again that chart shows that since 1985, in fact since 1986, we will say, since the agreement, there has been virtually no change in the role of OIRA in terms of the substantive interference in agency decision-making.

And in fact, as Attachment A to my written testimony describes, I have detailed very specific problems with the implementation of that 1986 agreement, not even moving into the substantive disagreements we have with that agreement.

I also want to mention that an administrative agreement on regulatory review procedural changes, which has been talked about today, would be an extremely inappropriate way to move at this point, not only because the 1986 agreement wasn't completely adhered to and not only because the 1989 Regulatory Program wasn't published, as you so indicated, but for a number of other reasons. Congress' job is to legislate. This Government is not made up of agreements between individuals. Mr. MacRae may be one of the finest civil servants this Government has known. Our Government is not to be run by an agreement between several Members of Congress and Mr. MacRae or, for that matter, Mr. Darman. This is a Government made up of laws, and OIRA has to be held accountable according to the law.

I also wanted to mention the substance of the bill's regulatory review procedures. As Mr. MacRae said, the issue is not simply one of delays at OIRA, which by the way has continued under the Bush Administration, and which the Senate bill would insure stops.

It is also about OIRA substantive interference into agency regulatory activities. Among the many concerns we have, one stands out-OMB expertise to interfere with the substance of what agencies do. Most often it is difficult to document OIRA interference because access to the records and justification for the OMB decisionmaking is denied to the public. There are a number of other issues that are of concern to us.

But let me say that the Senate bill will do a great deal to ameliorate some of these issues. As a result, we strongly support these provisions. Nonetheless, we think that the section could be improved. I have detailed in my testimony how it could be improved. Let me turn to the paperwork clearance provisions. I see you're staring at the quality of the chart before you. Unfortunately, the charts made for this hearing were thrown out in the garbage last night when the garbage collection came. We had some thought that maybe it was an Administration or OMB official, but we will say that it is a "kinder, gentler Administration" and it didn't happen that way.

But we blew up the charts by copier this morning, and it's also on page 11 of my written testimony. The chart provides a more clear description of the problem in dealing with the paperwork clearance process.

The issue is not to cut back OMB's responsibilities here. And in fact, as this Committee has talked about this morning, the issue is that paperwork continues to be a plaguing problem for Americans throughout the country.

What is striking about the chart that is provided on page 11 and in front of you here, is we see very clearly that OIRA's use of pa

For example, the greatest paperwork burden caused by the Government comes from the Treasury Department. Forty-four percent of all public burden is caused by the Treasury Department.

Then, if you look at the right-hand side of your chart, the Treasury Department forms have actually gone through almost unscathed at OIRA. Less than 1 percent of all Treasury forms have been disapproved at OIRA.

Now you flip down to the areas that cause the least amount of burden in Government-HUD, EPA, Labor-and you look at the disapproval rates at OIRA, and they skyrocket. They are 14 times, Treasury's at least for Labor and OSHA and MSHA. And yet it's considerably less burden on the public.

The point is that despite Mr. MacRae's view that the paperwork powers of OIRA's activities have not been used in a political manner, it is very clear from the numbers that something very skewed is happening in this Government. And it appears to be targeted to health and safety areas.

Let me address how the bill could be greatly improved in this regard. I think the first and foremost issue is there needs to be much greater respect for benefits as we discuss the burdens in Government.

For example, the discussion Senator Bingaman had with Mr. MacRae about the words "need for" and "benefit." When OIRA makes a decision on a piece of paperwork, it looks at the burden that is imposed on the public. It is not statutorily required, nor is it regulatorily required that OIRA look at the benefit that that same paperwork develops.

Now let me put it in concrete terms. I think that it is a fine effort that OIRA now elicits comments from the public on burden that is developed. However, the problem comes out when a form is submitted, say, to an employer that deals with worker protection. It is the employer that is commenting on that burden. It is not the beneficiaries of that information that are commenting about benefit or burden. So, OMB receives a very skewed response. It is receiving it only from those people who comply with that burden, and so there is no real effort to assess the benefits. That process has got to change.

