to refocus administration priorities on information resources management. Such issues as information security and careful investment in information technology are "of vital importance in a post-9/11 world," Shull will explain. Shull will explain information resource management should be a higher priority than reducing paperwork, in light of a GAO report finding that the White House is not adequately managing the $60 billion that the federal government invests every year in information technology.

"The PRA was a pre-Internet law. Even its name--the Paperwork Reduction Act--signifies its interest in paper forms," which are decreasing in importance with every advance in information technology, Shull's testimony will aver. "Now is a perfect opportunity to promote the use of information technology to improve transparency in OMB and to reduce reporting burden without reducing information the public needs."

The hearing on "The Paperwork Reduction Act at 25: Opportunities to Strengthen and Improve the Law" will be held March 8, 2006, at 2:00 p.m. in room 2154 of the Rayburn Building.

OMB Watch is a nonpartisan, nonprofit research and advocacy center that promotes an open, accountable government responsive to the public's needs. More information on OMB Watch and its regulatory policy program are available online at www.ombwatch.org/regs. Shull's testimony is available at www.ombwatch.org/regs/2006/pratestimony-2006-03-08.pdf.

###