[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                    STRENGTHENING THE LAWMAKING PROCESS: 
                  HOW DATA CAN INFORM AND IMPROVE POLICY

=======================================================================

                               HEARING

                              BEFORE THE

                      SELECT COMMITTEE ON THE 
                      MODERNIZATION OF CONGRESS

                                 OF THE

                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                            OCTOBER 27, 2021

                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-12

                               __________

  Printed for the use of the Select Committee on the Modernization of 
                                Congress
                                
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]                                


                    Available via http://govinfo.gov
                    
                              __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
48-602                    WASHINGTON : 2022                     
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------                     
                   
           SELECT COMMITTEE ON THE MODERNIZATION OF CONGRESS

                    DEREK KILMER, Washington, Chair

 ZOE LOFGREN, California              WILLIAM TIMMONS, South Carolina,
 EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri             Vice Chair
 ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado              BOB LATTA, Ohio
 DEAN PHILLIPS, Minnesota             RODNEY DAVIS, Illinois
 NIKEMA WILLIAMS, Georgia             DAVE JOYCE, Ohio
                                      GUY RESCHENTHALER, Pennsylvania
                                      BETH VAN DUYNE, Texas

                            COMMITTEE STAFF

                     Yuri Beckelman, Staff Director
                 Derek Harley, Republican Staff Director
                            
                            
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                           Opening Statements

                                                                   Page

Chairman Derek Kilmer
    Oral Statement...............................................     1
Vice Chairman William Timmons
    Oral Statement...............................................     2

                               WITNESSES

Ms. Poppy MacDonald, President, USAFacts
    Oral Statement...............................................     4
    Written Statement............................................     6
Dr. Nick Hart, President, Data Foundation
    Oral Statement...............................................    12
    Written Statement............................................    15
Ms. Tara McGuinness, Fellow and Senior Adviser, New Practice Lab, 
    New America
    Oral Statement...............................................    21
    Written Statement............................................    23
Discussion.......................................................    29

             APPENDIX I: ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Ms. Tara McGuinness, Fellow and Senior Adviser, New Practice Lab, 
  New America....................................................    46

 
 STRENGTHENING THE LAWMAKING PROCESS: HOW DATA CAN INFORM AND IMPROVE 
                                 POLICY

                      WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2021

                  House of Representatives,
                            Select Committee on the
                                 Modernization of Congress,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The committee met, pursuant to call, at 12:29 p.m., in Room 
2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Derek Kilmer 
[chairman of the committee] presiding.
    Present: Representatives Kilmer, Phillips, Williams, 
Timmons, Latta, and Joyce.
    The Chairman. All right. The committee will come to order.
    Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a 
recess of the committee at any time.
    And I recognize myself for 5 minutes for an opening 
statement.
    So, last week, this committee held a hearing on modernizing 
the congressional support agencies so they can better meet the 
needs of an evolving Congress. And one of the most important 
issues raised at that hearing was the need for better and more 
timely access to data.
    In order for CRS and CBO and GAO and the entire alphabet 
soup to provide Congress with accurate and impartial 
information about Federal policies and programs, they need open 
access to data that is collected by the Federal agencies. They 
also need for that data to be provided in user-friendly 
formats.
    A few years back, I sponsored the OPEN Government Data Act, 
which became part of the Evidence-Based Policymaking Act, for 
that very reason. Government data should be available to the 
American people because it belongs to them.
    Access to data helps Americans invent new technologies and 
start new businesses and create jobs. It also helps improve 
decisionmaking. For example, the Department of Education 
maintains a college scorecard so consumers can compare schools 
and see which institutions provide the best value.
    Imagine collecting and making sense of all that data on 
your own. You would need an advanced degree in data science, 
which sort of defeats the whole purpose of researching where to 
go to college.
    By requiring Federal agencies to establish data inventories 
and make data more available to the public, the Evidence Act 
also builds efficiencies into the policymaking process. 
Legislation that incorporates objective evidence and data is 
more likely to withstand scrutiny. Data can also shed light on 
which government programs are succeeding and which are failing. 
Data also helps lawmakers see program success and failure 
through a variety of lenses.
    For example, decisionmakers can use data to explore why a 
particular program is underutilized rather than just cutting 
the program altogether. They might discover that consumers 
simply lack knowledge about the program, a program that can be 
fixed through a public education campaign or more targeted 
marketing.
    Lawmakers can also use diverse sets of data to weigh 
whether a government program is worth the cost. The amount of 
money spent on a program is an important data point, but so are 
the returns on investment. A more holistic understanding of how 
Federal programs impact the American people can help 
legislators legislate smarter.
    So today's hearing is about what Congress can do to better 
encourage the collection and use of evidence and data. The 
Federal agencies are doing their part to make data available, 
but it is up to Congress to incorporate data into the 
policymaking and evaluation processes. So I am looking forward 
to hearing what ideas the experts joining us today have for 
moving Congress toward the goal of routine evidence-based 
policymaking.
    The committee will once again use--make use of the 
committee rules we adopted earlier this year that give us the 
flexibility to experiment with how we structure our hearings. 
Our goal is to encourage thoughtful discussion and the civil 
exchange of ideas and opinion. So--now the wonky part--in 
accordance with clause 2(j) of House rule XI, we will allow up 
to 30 minutes of extended questioning per witness. And, without 
objection, time will not be strictly segregated between the 
witnesses, which will allow for extended back and forth 
exchanges between members and the witnesses.
    Vice Chair Timmons and I will manage the time to ensure 
that every member has equal opportunity to participate. Any 
member who wishes to speak should just signal their request to 
me or Vice Chair Timmons. Additionally, members who wish to 
claim their individual 5 minutes to question each witness 
pursuant to clause 2(j)(2) of rule XI will be permitted to do 
so following the period of extended questioning.
    I feel like I really stuck that this time.
    I would like now to invite Vice Chair Timmons to share some 
opening remarks.
    Mr. Timmons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Good afternoon. Thank you for being here today. We are 
really looking forward to your testimony.
    I am going to share a quick story. So I am a captain in the 
South Carolina Air National Guard. I am a JAG officer, and I 
was invited yesterday to speak to 50 company grade officers at 
the National Guard Association over next to Union Station. And 
we were having this long conversation about all these different 
things, and I started talking about how Congress has gotten 
away--and it is funny. I didn't use evidence-based. I said--the 
way I framed it was collaborative fact-based policymaking from 
a basis of mutual respect.
    So we have got immigration. We have got healthcare. We have 
got debt. We have all these huge challenges that are facing 
this country, and we are not doing that. We are not--it is not 
collaborative, it is not fact based, evidence based, and it is 
definitely not from a basis of mutual respect often.
    So the question is, what can we do to fix that? And just 
when I said that, it was interesting. I guess she was a captain 
from somewhere in the Midwest. She said, Well, where do you get 
your facts?
    That was--and we had like a 15-minute conversation about 
news and about data. And the first thing that came to mind was 
that, when I was getting my master's degree, the statistics 
class, the first thing the professor said was, If you learn 
nothing from this class, know that if you tell me what you want 
the statistic to say, I will create that for you and give you 
evidence to support it.
    So this is a very important issue, because everybody has 
their own facts, and I think maybe the most important thing is 
the lack of exchange of ideas and the lack of defense of ideas.
    The chairman and I often talk about our time in the State 
senate, and you were forced to defend your ideas. Everyone sat 
in the chamber in South House 46. And if you put up an 
amendment, you had to go up there and defend it. And it was 
very quick to tell who had any idea what was going on and who 
didn't. So you got to the bottom of it.
    So, evidence-based policymaking is the only way out of the 
situation we are in. The biggest challenges facing us will only 
be overcome if we can find a way to reform the manner in which 
we are conducting ourselves in this institution.
    So I just really appreciate you all taking the time to come 
and be a part of this hearing, and I look forward to it.
    With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    The Chairman. Thanks so much.
    The committee is honored to welcome three experts who are 
here to share with us their recommendation for how Congress can 
improve its access to and use of data and evidence in 
policymaking and evaluation processes.
    Witnesses are reminded that your written statements will be 
made part of the record.
    And our first witness is Poppy MacDonald. Ms. MacDonald is 
the president of USAFacts, a nonpartisan, nonprofit 
organization that collects and visualizes publicly available 
data with the goal of helping ground democratic debate in 
facts.
    Prior to joining USAFacts, she served as the president and 
chief operating officer of Politico USA. She was also a partner 
at Gallup, Inc., and helped launch their World Poll. Ms. 
MacDonald began her career working for several Members of 
Congress in both the House and the Senate.
    Ms. MacDonald, thank you for being with us. You are now 
recognized for 5 minutes.

