Enterprise Board to Oversee Community Empowerment

3. Establish a Cabinet-level Enterprise Board to oversee new initiatives
in community empowerment. (2)

In order to improve the implementation of federal domestic service
delivery, the President should establish a Cabinet-level Enterprise
Board. The Board would lead the federal government in a new effort to
improve the coordination and integration of major domestic program
service delivery initiatives. This board will be committed to solutions
based on "bottom-up" initiatives and will approve large, cross-agency
bottom-up grant consolidation proposals generated by state and local
agencies, as well as by federal agencies. The board will be responsible
for coordinating the administration's community empowerment agenda,
beginning with the nine zones and 95 enterprise communities that passed
Congress as part of the President's economic plan.[Endnote 5] The board
will empower innovative communities by reducing red tape and regulation
of federal programs.

The board should be chaired by the Vice President.  The Assistant to the
President for Domestic Policy and Assistant to the President for
Economic Policy should serve as vice-chairs. The following cabinet-
level officers should serve as members of the board:


Secretary of Commerce
Secretary of Labor
Administrator of EPA
Attorney General
Secretary of HUD
Secretary of Education
Secretary of Agriculture
Secretary of HHS
Secretary of the Interior
Director of OMB
Administrator of SBA
Secretary of Transportation
Secretary of Treasury
Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy
Chair, Council of Economic Advisors

It is recommended that the board include as regular, ex-officio members,
representatives of state and local government and the private non-profit
sector.

NPR recommends additional flexibility to give federal agency heads more
discretionary authority to improve service delivery by waiving rules and
regulations.  This new authority also will provide additional incentives
for cabinet officers to collaborate on overall improvements in service
delivery. In addition to the Cabinet-level Enterprise Board, agency
heads should collaborate by bringing management teams together outside
of Washington, closer to the point of service delivery, and by working
with their intergovernmental partners, state and local governments, to
improve the service delivery system.

Endnote

5. Public Law 103_66, Omnibus Budget Reconciliation
Act.