That is not incompatible in way, shape, or form with the need for reducing paperwork on business or small business in this country. It is a way of better targeting where the reductions should be occurring.

One way to move into that whole arena of looking at benefit and burden is to embrace the undergerding principle that the Senate bill provides; and that is, the information resources management focus. It is precisely the IRM focus that serves as the philosophical housing for looking at how we manage this important national resource, which includes how to reduce paperwork. It also includes how to better manage our information. It also includes how to better disseminate and make information publicly accessible.

I think that the IRM focus in the bill helps to clarify the intent that the framers had in the commission in the 1970's as well as when the Act was passed. And it helps us to move into the 1990's, which brings me to the dissemination section of the bill, which I

years ago, and then who knew what "PC" stood for. Today it is clear. We have moved into the age of electronic information. Our Government has to move with us. And this bill takes a first and an important step to move there with the dissemination section.

I must say, though, that I think Congress is going to have to come back and revisit this area a number of times as we learn more about information technology. But I think this is a good beginning step.

I would suggest that the dissemination section of the bill needs to have greater specificity about government wide policy, such as the House bill provides.

I also think that guidance needs to be targeted to agencies instead of OMB. I think those are drafting considerations.

My final comment deals with the authorization issue. OMB today has indicated that it wants a 4-year reauthorization. The Senate bill calls for a 2-year reauthorization.

I don't think there is any doubt that it must be 2 years, and for a number of reasons. First off, we are dealing with a number of new procedures and new activities in this bill. Congress has to revisit these and periodically look at them.

Secondly, I think it has become historically true that Congress' oversight on the Paperwork Reduction Act tends to only occur when reauthorization occurs. It seems to me that oversight is something that has been called for by everyone, whether it is business or whether it's public interest. This is one way of forcing Congress to visit the issue repeatedly and to give the adequate oversight that is necessary.

I also want to comment that OIRA was created by the Paperwork Reduction Act. Today Mr. MacRae alluded that OIRA is carrying out several other functions for OMB, and that was one of the reasons for opposing to have OIRA as a budget line item. I am unclear about what those other functions are. I am also unclear why having it as a budget item in the President's submission draws any greater scrutiny than what Congress already has within its own scope and powers. So that part baffles me.

In conclusion, let me just say that the bill, S. 1742, is a good bill. We have spent a number of months dealing with reauthorization. I respect the process that occurred at the subcommittee level. OMB Watch didn't get everything we wanted. But I also respect that the Committee did its best job to come up with a fair and reasonable bill. I think it would be very helpful at this stage to move the bill along as quickly as possible. OIRA has been acting without any authorization since last October.

This is an important and critical part of our Government. It must be reauthorized, and it must be acted upon quickly. Chairman GLENN. Thank you. Ms. Ettleson.

TESTIMONY OF SHERRY ETTLESON, STAFF ATTORNEY, PUBLIC CITIZEN, CONGRESSWATCH, ACCOMPANIED BY DAVID VLADECK, PUBLIC CITIZEN LITIGATION GROUP

Ms. ETTLESON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Members of the Committee, my name is Sherry Ettleson. I am a staff attorney for

Public Citizen's Congress Watch. Public Citizen is a nonprofit membership organization_representing 65,000 members nationwide. I am accompanied by David Vladeck, senior attorney at Public Citizen Litigation Group. He has substantial expertise in the area of OMB involvement in rulemaking and participated in the Supreme Court decision that came down today.

Mr. Chairman, I commend you for holding these hearings to address the Office of Management and Budget's enormous control over the regulatory process, and taking the necessary time to examine the damage such control has caused to the health and safety of this Nation. I also applaud Senator Bingaman and his staff for all their hard work to introduce legislation to solve some of the problems of concern.

Over the last decade, OMB has injected political ideology into the regulatory process, displacing the discretionary authority of expert Federal agencies. Through the combination of authority under the Paperwork Reduction Act and two Executive Orders, OMB exercises cradle-to-grave control over the administrative process. OMB has used its power repeatedly to cut back on health, job safety, environmental, consumer, and civil rights regulation, by weakening regulations, delaying their issuance, and, in some cases, forbidding an agency to take action. OMB has left its imprint on the lives of many Americans. Because OMB delayed EPA's issuance of a rule to phase out the use of asbestos, millions of people have been unnecessarily exposed to a known carcinogen that causes cancer and lung disease.

