Supporters of a bill headed for the White House to eliminate what they called unnecessary and outdated reports by federal agencies said the measure should allow many federal employees to put their time to better use—and they already are targeting more.
The Government Reports Elimination Act (HR-4194), which abolishes or modifies about 50 reports currently required to be generated by more than a dozen federal agencies, was one of the few policy changes enacted this year affecting the federal workplace that had broad bipartisan support.
“While enacting the bipartisan Government Reports Elimination Act may not go as far as we would like, it nevertheless represents precisely the type of pragmatic, good government legislating that a divided Congress should be doing more of,” said one sponsor, Rep. Gerald Connolly, D-Va. “The bottom line is that once signed into law, our bipartisan bill will make meaningful progress in freeing up precious agency resources to ensure that taxpayer funds are devoted to truly mission-critical operations.”
“Hundreds of federal employees spend countless hours producing mountains of these reports each year, and in many cases no one ever reads or even refers to those reports. Surely these agency resources could be targeted to smarter, more productive efforts that will actually provide more direct benefit to customers and taxpayers,” said another, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va.
On the heels of the vote, Warner and Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., another sponsor, introduced a fresh bill to eliminate 67 more. That proposal likely won’t be considered until the new Congress next year, however.
It’s estimated that agencies produce more than 4,000 annual reports on orders from Congress; the Obama administration in a budget proposal once recommended eliminating almost 300 of them.
