Elimination of Unnecessary Agency Reports

Overview

Federal agencies must comply with thousands of statutorily-mandated reporting obligations each year. Too often, these requirements persist over time despite changes to the circumstances they were intended to address. Time, money, and energy is lost complying with outdated, redundant, and unnecessary requirements that could be better spent accomplishing high-value objectives. With enactment of the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) Modernization Act of 2010, Congress initiated an annual requirement that the Administration propose for elimination or modification congressionally-required plans and reports Federal agencies identify as outdated or duplicative.

List for the 2021 Budget Year

Although hundreds of reporting requirements have been proposed for elimination each year, Congress has rarely taken action, resulting in a list of reports proposed for elimination by the Executive Branch that is largely the same from one budget year to the next. Taking an opportunity to draw the attention of the Congress to a particular set of reports as the Administration works with them in a new targeted approach, the listing released as part of the 2021 Budget is comprised of a limited subset of plans and reports previously proposed for elimination or modification to the Congress.

With this year’s listing, the Administration has issued a streamlined list that incorporates report-reductions previously proposed by the Executive Branch and that were endorsed earlier this year by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs in Senate Bill S.2769 (short title: “Congressional Reporting Burden Reduction Act”), along with a select few of other particularly outdated or unnecessary reporting requirements. Download the 2021 Budget list here.