STATEMENT OF MS. POPPY MACDONALD, PRESIDENT, USAFACTS; DR. NICK 
  HART, PRESIDENT, DATA FOUNDATION; AND MS. TARA MCGUINNESS, 
    FELLOW AND SENIOR ADVISER, NEW PRACTICE LAB, NEW AMERICA

                  STATEMENT OF POPPY MACDONALD

    Ms. MacDonald. Turn this on. Okay? It is not lighting--oh, 
there we go. Perfect. All right. Thank you for that technical 
assist this afternoon.
    Good afternoon to you all, and thank you for the 
opportunity to speak with you today. My name is Poppy 
MacDonald, and I am the president of USAFacts. I have submitted 
testimony for the record, but I will summarize some key points 
for you today.
    USAFacts is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization 
dedicated to providing the American public comprehensible and 
understandable government data. USAFacts empowers American 
citizens and you and your fellow elected leaders to make data-
driven decisions about the issues facing the country. We do 
this by providing unbiased facts, by standardizing data from 
Federal, State, and local government sources, and presenting it 
in a clear and simple manner at usafacts.org.
    The data we use is consolidated from 78 Federal agencies 
with sources from every State and region nationwide. We don't 
attempt to influence public opinion in any way. We consolidate 
government data to support serious, reasoned, and informed 
debate. We exist to help all decisionmakers, as well as the 
public, access reliable information and empower them to make 
policy from a strong foundation of trusted facts.
    USAFacts was created out of a clear societal need for 
accurate and acceptable data from the Federal, State, and local 
governments.
    In 2015, our founder and former CEO of Microsoft, Steve 
Ballmer, wanted to use his personal charitable efforts to lift 
children out of poverty. He tasked a team of financial analysts 
with researching impartial data from the government about--the 
government's own efforts to determine where current programs 
are targeted and where there are additional needs.
    The analysts thought it would take them a matter of weeks 
to compile. It actually took 6 months. The information these 
experts were able to compile from the government was disparate, 
difficult to access, and outdated.
    Steve asked an important question: Why isn't the same 
standards for metrics and data that businesses are required to 
report to shareholders apply to the impact and progress of 
government programs and initiatives? Aren't we all shareholders 
in this country who deserve the same access to transparent, 
publicly reported data?
    This knowledge gap forces citizens and policymakers at all 
levels into a difficult position where they are called upon to 
make major decisions with incomplete or dated information. In 
light of this challenge, usafacts.org was created as a free 
resource for all Americans to have access to trusted facts.
    To give you the sense of the complexity of our work, there 
are over 90,000 State and local government agencies, and few 
have standardized means of reporting information or of 
consolidating their data. Agency data is often siloed in the 
process of collection, analysis, and presentation, resulting in 
confusion and duplication of data. Administrative and 
statistical data is often collected and analyzed for the sole 
purpose of implementing programs at a single agency rather than 
use across agencies.
    To give a recent example, at the start of COVID-19 
pandemic, Federal and State leaders lacked standardized data to 
inform crucial decisionmaking. USAFacts combed through State 
and county reports, all of which use different methods, to 
create a standardized view of daily virus cases and deaths.
    As a result, usafacts.org became a go-to source for many 
local governments as well as publicly traded companies, not-
for-profits, and millions of citizens to provide comprehensive, 
real-time COVID data.
    We filled a key need in the public awareness effort, but 
COVID-19 will not be the last challenge this country faces. One 
of the principal reasons for USAFacts' founding was to allow 
Americans to use data to make decisions about the future of the 
country in the same way that executives use data to make 
decisions for their companies. Modern successful businesses 
rely on robust, timely data to make strategic decisions, and a 
modern Congress should be empowered to do the same.
    To support the information needs of a modernized Congress, 
USAFacts advocates for more open, timely, and detailed data 
from our government. We continue to promote recommendations 
that individual agencies can implement to mitigate access 
issues, including ensure that data is timely, complete, and 
accurate; create reliable and certain ways to access and 
understand data; ensure data sets are contextual and relevant; 
establish formal cross-agency and cross-government 
collaboration and standards; and make the data and collection 
processes more transparent.
    The enactment of the strongly bipartisan OPEN Government 
Data Act in 2019, originally introduced by Chairman Kilmer, was 
a key initial step forward in making some data from the Federal 
Government accessible for Americans' personal and commercial 
use. It created an initial pathway for agencies to organize and 
distribute data to other agencies and to the general public in 
ways that are easy to access and understand. This has been a 
good start, but much more needs to be done.
    In 2019, Congress appropriated $8.9 billion for the 
collection of government statistics. So we have tremendous 
stores of data, but it is not compiled in readily accessed--to 
be readily accessed or understood. It is the American peoples' 
data, and they as well as those they elect to represent them 
should have timely and easy access to it.
    The opportunities for improvement are vast, but the 
solutions are within our reach, and USAFacts remains a strong 
partner to help achieve them.
    Thank you for your time.
    [The statement of Ms. MacDonald follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    The Chairman. Thank you, Ms. MacDonald.
    Our next witness is Nick Hart. Dr. Hart is the president of 
the Data Foundation, previously served as director of the 
Bipartisan Policy Center's Evidence Project. This built on his 
work as policy and research director for the U.S. Commission on 
Evidence-Based Policymaking, where he led the development of 
the Commission's final report and recommendations for Congress 
and the President. He has also served as a senior analyst for 
the Office of Management and Budget.
    Dr. Hart, thanks for being with us. You are now recognized 
for 5 minutes.

