[Federal Register Volume 88, Number 164 (Friday, August 25, 2023)]
[Notices]
[Pages 58316-58318]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2023-18313]


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OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET


Statistical Policy Directive No. 3: Compilation, Release, and 
Evaluation of Principal Federal Economic Indicators--Proposal To Change 
Timing of Public Comments by Employees of the Executive Branch

AGENCY: Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of 
Management and Budget, Executive Office of the President.

ACTION: Notice of solicitation of comments.

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SUMMARY: The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issues a request for 
public comments on a proposal to modify one provision within 
Statistical Policy Directive No. 3: Compilation, Release, and 
Evaluation of Principal Federal Economic Indicators (Directive No. 3). 
The procedures in Directive No. 3, published in 1985, were designed to 
ensure equitable, policy-neutral, and timely release and dissemination 
of Principal Federal Economic Indicators (PFEIs). The goals of 
Directive No. 3 remain sound; this Notice proposes updates to 
procedures consistent with these goals to reflect advances in 
communication technologies and methods. In particular, OMB proposes to 
modify the provision, ``employees of the Executive Branch shall not 
comment publicly on the data until at least one hour after the official 
release time,'' by replacing ``one hour'' with ``thirty minutes.'' This 
proposed change would reduce the delay after official release time 
before commentary from employees of the Executive Branch. Additional 
discussion of the request for public comment may be found in the 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section below.

DATES: To ensure consideration of comments on this notice, they must be 
received no later than October 24, 2023. Because of delays in the 
receipt of regular mail related to security screening, respondents are 
encouraged to send comments electronically (see ADDRESSES, below).

ADDRESSES: Submit comments through www.regulations.gov--a Federal E-
Government website that allows the public to find, review, and submit 
comments on documents that agencies have published in the Federal 
Register and that are open for comment. Enter ``OMB-2023-0016'' (in 
quotes) in the Comment or Submission search box, click Go, and follow 
the instructions for submitting comments. Comments received by the date 
specified above will be included as part of the official record.
    Privacy Notice: Information submitted in response to this RFI will 
be maintained in the OMB Public Input System of Records, OMB/INPUT/01 
88 FR 20913. OMB generally makes comments received from members of the 
public available for public viewing on the Federal Rulemaking Portal at 
www.regulations.gov. As such, commenters should not include information 
that they do not wish to make publicly available, including information 
of a confidential nature, such as sensitive personal information or 
proprietary information. Please note that if you submit your email 
address, it will be automatically captured and included as part of the 
comment that is placed in the public docket; however, 
www.regulations.gov does include the option of commenting anonymously. 
For more detail about how OMB may maintain and disclose submitted 
information, please review the System of Records Notice at 88 FR 20913.
    Electronic Availability: This notice is available on the internet 
on the OMB

[[Page 58317]]

website at https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/. Federal Register notices 
are also available electronically at https://www.federalregister.gov/.
    Instructions: Response to this Notice is voluntary. Respondents may 
provide input on any aspects of this solicitation. OMB will not respond 
to individual submissions.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For information about this request for 
comments, contact Kerrie Leslie, Office of Management and Budget, New 
Executive Office Building, Washington, DC 20503, telephone (202) 395-
1093, email [email protected] with the subject ``More 
Info: Directive No. 3.''

