OIRA Issues New Standards for Disseminating Statistical Information

Citing various sources of authority, including the Information Quality Act, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) at the Office of Management and Budget published a new draft Statistical Policy Directive on Aug. 1, focusing on disclosure standards. OIRA uses Statistical Policy Directives to establish government-wide standards for statistical activities conducted by agencies. Apparently, OIRA has been working on a new statistical policy directive that builds on its Statistical Policy Directive No. 3 from 1985 on the Compilation, Release, and Evaluation of Principal Federal Economic Indicators. However, a comparison reveals several potentially significant differences between the earlier directive and OIRA's new proposal. A portion of OIRA's new directive addresses dissemination and pre-release access to statistical information. While the 1985 directive also addressed this issue, it makes clear that the primary intent of pre-release access is to inform the president and other policy officials about release of new economic indicator results. In contrast, OIRA's new draft statistical directive makes no mention of policy makers being the primary audience for pre-release access and leaves the potential recipients of such access unaddressed. OMB Watch is concerned that an unintended consequence under OIRA's more open-ended directive, could be the granting of unfair early access to statistical information to industry associations and other special interest groups in order to promote "accuracy of any initial commentary." Another noticeable difference between the directives is the elimination of the restriction that embargoed pre-release access can only precede release by 30 minutes or less. The OIRA draft directive contains no specific time restrictions at all on providing pre-release access and offers no explanation as to why the provision was removed. The 1985 directive used the very strict time restriction because it addressed critical economic indicators, which could be abused and/or cause serious market effects if leaked. Even though the new directive addresses a range of statistical information that would likely not cause such major repercussions, time restrictions are still necessary to prevent misuse of early access to such information. Finally, OMB Watch notes that the OIRA directive contains no reporting or evaluation provisions that would allow OIRA or others to monitor the impact of the directive's implementation. The 1985 directive included requirements for agencies to submit performance evaluations every three years covering both the accuracy of the statistical indicators and the success of implementing the dissemination requirements. OMB Watch strongly recommends that OIRA include such monitoring provisions in the directive should it be finalized. For instance, on pre-release access, OMB Watch would urge that agencies publicly report the official release of a statistical product, which parties received pre-release access and for what period of time. The public has until Oct. 1 to submit comments on the directive to OIRA. OMB Watch will be conducting a more detailed review of the directive and submitting comments.
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