                     STATEMENT OF NICK HART

    Mr. Hart. Thank you. And thank you all for the invitation 
to join today.
    So the Data Foundation is an organization that is a 
national nonprofit and works to improve government, business, 
and society through open data and evidence-informed public 
policy. So, needless to say, I am really excited to be part of 
the discussion today.
    The term ``evidence-based policymaking'' is one that has 
garnered a lot of attention around the world, including here in 
the U.S. in recent years, and part of that is based on our U.S. 
Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking. It is actually a 
model of this in practice.
    It was a group of politically appointed experts who built a 
body of evidence that was valid, reliable, and credible, and 
directly in response to a congressional inquiry or question. So 
they based their findings and recommendations on the evidence.
    Congress then relied on that evidence in developing the 
Evidence Act, which included the OPEN Government Data Act. Some 
of their recommendations were taken literally, some were 
conceptual, and some are yet to still see action. But the 
evidence informed the creation of the Evidence Act, and this is 
exactly the goal of evidence-based policymaking.
    Agencies are now in the midst of implementing this law, 
including expectations for open data, data sharing, data 
inventories, and new leadership roles of chief data officers 
and evaluation officers.
    So we hope it is also leading the change in government's 
culture to have evidence be the norm and have this also be a 
pervasive expectation. It is also an incredibly important law 
for Congress, and I think it will be increasingly useful for 
congressional decisionmaking in coming years as agencies are 
developing more evidence. But, right now, it can also be 
leverage.
    For example, agencies are currently developing what we are 
calling evidence-building plans, or learning agendas. Those 
will be published next year. And the goal of those documents is 
to identify gaps in knowledge so that we can build the evidence 
and have it available before decisions are made rather than 
after. So as Members of Congress or staff, can provide input to 
agencies at this moment on those plans.
    Second, Congress can provide targeted oversight of key data 
laws where this body relies on the executive branch for 
information. In fact, there are notable gaps in implementation 
of the Evidence Act today. More than 2 years after 
implementation or enactment of the Evidence Act, key guidance 
and regulatory actions for titles II, the OPEN Government Data 
Act, and title III are not yet available from OMB. And this 
includes important privacy and open data provisions that are 
relevant to Congress, the American people, and researchers.
    Over the last decade, Congress has also passed numerous 
data laws, including a DATA Act, the GREAT Act, Taxpayers 
Right-To-Know Act, GPRA Modernization, and many others. 
Effective implementation of these laws can directly support 
congressional decisionmaking by making data available for your 
use, including on spending, awards, contracts and grants, 
performance, and program outcomes.
    The majority of these recent data laws were largely 
authorized without new appropriations, and I think we need to 
also realistically say that we should be doing careful 
consideration of unintentional resource constraints that limit 
implementation.
    And, finally, there are a great many enhancements to 
current law that might still require further action by 
Congress. Researchers need access to data to answer policy 
questions, yet access is often a major limiting factor.
    Earlier this year, the House passed the bipartisan National 
Secure Data Service Act as part of the NSF reauthorization, and 
that was based on work from the Evidence Commission and our 
work at the Data Foundation.
    And a data service substantially could improve researcher 
and evaluation secure access to survey data, administrative 
records, or linked information, and then potentially has major 
applications for understanding inequities or disparities in 
government policies or evaluations of important programs for 
education and workforce.
    Congress should also consider how to bolster its own access 
to evidence and evidence-building capabilities independent of 
what is happening in the executive branch. Back in 2018, the 
Bipartisan Policy Center released a set of suggestions right 
here on Capitol Hill to do just this, and I want to highlight a 
few of those suggestions.
    One, Congress could create a chief data officer, just like 
what we are seeing in the executive branch. It is a designated 
leader to promote training and data fluency for staff, as well 
as ensuring that thinking about data is somebody's day-to-day 
job here on Capitol Hill.
    You could also establish an ombudsman, someone who can help 
align the evidence needs across committees and Members with 
expertise that exists in the research and evaluation community.
    Perhaps CRS could be tasked with thinking about how to 
compile robust systematic reviews, bringing together a body of 
evidence when addressing major policy questions in an unbiased 
manner, especially for politically sensitive areas.
    GAO could expand its focus on building capacity for modern 
evaluation techniques, extending beyond traditional program 
audits when it comes to processes.
    Committees and staff could choose to develop their own 
learning agendas like we are seeing in the executive branch.
    Planning reauthorization schedules to align the timeframe 
that it requires to actually build the evidence that is useful 
for reauthorization or changes in the policy design would also 
be important to plan for.
    That said, reauthorizations and new programs can be 
designed to think about evidence and data needs, including the 
evaluation of important goals and scaling pilot projects. There 
may be needs for authorizing new data collections, even 
expanding access to certain data assets to get answers to your 
questions of interest.
    Now, these last several items are also things that could be 
written directly into new legislation. And to do that, maybe 
there needs to be a capacity here on Capitol Hill for someone 
guiding that process.
    So, in closing, I am really encouraged that this committee 
is taking such a thoughtful, deliberative approach in 
strengthening the institution that we are in, while recognizing 
the important role evidence plays in your decisionmaking. I am 
confident evidence-informed policymaking is one approach to 
establish greater trust between the American people and their 
government. It is also important for good government.
    So thank you for your leadership on these issues, and I 
look forward to the questions.
    [The statement of Mr. Hart follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    The Chairman. Thanks, Dr. Hart.
    And our final witness is Tara McGuinness. Ms. McGuinness is 
a fellow and senior adviser at New America, where she founded 
their New Practice Lab, which seeks to improve the design and 
delivery of policies focused on family economic security and 
well-being. She is an adjunct professor of public policy at 
Georgetown University and, appropriate for our committee and 
our attempt to boost book sales, is the coauthor of ``Power to 
the Public: The Promise of Public Interest Technology.''
    Prior to her current position, she served in the Obama 
administration as the director of the White House Task Force on 
Community Solutions.
    Ms. McGuinness, you are now recognized for 5 minutes. 
Thanks for being with us.