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 
    Background: The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issues a 
request for comments on a proposal to change one provision within 
Statistical Policy Directive No. 3: Compilation, Release, and 
Evaluation of Principal Federal Economic Indicators (50 FR 38932, Sep. 
25, 1985) (Directive No. 3), issued under the Budget and Accounting 
Procedures Act of 1950 (31 U.S.C. 1104(d)) and the Paperwork Reduction 
Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 3504(e)) (the PRA).\1\ The stated purposes of 
Directive No. 3 are to preserve the time value of the economic 
indicators, strike a balance between timeliness and accuracy, provide 
for periodic evaluation of each indicator, prevent early access to 
information that may affect financial and commodity markets, and 
preserve the distinction between the policy-neutral release of data by 
statistical agencies and their interpretation by policy officials. 
Directive No. 3 remains a robust, comprehensive source of guidance for 
Federal statistical agencies and recognized statistical units producing 
Principal Federal Economic Indicators (PFEIs). The government and 
private sector widely watch and heavily rely upon these statistical 
series as indicators of the current condition and direction of the 
economy.
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    \1\ The full text of Directive No. 3 is available at 
www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/legacy_drupal_files/omb/assets/OMB/inforeg/statpolicy/dir_3_fr_09251985.pdf.
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    The procedures in Directive No. 3, published in 1985, were designed 
to ensure equitable, policy-neutral, and timely release and 
dissemination of Principal Federal Economic Indicators (``PFEIs''). The 
goals of Directive No. 3 remain sound, and this Notice does not seek to 
change them. Specifically, in furtherance of these goals, we are 
proposing to retain the requirement that some period of time needs to 
elapse between the policy-neutral release of the data and the public 
interpretation of such data by policy officials in the Executive 
Branch. More background and history on the policies of Directive No. 3 
can be found in the April 2019 Federal Register Notice (84 FR 14682, 
Apr. 11, 2019) (April 2019 FRN), available at www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/04/11/2019-07172/statistical-policy-directive-no-3-compilation-release-and-evaluation-of-principal-federal-economic.
    Previous proposal. In April 2019, OMB published in the Federal 
Register a request for comments on a proposal to reduce the duration of 
the prohibition of commentary by employees of the Executive Branch 
following the PFEI release from one hour to something shorter, 
including the consideration of the option of having no delay at all (84 
FR 14682, Apr. 11, 2019). OMB received sixteen in-scope comments in 
response to that Notice.\2\ All in-scope commenters strongly supported 
either a retention of the one-hour delay, or a delay of some duration, 
after official release time before employees of the Executive Branch 
could comment on the PFEI releases, with no commenters in support of 
removing the delay entirely.
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    \2\ Public comments received in response to the April 2019 FRN 
are available at www.regulations.gov/document/OMB-2019-0001-0001/comment.
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    Updated proposal. OMB agrees with the previous comments on this 
issue submitted in 2019, and understands that maintaining some delay as 
part of Directive No. 3 continues to be important to maintain the 
bright line between the release of data and any commentary on such data 
by Executive Branch officials. OMB is seeking public comment on the 
updated proposal that would modify the delay from one hour to thirty 
minutes. OMB is considering this updated proposal because, while the 
delay is important to ensuring a clear bright line between the data 
release and the Executive Branch's policy interpretation, OMB also 
understands that since 1985 there have been many changes in the way we 
communicate within and across society, as well as in how the relevant 
agencies disseminate information. For example, in addition to more 
traditional means of dissemination (e.g., newspaper or radio), agencies 
now disseminate and society interacts with data releases through the 
internet, including through websites, social media platforms, and other 
applications. These newer dissemination platforms in particular offer 
nearly instantaneous access to any information supplied by the agencies 
producing the PFEI data, including the data releases. These platforms 
can also offer direct attribution of the data to the agencies that 
produce it; these agencies are required to meet data quality standards 
and are trusted to implement those requirements. These advances in the 
timing and attribution of dissemination can contribute to the ability 
of society to fully digest the data releases sooner than when such 
dissemination methods were not available.
    In addition, society generally communicates and interacts 
differently now than in 1985. In particular, various platforms exist 
now that allow society to interact seconds after a new data release 
comes out. This means that for these PFEI data releases, non-
governmental actors are engaging in dialogue almost immediately 
following the official release time and can be offering perspectives on 
the meaning of the data. Under the current Directive No. 3, this 
dialogue is missing any Executive Branch interpretation until at least 
one hour after the data's official release time. Under this proposal to 
reduce the delay to thirty minutes, Executive Branch officials could 
enter the dialogue thirty minutes earlier. OMB is considering the 
proposed change because we believe it is likely to lead to a more 
robust discussion without compromising the underlying principles of 
Directive No. 3, including the benefits of having some time delay.
    OMB is not considering any other alternatives in this proposal; 
this means that OMB is neither considering removing the delay entirely, 
nor is it considering any other changes to any other policies in 
Directive No. 3. OMB proposes changing the italicized text in the 
excerpt from Directive No. 3 below, which is part of the last paragraph 
of Section 5 of Directive No. 3 \3\:
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    \3\ The full text of Directive No. 3 is available at 
www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/legacy_drupal_files/omb/assets/OMB/inforeg/statpolicy/dir_3_fr_09251985.pdf.

    5. Release Procedure. * * * Except for the authorized 
distribution described in this section, agencies shall ensure that 
no information or data estimates are released before the official 
release time.
    The agency will provide prerelease information to the President, 
through the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, as soon as 
it is available. The agency may grant others prerelease access only 
under the following conditions:
    (a) The agency head must establish whatever security 
arrangements are necessary and impose whatever conditions on the 
granting of access are necessary to ensure that there is no 
unauthorized dissemination or use.

[[Page 58318]]

    (b) The agency head shall ensure that any person granted access 
has been fully informed of and agreed to these conditions.
    (c) Any prerelease of information under an embargo shall not 
precede the official release time by more than 30 minutes.
    (d) In all cases, prerelease access shall precede the official 
release time only to the extent necessary for an orderly review of 
the data.
    All employees of the Executive Branch who receive prerelease 
distribution of information and data estimates as authorized above 
are responsible for assuring that there is no release prior to the 
official release time. Except for members of the staff of the agency 
issuing the principal economic indicator who have been designated by 
the agency head to provide technical explanations of the data, 
employees of the Executive Branch shall not comment publicly on the 
data until at least one hour after the official release time.

    Under OMB's proposal, the italicized text would be changed to ``at 
least thirty minutes after the official release time.''
    Any changes to the text from Section 5 would neither affect nor 
replace any of the other standards and guidelines articulated in 
Directive No. 3.
    Request for comments. OMB seeks comments from all interested 
parties, including data users, businesses, organizations, and the 
media. Specifically, OMB seeks comments from the public about the 
proposal to change the delay from one hour to thirty minutes, including 
whether such a change could still meet the goals of Directive No. 3 to 
ensure equitable, policy-neutral, and timely release and dissemination 
of PFEIs. OMB also seeks input on whether to maintain the one-hour 
delay.

Richard L. Revesz,
Administrator, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.
[FR Doc. 2023-18313 Filed 8-23-23; 11:15 am]
BILLING CODE 3110-01-P