Infants were fed nutritionally deficient formula while OMB delayed rules requiring testing of infant formula.

Many young children suffered serious and often fatal Reye's syndrome while OMB delayed rules to require warning labels on aspirin.

If OMB's authority to interfere in the regulatory process is not restricted, we fear that OMB will continue to exercise control over the implementation of vital health and safety laws.

OMB's dominance cannot be doubted. As Jim Tozzi, a former deputy director of OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs put it, "The Government works using three things: money, people, and regulations; the agency must get all three from OMB." Under this trilogy of authority, Federal agencies are required to obtain OMB clearance on at least five different occasions: First, when the agency seeks to conduct research and collect information to determine if a problem exists and needs to be addressed; second, when an agency seeks authorization to place a matter on its regulatory agenda; third, when an agency is ready to publish a proposed regulation; fourth, when an agency is ready to publish a final regulation; and fifth, when an agency must secure OMB's approval for the reporting requirements needed to enforce the regulation.

At each stage of the process, OMB has the power to delay, weaken, or even kill an agency's proposed action. With such broad control over regulations, it is hardly surprising that OMB has managed to choke off all but a few health and safety regulations.

Reform is essential. In our view, OMB's power to displace decision-making authority Congress assigns to expert agencies must be

lawful; two, OMB's control is unwise policy; three, OMB is unaccountable; four, OMB's review is too cumbersome; five, OMB's costbenefit analysis only measures costs and not benefits; six, OMB's control is inherently undemocratic; and finally, the situation has not changed under the Bush Administration.

I would like to highlight just a few of these points for the Committee. OMB's control denies Congress its vital oversight role. Congress will simply never know when an agency has sought to develop a regulatory initiative but was blocked from doing so by OMB. The same is true for regulations that are submitted to OMB for review but never emerge. OMB takes the position, and a sharply divided United States Court of Appeals agreed, that the public should be denied any information as to when OMB begins its review. As a result, neither Congress nor the public can determine whether a proposed rule is pending at an agency or whether it is languishing at OMB.

I would also like to stress that OMB's cost-benefit analysis is a stacked deck. OMB is great at calculating the costs of regulations, but it makes no effort to fairly estimate the benefits.

For example, in reviewing the EPA asbestos phase-down proposal, OMB considered only the cancer deaths prevented by the regulation, valuing each life saved at only $208,000. OMB ignored all the benefits associated with controlling disease caused by asbestos, including increased productivity and medical costs and improving the quality of life.

Finally, I would like to emphasize that the situation has not changed under the Bush Administration. Despite public statements by Administration officials, the evidence shows that the Bush Administration is not very different from Reagan's. OMB continues to use its authority to disproportionately interfere in health and safety regulation, an area that is one of the least burdensome in terms of paperwork.

Perhaps the most telling illustration is OMB's recent interference with the efforts of OSHA to issue a standard governing worker exposure to cadmium, a substance known to cause both cancer and irreversible kidney damage. Despite the urgent need for a new standard, OMB has stymied and delayed its development. OSHA was able to finally publish a proposed standard on February 6 of this year, not because OMB relented but because of a court order.

As noted earlier, because OMB generally operates behind closed doors, it is difficult, if not impossible, to accurately trace OMB's involvement. OSHA, however, has placed in its public docket all records exchanged by OSHA and OMB. These records detail the course of OMB's extensive involvement in the formulation of the proposed cadmium standard. These documents make it clear that it is "business as usual" at OMB.

OMB's involvement in highly technical, scientific issues is troubling for an additional reason: OMB has no one on staff capable of addressing these difficult scientific issues. Indeed, the OMB employee handling the risk-assessment issues in the cadmium rulemaking is an economist. Thus, despite the fact that the names at the agency have changed, the problems still exist. In our view,