                  STATEMENT OF TARA MCGUINNESS

    Ms. McGuinness. Thank you so much, Chairman Kilmer and Vice 
Chair Timmons, members of the committee. I am so grateful to be 
here today to talk about the task of equipping Congress to 
really work for the public in the digital age, in particular 
how you can use data to make better policy and really deliver 
outcomes.
    While the millennium has brought a ruthless focus in the 
private sector to data for delivery, customers have been tested 
with messages and imagery tweaking even the timing of emails to 
increase how we purchase things. This modern toolkit is not 
accessible to congressional leaders who are trying to bring 
basic benefits to citizens.
    Before I speak to you about the steps--and I have more 
detail in my written testimony--that you could take to 
effectively use data, I do just want to stop and pause and talk 
about coffee, Starbucks coffee. Starbucks uses an immense 
combination of user research and data to drive decisionmaking. 
They test what works for menu offerings to demands on a sunny 
day versus a rainy day.
    There are far more resources available today to Starbucks 
than to assist the U.S. Congress in using data to make 
decisions, and that has to change, and your work has been an 
incredible part of that. Coffee isn't nearly as important as a 
single thing that any committee does here, from providing, you 
know, safety for Americans, to keeping our water clean, to 
providing effective vaccines.
    And I share this--you know, this became pronounced in the 
COVID-19 pandemic, the unprecedented urgency--you heard this 
from Poppy--about understanding everything from tracking the 
spread of the virus to delivering economic assistance in real 
time.
    At the core of each of these challenges was a data problem, 
and modern tools are required not only to build these data 
sets, but also, as you heard from Nick, to interpret these data 
sets and what they mean and how you can take action on them.
    I am going to focus on four key recommendations for this 
transformation to drive outcomes. And I have greater details in 
my written testimony.
    First, we need real-time, machine-readable data on 
government priority programs to see what is working and what 
isn't. I am happy to talk about my experience with this on 
healthcare.gov.
    Second, we need Congress to be a place where the best and 
brightest technologists, data scientists, designers, and 
engineers go to work, because the policies that you make are 
essentially delivery, and delivery is policies.
    Third, Congress needs to do what you ordered the Federal 
Government to do, to bring practices of plain language and user 
testing to your communications.
    I want to say a final word about data and evidence. It 
really doesn't matter if you build data and evidence capacity 
if you don't have a willingness to learn and change what works 
and what doesn't. And I know that is the ultimate goal of this 
committee, but I do think, as we think about building on the 
Evidence Act, that is really the number one thing we need to 
focus on. Data is step one.
    In this book, ``Power to the Public,'' I went around the 
globe and I interviewed governments that were doing things that 
were profoundly different and more impactful, and there were 
three things that governments were doing who were having a real 
impact for their citizens.
    One, they didn't just have data that they collected in real 
time. They had meaningful feedback groups to understand what 
their constituents need. Pairing this massive data with the 
human experience allows you to see what you can miss in big 
data sets.
    Finally, they had cultures of learning, where they could 
learn from their constituents and change their decisionmaking. 
Plenty of organizations have dashboards. Far fewer of them use 
them to tackle root causes.
    I am so grateful for the attention you all are paying to 
this issue. Congress' capacity to collect data and use evidence 
may seem like a small, technical thing, but in the digital age, 
it is the difference between accessing lifesaving vaccines and 
receiving a rental check before eviction. The ability to see 
what works and what doesn't work and make decisions and laws 
upon it can mean nothing but short of lifesaving.
    I am really grateful, and I am happy to answer your 
questions.
    [The statement of Ms. McGuinness follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    The Chairman. Thank you, Ms. McGuinness.
    I now recognize myself and Vice Chair Timmons to begin a 
period of extended questioning of the witnesses. Any member who 
wishes to speak should just signal their request either to me 
or to Vice Chair Timmons.
    So I guess this is what I want to get a better 
understanding of. It seems like we have got a few things we 
have got to work on here, right? In Congress, we have--and I 
think you just touched on it, Ms. McGuinness. There is both a 
skill problem, where we haven't built the muscle here either in 
the individual offices, at the committee level, or as an 
institution on how to use data. And there is also a bit of a 
will problem, right? You have got to want to do it, right? 
Oftentimes, the debates here are about what we think, not what 
we know, and what we think is not always based on fact, right?
    So I guess what I would like to get a better understanding 
of--and each of you kind of touched on specific ideas in 
different ways. I want to just get operational for a second.
    If we define an end goal of individual Member offices, 
committees, and the institution both wanting to and having the 
capacity to use evidence to make decisions, let's get 
operational. Like, what are two or three things that you think 
this--I airdrop you on to this committee, you know, what 
recommendation would you pursue if you were us to help get us 
there? And if you have suggestions of whether it be coffee 
companies, State legislatures, or foreign governments that you 
think we ought to look at, we are game. How is that?
    You can just go down the list if--or whoever wants to go 
first, shoot.
    Mr. Hart. So I will jump in. Well, I think it is important 
to recognize, first of all, that Congress does evidence-based 
policymaking today. This is not something as a critique to say 
that this doesn't happen at all. There are definitely areas 
where committee staff are incredibly savvy, and information 
from CRS, GAO, CBO is all relevant.
    I think my main points would be about strengthening that 
capacity. So certainly there are gaps in knowledge, and this is 
not a critique of any individual or person, but, rather, the 
world is constantly changing as we are thinking about how to 
use data better in our society. So having a process for 
facilitating education and training of the workforce, whether 
it is committee staff or individual Members, is, I think, 
really important as this goes forward.
    Understanding complex concepts, like multiparty computation 
and homomorphic encryption, that most people will--their eyes 
will gloss over as you hear those terms, we are going to be 
talking about those for years to come. So figuring out the 
staff capacity is really important.
    The second thing, if you are talking about staff capacity, 
there also has to be somebody clearly in charge as a leader. 
Who do you recognize in the congressional institution to guide 
this process? And this is part of why I would suggest something 
like a CDO. We are seeing this happening----
    The Chairman. Would you set that at CRS? Is that the right 
place for it?
    Mr. Hart. CRS could be the right place for it. I think 
there are probably arguments that it could be more 
independent----
    The Chairman. Uh-huh.
    Mr. Hart[continuing]. And not aligned with existing support 
agencies based on the role that they would need.
    The Chairman. Okay.
    Mr. Hart. So I guess those are a couple of my quick 
suggestions.
    The Chairman. Go ahead.
    Ms. McGuinness. I would underscore the role of CDO. It made 
a big difference when we brought this to the executive branch. 
It changed our culture and even allowed us to do some 
translation on what it is a data scientist does and what kind 
of questions they ask in a policy briefing.
    I think you--you know, this is testimony that has been put 
before this committee before that--of kind of 3,500 legislative 
assistants here and staff on the Hill. Fewer than 20 have deep 
expertise in technology. That comes from the testimony of 
Travis Moore, the CEO of TechCongress.
    And so I think really you have an asymmetrical balance 
between the best talent leaving for other things that are not 
as important. And so signaling this as something that is 
important for the Federal Government to bring a wide range of 
skill sets to the Hill will end up producing things that you 
haven't even thought of about why you might need an engineer. 
It changes the questions you might ask someone who is coming 
before this committee or others.
    Second, I do think the ability in the interim to draw on 
expertise from the Federal Government, the creation of the U.S. 
Digital Services, of 18F, you know, there is already existing 
Federal authority that will allow rotations to committees, or 
even brief review. Wouldn't it be helpful to have someone who 
worked on the last failed delivery of a policy review the 
legislative text for the next one? That is the sort of thing 
you can call on today by creating a rotating fellowship or even 
building your own permanent staff on this.
    I think on the question of where you locate a CDO, it is 
certainly worth deeper exploration. The clerk and chief 
administrative officers will really--what is the data that you 
are aiming on? I think it could be very different depending on 
where you locate this particular role.
    And, finally, I do think the ability to translate, you 
know, bring trainings to staff, and be not too prescriptive in 
how you write this into legislation. The dynamism in what the 
modern tool set is is different from when we were at OMB. It is 
very quick, and you don't want to prescribe--what makes sense 
today won't make sense 6 weeks from now in terms of what is the 
most useful set of data tools, but having evolving skills that 
you can bring to the staff here is critically important.
    The Chairman. Great.
    Ms. MacDonald. Chairman Kilmer, you mentioned the skill and 
the will, which are two really important things. I would also 
say the time, right? So I do think congressional staff are 
really interested in understanding, by the numbers, where does 
this country stand.
    We worked with Senator Romney and Senator Schumer's policy 
staff to put together a picture of our country by the numbers. 
And we did that for the President's State of the Union Address. 
And we felt--we analyzed State of the Union Addresses and felt 
like the President, no matter from what party they are, always 
described the state of the country as strong, stronger, you 
know, even better. And we thought it was a little more complex 
than that and that it could be described in data.
    To pull together, though, a picture of our country by the 
numbers, which Republican and Democratic staff were, you know, 
very inclined and excited to do and helped devise this on, we 
had to pull 56 data sources across 19 Federal agencies. So to 
think that an individual staff member in one congressional 
office, even if they had the skill and the will, could go about 
pulling together a portrait of that on their own, it took 
USAFacts about 3 months by the time we pulled that data 
together, we created visualizations that were understandable by 
the public, and we built that functionality in a publicly 
accessible way at usafacts.org.
    So I would just think about, is there somewhere within 
Congress that can be built with those kind of capabilities that 
can support staff who do have the will? And I am not sure that 
putting that skill in every single congressional office--I know 
how small those offices are and how hard they work to support 
constituents' needs. But I would just think about how do you 
create that capacity.
    USAFacts certainly stands ready and willing to help, but I 
also think that Members of Congress deserve to have that 
capability right here in your own four walls.
    The Chairman. Great. Thank you.
    Go ahead.
    Mr. Timmons. Thanks, Chairman.
    So the chairman talked about skill and will. I am going to 
put it in a little bit different perspective. I see three 
components of this conversation: resources, process, and will. 
So still got will. But resources, we need impartial, unbiased, 
digestible, scholarly literature that addresses the relevant 
topic.
    We have some of that with CRS. Some of that is not 
digestible. And then there is obviously a think tank for every 
position on the political spectrum that has digestible, 
scholarly, but partial or biased. But, at the same time, 
reasonable minds can differ on a lot of the solutions to these 
big problems. So that is not bad. It is just we have got to be 
able to put all that stuff into the process and try to figure 
out the answer.
    Then we have process. So, I have been in Congress for 3 
years now, and--well, I will be fair. This is the same before 
and now. So Financial Services, we haven't had a legitimate 
exchange of ideas in subcommittee or full committee in my 
entire time in Congress. We have not had a single--well, maybe 
one amendment adopted by the minority party. I am going to go 
ahead and couch that. Four years ago, the previous Congress, I 
guarantee you it was the same way. So, I mean, I am not playing 
politics here, because everybody does it when they are in the 
majority.
    So there is a process issue there. We have the 
subcommittees, we have the full committees. We have the process 
there; we just don't have the will to use it.
    Now, when you get to will, you have two problems. One, it 
is easier--well, everybody is playing gotcha all the time, and 
it is easier to put things together at the last minute and wait 
till Christmas Eve and say, All right, we are voting on this. 
Do you want to go home? Stick around.

