Paperwork Reduction Act

Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980

Long title	An Act to reduce paperwork and enhance the economy and efficiency of the Government and the private sector by improving Federal information policymaking, and for other purposes.
Enacted by	the 96th United States Congress
Effective	December 11, 1980
Citations
Public law	96–511
Statutes at Large	94 Stat. 2812
Codification
Titles amended	44 U.S.C.: Public Printing and Documents
U.S.C. sections amended	44 U.S.C. ch. 1 § 101 44 U.S.C. ch. 35, subch. I § 3501 et seq.
Legislative history
Introduced in the House as www.congress.gov/bill/96th-congress/house-bill/6410 by Jack Brooks (D–TX) and Frank Horton (R–NY)on February 5, 1980 Committee consideration by Committee on Government Operations Passed the House on March 24, 1980 (328-13) Passed the Senate on November 19, 1980 (Unanimous) with amendment House agreed to Senate amendment on December 1, 1980 (Voice vote) Signed into law by President Jimmy Carter on December 11, 1980
Major amendments
Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995
United States Supreme Court cases

The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980 (Pub. L. No. 96-511, 94 Stat. 2812, codified at 44 U.S.C. §§ 3501–3521) is a United States federal law enacted in 1980 designed to reduce the total amount of paperwork burden the federal government imposes on private businesses and citizens. The Act imposes procedural requirements on agencies that wish to collect information from the public. It also established the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and authorized this new agency to oversee federal agencies' collection of information from the public and to establish information policies. A substantial amendment, the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, confirmed that OIRA's authority extended over not only agency orders to provide information to the government, but also agency orders to provide information to the public.

The predecessor statute to the Paperwork Reduction Act was the Federal Reports Act of 1942. That statute required agencies to obtain approval of the Bureau of the Budget (a direct predecessor of OMB) before imposing information collection burdens on the public. However, large departments such as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) were exempted from the requirement, and the statute neglected to include sanctions for agencies' noncompliance. Moreover, OMB chronically understaffed its responsibilities: in 1947, there were 47 personnel reviewing agency requests for the entire government, but by 1973 the number of reviewers had dwindled to 25, and these few reviewers had a number of additional responsibilities. The result of the lack of resources was both weak oversight (only between 1 and 5 percent of applications were rejected) and longer delays. Some agencies refused to submit requests for approval; others sought and received alternative processes, fragmenting the regulatory system and increasing the chance of duplicative and wasteful demands for information.

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