Eliminate half of all Congressional Reports

1. Eliminate at least half of all congressionally mandated reports.

Congress should set a goal of eliminating at least half of all
congressionally mandated reports. Agency heads should identify candidate
reports that can be combined with others or eliminated altogether and
supply adequate justification to Congress for that action.

In the past, an essential factor in the elimination of reports has been
the provision of convincing reasons. In 1988, the General Accounting
Office concluded that inadequate justification of reports proposed for
elimination significantly contributed to the failure of a 1986
congressional effort to reduce congressionally mandated reporting
requirements. In that effort, Congress eliminated 71 percent of the
reports whose elimination agencies had adequately justified. Elimination
dropped to 10 percent when agencies did not provide adequate
justification. As a result, only 23 reports were eliminated, out of a
total of 240 recommended.(12)

The Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, Subcommittee on Oversight
of Government Management, has recently revisited this issue and is
drafting legislation with bipartisan support to eliminate or modify
unnecessary or outdated reporting requirements.