   I.am going to ask your thoughts on my version of this in a second.

    So you said Congress does engage in fact-based policymaking 
earlier, and I actually was trying to think of the worst 
example of not that, and it was COVID round two. So we did the 
initial--again, this is emergency, so it is not super fair. But 
COVID round two had a couple of programs in it to try to help 
small businesses not lay off their employees. It was just 
awful. It was poorly thought out. It didn't have any basis in 
reality, ultimately wasn't used. But we got the PPP loans. 
After that, that was--it actually worked fairly well. I would 
say it was a resounding success.
    But, again, I am on the floor talking to a bunch of people 
that I love and respect, and I am just like, this is how this 
would work for my business. Like, you literally are going to 
cause me to be a felon because I can't do what you are making 
me do. And they are like, oh, okay, I get that now. I am like, 
how is this possible that we are voting on this and we haven't 
thought about these things?
    Anyways, so, given all of that, I mean, is it--it is all 
three. It is resources, process, and will. Where do you all 
believe we are most efficient, and where do you think we can 
most improve?
    Mr. Hart. So I think it is a very powerful example that you 
just offered of a place where emergency action was necessary in 
the national interest, and there are cases where Congress may 
make decisions about policies where the evidence is entirely 
missing.
    I think my response would be: How are we addressing the 
evidence needs going forward? So we have designed a new 
program. What did the program design have for the Small 
Business Administration, Department of Treasury, to 
specifically build evidence, evaluate the questions at hand so 
the next disaster or national emergency, where somebody says, 
``this is a great idea,'' we can actually calibrate with what 
happened in the past, learn, maybe make improvements, changes 
to the policy.
    So evidence-based policymaking isn't about always having 
precise, perfect evidence at the beginning of a process, 
because we rarely do. It is about building this and 
continuously learning over time.
    I think, in that spirit, some of the areas that we have the 
greatest need involve basic capacity of workforce that can do 
this, but also being truly transparent about what evidence we 
have.
    So, in Congress, why can't we have something like an 
evidence register just like a CBO score shows up for every 
bill? This is the evidence we used to document the need of this 
particular piece of legislation. It wouldn't be that hard to 
add, and it would go a very long ways in being completely 
transparent about what evidence exists and what doesn't.
    Financial Services just passed or approved a bill called 
the Financial Transparency Act. It was voted out of the House 
earlier this week, and that is about open data. And certainly 
there are plenty of areas where the openness of information 
also enables us to have honest debates about the credibility of 
the data, the meaning of it, but also applying it for drafting 
legislation, understanding the context of a problem. So, 
frankly, we need to do that more.
    Ms. MacDonald. Yeah. I might just add on to what Nick said 
about--you said resources, process, and will, how do we create 
the will, and maybe it is thinking about the process. I know 
there was a Republican effort before to say, for every piece of 
legislation, we need to talk about the fiscal impact. How much 
is this going to cost? How are we going to pay for it?
    What about a requirement--a bipartisan requirement to say, 
Let's talk about the impact that this legislation is supposed 
to have? We may disagree on what the right policy solution is, 
but let's talk about whichever policy position moves forward. 
What are the numbers it is supposed to drive? This is the 
population it is intended to serve. This is how big that 
population is. This is what we hope will change over time, and 
this is how we are going to measure it.
    And then we can judge the effectiveness of that policy, 
policymakers, and citizens by, did it move that number, did we 
go in the right direction? It is very similar to how 
businesses, right, make decisions.
    I do think, as you move toward that, though, you are going 
to find there are challenges with government data. It is dated. 
It is old.
    Just going to the fiscal example, when we do a 10-K for the 
government, which is required by the SEC for corporations who 
are publicly traded to provide that information to their 
shareholders, for our 2021 10-K for the government, we were 
using 2018 data. You can imagine--you talked about running a 
business or Steve running Microsoft and trying to use data that 
is 3 years dated to see are the decisions I am making today 
having an impact. And, certainly, the SEC wouldn't settle for a 
publicly traded corporation using 3-year-old data to report to 
shareholders in an open and transparent way.
    So I do think there is a real opportunity to think about 
how to make that data and that transparent, real-time data part 
of the process, and then that will hopefully get agencies in 
gear to start providing that in a more public way.
    But I would say it is not just at the Federal level. The 
reason we use dated fiscal information when we are rolling up 
local, State, and Federal fiscal data is because we know what 
the Federal Government gave to States. But by the time then 
counties report to States to report back to the Federal 
Government, that is where you get that 3-year lag.
    So it really is looking at the pipeline problem. We saw it 
with COVID, but we see it with fiscal and other issues as well.
    The Chairman. I saw Mr. Phillips gesture first, so that I 
will get to him, and then I will get to you.
    Mr. Phillips. Ah, the fast gesture.
    The Chairman. Yeah. I won't say what gesture, but, you 
know----
    Mr. Phillips. I see. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    First, I wanted to say, Ms. McGuinness, that the urban 
studies degree holders caucus in Congress is a very small one. 
I think it is just me, so I wanted to salute that connection we 
have.
    And I want to thank all of you. This is my favorite 
committee in Congress for reasons you can surely understand.
    As we talk about this issue, I happen to be one that 
believes that the data is there. We can certainly do better at 
aggregating it, consolidating it, and sharing it. But I would 
argue to my colleagues that, unless we digest it together, we 
perceive it differently. And I think we have to find better 
mechanisms by which Members of Congress are in the same room in 
front of the same people together.
    You know, hearings don't do it, because, as you all know, 
witnesses typically are Republican witnesses or Democratic 
witnesses. There is a baked-in bias, at least we perceive. So I 
am glad we are having this hearing.
    One of my questions is actually relative to my State. The 
Pew Trust, as you all know, had a results-first initiative, I 
believe you are aware. They named Minnesota one of the States 
at the forefront of evidence-based policymaking.
    Are there other States or other initiatives of which you 
are aware, any of you, that we might look at and consider 
bringing to Washington that are working?
    Ms. McGuinness. [Inaudible] I am happy to jump in on the 
State example----
    Mr. Phillips. Please.
    Ms. McGuinness[continuing]. And to take as a----
    Mr. Hart. Is she on?
    Ms. McGuinness. When you are --
    The Chairman. Can you unmute your microphone?
    Mr. Phillips. Oh, your microphone.
    Ms. McGuinness. When you are urban planning and subway 
planning, it is one of these cut-and-dry things.
    Mr. Phillips. Yeah.
    Ms. McGuinness. If your math is wrong, the subway doesn't 
stop in the right location, is the basis of evidence.
    On the States and cities, kind of outside of Federal 
example, I think it is remarkably uneven, and even you can find 
in a place like Minnesota excellence across the board. But if 
you add a layer of--as you see, I am working right now on early 
education.
    Mr. Phillips. Uh-huh.
    Ms. McGuinness. Without collecting data on demography, you 
don't see that it is both at the top of the class across the 
country unless you disaggregate for race. So I think both 
making sure how we collect--and I think it is a really 
important point on data. You know, our ability to create it and 
create data sets and use them and use them by the communities 
they are serving is mission critical, or you have enormous 
blind spots in what the data tells you.
    On other States and localities, I think--you know, Michigan 
has an incredible body of work out of the Michigan Department 
of Health and Human Services, where they have brought a 
combination of evidence and user testing. And this is where you 
can see real impact in the delivery.
    My focus is a lot on not data for data sake, but how does 
it change our ability to improve schools----
    Mr. Phillips. Uh-huh.
    Ms. McGuinness[continuing]. You know, get vaccines in 
people's arms.
    In Michigan, they had the longest application for public 
