Regulatory Commission, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, the Federal Maritime Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Mine Enforcement Safety and Health Review Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, the Postal Rate Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and any other similar agency designated by statute as a Federal independent regulatory agency or commission;

(11) the term "information collection request" means a written report form, application form, schedule, questionnaire, reporting or recordkeeping requirement, collection of information requirement, or other similar method calling for the collection of information;

(12) the term "information referral service" means the function that assists officials and persons in obtaining access to the Federal Information Locator System;

(13) the term "information resources management" means the planning, budgeting, organizing, directing, training, promoting, controlling, and management activities associated with the burden, collection, creation, use, and dissemination of information by agencies, and includes the management of information and related resources such as automatic data processing equipment (as such term is defined in section 111(a) of the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949 (40 U.S.C. 759(a));

(14) the term "information systems" means management information systems;

(15) the term "person" means an individual, partnership, association, corporation, business trust, or legal representative, an organized group of individuals, a State, territorial, or local government or branch thereof, or a political subdivision of a State, territory, or local government or a branch of a political subdivision;

(16) the term "practical utility" means the ability of an agency to use information it collects, particularly the capability to process such information in a timely and useful fashion; and

(17) the term "recordkeeping requirement" means a requirement imposed by an agency on persons to maintain specified records.

§ 3503. Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs

(a) There is established in the Office of Management and Budget an office to be known as the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

(b) There shall be at the head of the Office an Administrator who shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. The Director shall delegate to the Administrator the authority to administer all functions under this chapter, except that any such delegation shall not relieve the Director of responsibility for the administration of such functions. The Adminis

trator shall serve as principal adviser to the Director on Federal information policy and shall report directly to the Director.

§ 3504. Authority and Functions of Director

(a) The Director shall develop and implement Federal information policies, principles, standards, and guidelines and shall provide direction and oversee the review and approval of information collection requests, the reduction of the paperwork burden, Federal statistical activities, records management activities, privacy and security of records, agency sharing and dissemination of information, and acquisition and use of automatic data processing telecommunications, and other technology for managing information resources. The authority of the Director under this section shall be exercised consistent with applicable law.

(b) The general information policy functions of the Director shall include

(1) developing and implementing uniform and consistent information resources management policies and overseeing the development of information management principles, standards, and guidelines and promoting their use;

(2) initiating and reviewing proposals for changes in legislation, regulations, and agency procedures to improve information practices, and informing the President and the Congress on the progress made therein;

(3) coordinating, through the review of budget proposals and as otherwise provided in this section, agency information practices;

(4) promoting, through the use of the Federal Information Locator System, the review of budget proposals and other methods, greater sharing of information by agencies;

(5) evaluating agency information management practices to determine their adequacy and efficiency, and to determine compliance of such practices with the policies, principles, standards, and guidelines promulgated by the Director; and

(6) overseeing planning for, and conduct of research with respect to, Federal collection, processing, storage, transmission, and use of information.

(c) The information collection request clearance and other paperwork control functions of the Director shall include

(1) reviewing and approving information collection requests proposed by agencies;

(2) determining whether the collection of information by an agency is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of the agency, including whether the information will have practical utility for the agency;

(3) ensuring that all information collection requests

(A) are inventoried, display a control number and, when appropriate, an expiration date;

(B) indicate the request is in accordance with the clearance requirements of section 3507; and

(C) contain a statement to inform the person receiving the request why the information is being collected, how it

is to be used, and whether responses to the request are voluntary, required to obtain a benefit, or mandatory;

(4) designating as appropriate, in accordance with section 3509, a collection agency to obtain information for two or more agencies;

(5) setting goals for reduction of the burdens of Federal information collection requests;

(6) overseeing action on the recommendations of the Commission on Federal Paperwork; and

(7) designing and operating, in accordance with section 3511, the Federal Information Locator System.

(d) The statistical policy and coordination functions of the Director shall include

(1) developing and periodically reviewing and, as necessary, revising long-range plans for the improved coordination and performance of the statistical activities and programs of the Federal Government;

(2) reviewing budget proposals of agencies to assure that the proposals are consistent with such long-range plans;

(3) coordinating, through the review of budget proposals and as otherwise provided in this chapter, the functions of the Federal Government with respect to gathering, interpreting, and disseminating statistics and statistical information;

(4) developing and implementing Government-wide policies, principles, standards, and guidelines concerning statistical collection procedures and methods, statistical data classification, statistical information presentation and dissemination, and such statistical data sources as may be required for the administration of Federal programs;

(5) evaluating statistical program performance and agency compliance with Government-wide policies, principles, standards, and guidelines;

(6) integrating the functions described in paragraphs (1) through (5) of this subsection with the other information resources management functions specified in this chapter; and