benefits in the country. It was 1,200 words long. It was--there 
was--once they applied evidence to it, they could see there was 
no difference between the people who got through the system and 
had their benefits approved and the people who were stuck 
somewhere.
    It was only through a combination of looking at real-time 
data from the system about where people were stuck and 
interviewing both frontline Michigan State workers and 
residents that they were able to cut this in half, make it 20 
minutes, increase government efficiency. It is a project that 
was done under Democratic and Republican Governors in Michigan. 
That is one statewide race.
    I am happy to work with other colleagues to make sure we 
can lift up a few other examples. But there is both State level 
and I think city level to some extent. The evidence regime has 
come quite early to a number of the country's municipalities 
where you have better instrumentation on city level data in a 
number of places than you see even at the State level. I think 
State is a place where those capacity needs also need to be 
built up.
    Mr. Phillips. Okay. Any municipalities that we should take 
a look at?
    Ms. McGuinness. Yeah. And, frankly, it is like often you 
will have one agency in a city.
    Mr. Phillips. Okay.
    Ms. McGuinness. Like I was just yesterday in the city of 
New York where some agencies are excellent and other agencies, 
it is like no man's land.
    Mr. Phillips. Right.
    Ms. McGuinness. And, really, the ability to have a 
constituent in a city feel the difference is about having their 
experience across, you know, agencies work.
    So there is actually a nationwide competition to rank 
cities' open dataness--data run by What Works Cities. It is a 
Bloomberg Philanthropies program that basically does very 
vigorous ranking of cities' use of data and evidence. And I am 
happy to provide further materials on it.
    Mr. Phillips. Interesting. Thank you.
    Mr. Hart--or Dr. Hart, I mean.
    Mr. Hart. So I think there are actually a great number of 
examples from States that I would be happy to follow up on, but 
I want to just maybe highlight a couple that are relevant here.
    Ohio has recently, under the lieutenant governor's 
leadership, launched Innovate Ohio, which is essentially a data 
infrastructure for compiling administrative records for the 
State, but also----
    Mr. Phillips. Okay.
    Mr. Hart[continuing]. Includes open data. So they have done 
a sort of soup-to-nuts capability that enables their citizens, 
as well as researchers, to access information better----
    Mr. Phillips. Uh-huh.
    Mr. Hart [continuing]. And they can actually apply it for 
the budget process and for other activities of decisionmaking.
    The State of Mississippi, for a number of years, has run 
something called LifeTracks, which is built out of their State 
longitudinal data system. It is a way of linking education and 
workforce data to look at long-term outcomes. And Mississippi 
is maybe a surprising example for that system, but they have 
built it by being incredibly transparent about what they were 
doing, have a good oversight and accountability procedures. And 
they have made it available to the research community.
    Mr. Phillips. Wonderful.
    Mr. Hart. Missouri, interesting example of sharing 
workforce data, UI data, in partnership with an organization 
called the Coleridge Initiative----
    Mr. Phillips. The Cory--I'm sorry?
    Mr. Hart. The Coleridge Initiative.
    Mr. Phillips. The Coleridge. Okay.
    Mr. Hart [continuing] Where data can be linked to other 
States. Where our Federal infrastructure is somewhat lacking, 
States are starting to innovate and figure out ways to solve 
these problems. So I think it is really incredible work 
happening in States.
    Mr. Phillips. Terrific. Thank you.
    Ms. MacDonald.
    Ms. MacDonald. I will just give quick one example.
    Mr. Phillips. Yeah.
    Ms. MacDonald. I will say the fed, which is the St. Louis 
Federal Reserve, if you go to their website, we look at it as a 
fantastic example of making government data publicly accessible 
and visualizing it in a way that is understandable to the 
public.
    Mr. Phillips. Great. Thank you all very much.
    The Chairman. Mr. Latta, go ahead.
    Mr. Latta. Well, thanks very much, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to 
the witnesses for being here. Glad to hear focus on something 
from Ohio. I am glad to hear--that is good. That is good news.
    Well, you know, one of the things that, you know, that we 
deal with sometimes, you know, with facility, is Ms. MacDonald 
said we--with so many different Federal agencies out there, the 
amount of data that--and reports that are being generated, one 
of the things I have always commented on, we want to make sure 
that they are not just generating something just to generate. 
Because, you know, I don't want people to be getting paid by 
the word down the road, because then, again, what are you going 
to do with it? And if you can't use it, it is worthless.
    So, you know, one of the things--I think one of the things 
I always start off with a question as to is: How much is being 
generated out there--just maybe can you give me a short 
answer--do you think that we really don't have to have on the 
Federal side that is being generated right now?
    Mr. Hart. The question was how much----
    Ms. MacDonald. That we don't use.
    Mr. Latta. From these agencies and departments that we 
have. Because, again, you know, there is a lot of things that 
are generated, but why? You know, is it being gen--because, 
again, if we are going to get it out there, is it to be used? 
You know, it is useless, and a lot of times, it is just being 
generated, and it is not useful for our intended purpose.
    Mr. Hart. So I think this is an important reason laws like 
the Paperwork Reduction Act exists, where Federal agencies are 
tasked with submitting what is called an information collection 
request to OMB for review. But that is about information they 
are collecting from the American people where we assess the 
burden and even the quality of the information they will get 
back and whether it aligns with a particular purpose.
    But we also know there are plenty of places where data are 
submitted to government not as data, as faxed forms, for 
example, which we learned about early in the COVID pandemic. It 
makes it challenging to use data when it sits in a file drawer. 
And so there is an important message here as we are building 
new open data capabilities and infrastructure. The data have to 
be machine readable and high quality.
    There is a process also happening under the Evidence Act 
that I will mention directly in response to your question, that 
agencies are being tasked with developing data inventories, so 
a way of documenting publicly what data they collect and have. 
They are not yet accessible from many agencies, but, in coming 
years, we will have much better insights, taking the ICRs that 
happened under the Paperwork Reduction Act and linking to the 
data inventories to able to answer your question hopefully much 
better.
    Mr. Latta. Well, let me ask you all this, because, again, 
what do most people do now? You know, I was on a--the other 
day, I was at the Library of Congress on the reading floor, and 
I am sure there are people out there who have--a lot of younger 
people wouldn't even know how to use a card file anywhere to 
find anything.
    And when you think about the research that is going on, for 
some people, it is just like they just go to a search engine 
and punch it in. And I always tell folks, everything that is 
out there on the internet is not actually all factual.
    But, you know, how do we--because, again, since so many 
people are relying on that, how do we look at that then? 
Because, again, if it is being put out there by departments or 
agencies, how do people--you know, is it being able to be 
accessed? Because I think it is--you just mentioned on that 
point that there could be some issues.
    But what about that? Could I just ask everybody real quick, 
just on search engines and what people are looking at. Because, 
again, that is what people are relying on now, because you can 
find--you know, how many times have we heard this: You can find 
anything on the web?
    Ms. MacDonald. That is a really good point. I would say, 
for USAFacts, we are thinking about optimizing for Google, for 
Bing, right? We know that Americans, when they have a question, 
they are going to a search engine. And then how do we ensure 
that that government data pops up, right, first in the response 
and that they have a--Americans have a trusted source for that 
information?
    I would say too, to your point about are there agencies 
that are collecting maybe data that is not usable or not 
helpful, I do think that where USAFacts sees a challenge is we 
look at not only the 78 Federal agencies, but the 90,000 local 
government entities. They are all collecting data. But if there 
are no standards about what data is collected, when it is 
reported, how it is reported, is that actually useful or 
helpful if none of that data matches up, in terms of 
understanding school districts and comparing them across the 
country, or understanding the efficiency or the effectiveness 
of government?
    So I think standardization about what should be collected 
and Congress saying, This will be helpful for us in judging the 
effectiveness of this policy. This is what needs to be 
collected and really making those requirements clear would be 
really helpful in moving us forward.
    Ms. McGuinness. I am happy to jump in next. Is that 
working?
    Mr. Latta. Yep.
    Ms. McGuinness. I think this line of questioning raises 
three important points, and I want to underscore what Poppy 
just said on common data standards. It would be really 
different--we are collecting a huge amount of data in a way 
that doesn't allow you, because many laws have defined a family 
or a child or even a young person at a different level, but 
allowing various agency data sets which originate by legal 
requirements from different bills. To give you a full picture, 
I think there is real work to do on standardizing data in the 
next generation of laws, being thoughtful about whether the 
definition of a child across agency may be useful to get a full 
picture of what is happening for the public.
    Second, I do think there is a real difference between what 
you are using data for, and we are going to need it for many 
things--longitudinal studies, you know, more intensive 
evidence-based work. But, also, it was a striking lack to me in 
the Federal Government the data that is available to program 
administrators for making programs better for the public, yet 
you have reams of back-end data that could in no way tell you 
today how many people are applying for SSDI, and where did they 
get stuck, and how long did it take.
    And so I think I would put special emphasis on 
prioritization across the government data that we are 
collecting to have outcomes for your constituents, and I think, 
right now, that prioritization doesn't exist. And, also, back 
to the tool of the ability to see it in real time. The ability 
for it to be machine readable, or, frankly, where you can to 
take the humans out of the process, so that when someone is 
sick in said State and they are the data agent who sends the 
PDF to HHS with how many people got COVID today, when they have 
COVID, you can still get data numbers if you are doing this in 
a profoundly less manual way. So I think real prioritization 
for what matters in serving the public is an important line of 
questioning.
    And to the extent to which, you know, the next generation 
of laws, many challenges I faced in creating consumer-friendly 
products were often that, two decades ago, something was 
mandated by collection in a piece of legislation. So where you 
can be prescriptive about the outcome for data that you want in 
your next law rather than how you collect it so that it doesn't 
become outdated. I think that is a really important role for 
this committee. How obsolete something becomes really quickly 
on this data side is real important, and so much of this is 
prescribed by law, and then you are wasting money collecting it 
in a kind of manual fashion.
    Mr. Latta. If you would indulge me for just one last 
question, because, again, this--you know, as we look at what is 
being collected and how it is being presented, you know, Ms. 
MacDonald, in your testimony, you stated that, ``Why isn't the 
same standard for metrics and data that businesses are required 
to report to shareholders applied to the impact and progress of 
government reports and initiatives?''
    And, again, I think this goes back to, you know, the--I can 
remember back when I was in the Ohio Legislature, and our 
Legislative Service Commission prepare the--everything--a bill 
came out, and you go through and with the analysis. For one of 
my bills--I chaired a very complicated committee, and so our 
bills were like sometimes a thousand pages long, so just the 
analysis was a hundred pages long. And I know, going to the 
floor, I said, We can't give everybody a hundred-page analysis.
    So we had another agency cut that down to 10 pages. So, you 
know--but when you think about that, how do we, you know, 
change the mind set on the--again, this is a whole thing that 
we are talking about. How do you change the mind set to get 
something usable so it is just not--you know, just like a bunch 
of verbiage out there? It is just like you read 100 pages to 
try to figure out, okay, I only needed this.
    So how do we get to that point? Because, again, if 
companies are required by their shareholders or anybody else to 
have to hit a standard and we are not doing it, so, you know, 
again, I think it is--that is one of the issues that we are 
going to have out there.
    Ms. MacDonald. I will say we do--we find it ironic, and as 
Steve Ballmer having--had to sign a 10-K form on behalf of 
Microsoft attesting that the data was accurate and current, did 
find it ironic when he was searching for the government's 10-K 
that there are standards and they are not followed by the 
government, but they are set by the government.
    And then in terms of usability and accessibility, I would 
just say your observation is correct that people don't like to 
read, right? So how do we make data really visual, use as few 
words as possible so that the point gets across? And I think 
data visualization, like quick, short summaries is a really 
important way to think about how to present that information.
    We do--a Form 10-K is not accessible or usable, just to be 
clear, but we do our annual report on government, and, if you 
look through it, you will just notice it is, you know, 
primarily visual with, not only there is a few words there, but 
I would say it is not a lot of words; it is a lot of visuals to 
help paint a really quick, clear picture in data, visualized.
    Mr. Latta. Well, thank you very much.
    Ms. MacDonald. Uh-huh.
    Mr. Latta. Thank you for your indulgence, and I yield back.
    The Chairman. A few of you touched on the Evidence Act. 
And, Dr. Hart, you talked about some of the other policies that 
Congress has passed trying to drive the use of data.
    So let me ask two things on this front. You said some of 
these things have been authorized but not appropriated to. Can 
you get a little more specific for us in terms of things--
again, I airdrop you on to this committee. If you there are 
things you think we should recommend get appropriated to, that 
is something in our--you know, that is something we can do.
    The other thing I want to ask--and I kind of tee this up 
just so folks can think about it. What would Evidence Act 2.0 
look like? I mean, you have said that there are some gaps. You 
know, if you have got some perspectives on things that are--you 
know, our committee or working in tandem with other committees 
ought to be thinking about in that regard, I would value your 
direction.
    Mr. Hart. So a couple of reactions both on the 
appropriations and the Evidence Act 2.0.
    So my organization conducts a survey of the Federal CDOs 
each year, and gaps in resources is a very common response 
across the Federal CDO community. Some of these offices are one 
person in large Cabinet-level departments. Many are staffed 
through loan, fellows across agency apparatuses.
    So if we are serious about data governance for the 
executive branch, we have to be able to invest in it.
    The Chairman. Yeah.
    Mr. Hart. Evaluation, similarly, as a field, as a function 
of government is often underinvested in. Some agencies have 
what are called set-aside authorities, so they can take a 
portion of an appropriation and allocate it for evaluation. 
Some have direct funding. Many have no explicit funding.
    So even though program evaluation is now designated by OMB 
as a core function of government, which the Evidence Act 
contributed to, many agencies are still dramatically 
underinvesting in the field.
    As for Evidence Act 2.0, there are a number of 
recommendations from the Evidence Commission that offer an easy 
starting point for ideas to explore. Those recommendations were 
unanimous across the politically appointed Members, Republicans 
and Democrats. And the Evidence Act included, frankly, some of 
the recommendations that were easier to do, particularly in 
short order.
    But the vision of the Evidence Commission was always that 
some future legislation would step in to address the remaining 
11 recommendations. And that includes the National Secure Data 
Service to deal with some of the data access and linkage issues 
that are really at the heart of evidence building.
    So I think that is a pretty safe place to begin exploring. 
We have talked about data standards just in the last couple of 
minutes, and I would also really highlight the need for 
processes--very clear processes to identify when we need data 
standards.
    The Chairman. That is great.
    Anyone else want to swing at that pitch or----
    Ms. McGuinness. I think, on the 2.0, I would strongly 
[inaudible] 2.0 recommendations, but also this recognition that 
to carry out those recommendations involves talent and time and 
resources, so that twinning of the tech talent----
    Mr. Timmons. Could you turn your mike on.