(7) appointing a chief statistician who is a trained and experienced professional statistician to carry out the functions described in paragraphs (1) through (6) of this subsection. (e) The records management functions of the Director shall include

(1) providing advice and assistance to the Archivist of the United States and the Administrator of General Services in order to promote coordination in the administration of chapters 29, 31, and 33 of this title with the information policies, principles, standards, and guidelines established under this chapter;

(2) reviewing compliance by agencies with the requirements of chapters 29, 31, and 33 of this title and with regulations promulgated by the Archivist of the United States and the Administrator of General Services thereunder; and

(3) coordinating records management policies and programs with related information programs such as information collec

tion, statistics, automatic data processing and telecommunications, and similar activities.

(f) The privacy functions of the Director shall include

(1) developing and implementing policies, principles, standards, and guidelines on information disclosure and confidentiality, and on safeguarding the security of information collected or maintained by or on behalf of agencies;

(2) providing agencies with advice and guidance about information security, restriction, exchange, and disclosure; and

(3) monitoring compliance with section 552a of title 5, United States Code, and related information management laws. (g) The Federal automatic data processing (including telecommunications) functions of the Director shall include

(1) developing and implementing policies, principles, standards, and guidelines for automatic data processing (including telecommunications) functions and activities of the Federal Government, and overseeing the establishment of standards under section 111(d) of the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949;

(2) monitoring the effectiveness of, and compliance with, directives issued pursuant to sections 110 and 111 of such Act of 1949 and reviewing proposed determinations under section 111(e) of such Act;

(3) providing advice and guidance on the acquisition and use of automatic data processing (including telecommunications) equipment, and coordinating, through the review of budget proposals and other methods, agency proposals for acquisition and use of such equipment;

(4) promoting the use of automatic data processing (including telecommunications) equipment by the Federal Government to improve the effectiveness of the use and dissemination of data in the operation of Federal programs; and

(5) initiating and reviewing proposals for changes in legislation, regulations, and agency procedures to improve automatic data processing (including telecommunications) practices, and informing the President and the Congress of the progress made therein.

(h)(1) As soon as practicable, but no later than publication of a notice of proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register, each agency shall forward to the Director a copy of any proposed rule which contains a collection of information requirement and upon request, information necessary to make the determination required pursuant to this section.

(2) Within sixty days after the notice of proposed rulemaking is published in the Federal Register, the Director may file public comments pursuant to the standards set forth in section 3508 on the collection of information requirement contained in the proposed rule.

(3) When a final rule is published in the Federal Register, the agency shall explain how any collection of information requirement contained in the final rule responds to the comments, if any, filed by the Director or the public, or explain why it rejected those comments.

(4) The Director has no authority to disapprove any collection of information requirement specifically contained in an agency rule, if he has received notice and failed to comment on the rule within sixty days of the notice of proposed rulemaking.

(5) Nothing in this section prevents the Director, in his discretion

(A) from disapproving any information collection request which was not specifically required by an agency rule;

(B) from disapproving any collection of information requirement contained in an agency rule, if the agency failed to comply with the requirements of paragraph (1) of this subsection; or

(C) from disapproving any collection of information requirement contained in a final agency rule, if the Director finds within sixty days of the publication of the final rule that the agency's response to his comments filed pursuant to paragraph (2) of this subsection was unreasonable;

(D) from disapproving any collection of information requirement where the Director determines that the agency has substantially modified in the final rule the collection of information requirement contained in the proposed rule where the agency has not given the Director the information required in paragraph (1), with respect to the modified collection of information requirement, at least sixty days before the issuance of the final rule.

(6) The Director shall make publicly available any decision to disapprove a collection of information requirement contained in an agency rule, together with the reasons for such decision.

(7) The authority of the Director under this subsection is subject to the provisions of section 3507(c).

(8) This subsection shall apply only when an agency publishes a notice of proposed rulemaking and requests public comments.

(9) There shall be no judicial review of any kind of the Director's decision to approve or not to act upon a collection of information requirement contained in an agency rule.

§ 3505. Assignment of tasks and deadlines

In carrying out the functions under this chapter, the Director shall

(1) upon enactment of this Act

(A) set a goal to reduce the then existing burden of Federal collections of information by 15 per centum by October 1, 1982; and

(B) for the year following, set a goal to reduce the burden which existed upon enactment by an additional 10 per centum;

(2) within one year after the effective date of this Act

(A) establish standards and requirements for agency audits of all major information systems and assign responsibility for conducting Government-wide or multiagency audits, except the Director shall not assign such responsibility for the audit of major information systems used for the conduct of criminal investigations or intelligence ac