    Ms. McGuinness [continuing]. The twinning of the tech 
talent proposition for both Congress but also the Federal 
Government, the resourcing of the CDOs. But, also, frankly, 
leading policymakers need to be better data translators so that 
it doesn't sit entirely on the CDO to be answering these 
questions. So I think really making sure that Evidence 2.0 
contemplates the how to do what was prescripted, not just the 
what.
    Ms. MacDonald. I think Nick--Dr. Hart already shared this 
in his testimony, but I will say that, shouldn't Congress have 
its own chief data officer and its own capability? I would say 
not for--definitely not for duplicating data that already 
exists in the Federal Government, but for accessing that data 
and making it available to Members of Congress and their staff 
for decisionmaking.
    The Chairman. Is USAFacts' information entirely based on 
government data?
    Ms. MacDonald. We use only government data. We think that 
is the best way to ensure that, first of all, we are making the 
people's data accessible, but also to ensure that there is not 
any kind of partisanship introduced into the site. So it is 
just government data. We don't use opinion polling. We don't 
use predictive analysis. We use just the data as reported.
    The Chairman. And is your sense--and I ask this because, 
one, some of you have spoken to some of the deficiencies with 
regard to Federal data, and, two, not everybody trusts the 
Federal Government right now.
    So is your sense that there is legitimacy to those numbers 
or have you seen gaps that--I think it is important if our 
committee--just to zoom out for a second. I think one of the 
things that is broken in Congress is oftentimes when we engage 
on issues, the first questions that people ask are who is for 
it and who is against it, not what is the problem you are 
trying to solve and how does this solve it, right?
    And that is, I think, something that needs to change, and I 
think evidence is very important in that regard, particularly 
if people trust the evidence.
    So can you assuage our concerns on that and----
    Ms. MacDonald. Well, there has been an erosion of trust in 
every major institution in America, right--academia, banking, 
and Congress--but we do think that--and government, right? But 
we do think that the people who are public servants, working 
inside of Federal agencies, who are tasked with collecting data 
and reporting it across party lines, they are there as public 
servants to make this data available.
    And so we think it is a good source for the facts. And so, 
are there ways to improve it, to standardize it? Absolutely, 
but we think that people fund this data--I mentioned the $8.9 
billion that was appropriated in 2019, and it should be 
accessible to lawmakers and to citizens for decisionmaking.
    The Chairman. Okay.
    Mr. Hart. So I would just add--I mean, to the question of 
public trust, this is an incredibly important point for our 
government data collections. And if you have ever met someone 
that works in the Federal statistical system, I think they will 
assure you that we have a great deal of protections by design 
in the system on core data collections--the Census, the work of 
the National Center for Health Statistics, education 
statistics. So I trust the data that the Federal statistical 
system is producing, and I can say that emphatically.
    When we talk about evaluation and the work of 
administrative records, the same is true. The workforce 
producing this data, producing the evaluation and the insights, 
is incredibly talented and skilled. So, hopefully, that 
translates for the American people that they could also trust 
the information is coming out of this very objective system.
    The Chairman. We are good? All right.
    Mr. Timmons. Thank you so much.
    Ms. McGuinness. Thank you.
    The Chairman. I actually do have one other thing. Hold on. 
Let me just--yep. Go ahead.
    Ms. McGuinness. One thing on data and trust. Can you hear 
me?
    The Chairman. Yep.
    Ms. McGuinness. Which is--I think this--the importance of 
having large-scale data sets, which, collected by the Federal 
Government, meet a higher standard of protection than data 
collected by any other source--and there is profoundly more 
data collected, you know, in the private sector--I do think 
that pairing of qualitative and quantitative data can't be 
underestimated for people's ability to catch the blind spots.
    The diversity of data analysts in the government is really 
important. There are plenty of cases in my research where a 
data set came from a single source, like 311, that 
overrepresents certain voices. And it wasn't until you had a 
group of data scientists that came from all the communities 
that were served by this that allowed you to see--or do a set 
of interviews. So I really think pairing back to people's 
ability to trust kind of numbers and statistics, pairing in 2.0 
qualitative and quantitative data so people can hear their own 
voices and for things that the experts didn't know to ask show 
up is really important.
    The Chairman. Is there anything we didn't touch on in terms 
of just building capacity within the institution, building this 
muscle? I have heard your message loud and clear on having a 
chief data officer for the Congress. You know, I think in your 
testimony, at least one or two of you spoke to the importance 
of kind of staff trainings.
    Anything we didn't cover on that front? I just want to make 
sure we have----
    Ms. McGuinness. One piece that really gets to 
Representative Latta's question about----
    The Chairman. I don't think it is on.
    Ms. McGuinness. One piece that gets to Representative 
Latta's question about the gobbledygook, the ability to 
translate some of these materials, I do think very 
straightforward, you know, the 2010 Plain Language Act, which 
has kind of made these mandates of the Federal Government on 
usability could very easily be done back to lightweight, like a 
CDO. You know, leg counsel reviews every bill. You could have a 
plain language expert. This is what you have. I am sure leg 
counsel in Capital One reviews every--you know, every 
disclaimer that goes to the public, but having someone who has 
the skills of translating this back into English, I think, 
could make an enormous difference in a short period of time for 
someone to read a bill and know what it says.
    So I think that is one recommendation. A plain language 
expert here alongside leg counsel could go a long way.
    The Chairman. That is great.
    Mr. Hart. I think we touched on this idea that there could 
be some support capacity for--similarly in drafting 
legislation, who is thinking about the data collection, and 
this is actually necessary to make sure you can evaluate the 
program. Currently, that is probably committee by committee, 
and there is no consistent resource. So building that resource, 
I think, would be really important.
    The Chairman. That is good.
    Go ahead.
    Ms. MacDonald. Well, I may be ending on a Pollyanna note, 
but I just want to go back to something Vice Chair Timmons 
brought up in his introductory marks, where he said, I haven't 
been part of a conversation since I joined Congress that was a 
bipartisan group of Members starting from agreement on the 
facts, right?
    And I do--I have been a part of one of those conversations. 
It was on the Senate side where there was a bipartisan group of 
Members, and we sat down and rocked through the government data 
by the numbers. And you had somebody on the far right and the 
far left starting to talk about the obesity epidemic based on 
the numbers. And we had staff in the room and Senators say, We 
haven't had one of these conversations in Congress.
    But I think there is a real opportunity if you make this 
data available and accessible to bring Members together from 
both sides of the aisle. They may not agree on what is the 
right solution or what is the right path forward, but they can 
start from agreement on the facts, and I think that could 
rebuild trust from the American public as well.
    The Chairman. Good. Good note on which to end.
    I want to thank all three of our witnesses for their 
testimonies today and thank our committee members for their 
participation. I also want to thank the House Armed Services 
Committee for letting us commandeer their room once again, and 
thank the staff of this committee for putting together another 
great hearing with some terrific witnesses. So thank you for 
that.
    Without objection, all members will have 5 legislative days 
within which to submit additional written questions for the 
witnesses to the chair which will be forwarded to the witnesses 
for their response. I ask our witnesses to please respond as 
promptly as you are able.
    Without objection, all members will have 5 legislative days 
within which to submit extraneous materials to the chair for 
inclusion in the record. Phew.
    And, with that, this hearing is adjourned. Thanks. Thanks, 
everybody.
    [Whereupon, at 1:35 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

      

                               APPENDIX I

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