Accuracy of Information in the Unified Agenda (27-JUL-01,	 
GAO-01-1024R).							 
								 
This report discusses the accuracy of information in the Unified 
Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions. Because	 
the agendas are published roughly every six months, items in the 
completed action section should reflect actions that the agencies
have taken within the previous six months. However, GAO found	 
entries on actions that were completed more than six months	 
before the agenda was published. GAO also found that, in some	 
cases, the Unified Agenda provided the wrong date for rules	 
published in the Federal Register. Finally, GAO found entries	 
that incorrectly indicated that a regulatory flexibility analysis
was required. GAO recognizes that it is impossible to produce a  
document the size of the Unified Agenda without any errors,	 
however, the entries should accurately reflect actions that have 
already been taken so that document users can identify regulatory
actions that are of interest to them.				 
-------------------------Indexing Terms------------------------- 
REPORTNUM:   GAO-01-1024R					        
    ACCNO:   A01514						        
  TITLE:     Accuracy of Information in the Unified Agenda	      
     DATE:   07/27/2001 
  SUBJECT:   Regulatory agencies				 
	     Data integrity					 
	     Agency proceedings 				 
	     Government publications				 
	     Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and		 
	     Deregulatory Actions				 
								 
	     Federal Agency Major Rules 			 

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GAO-01-1024R
     
GAO- 01- 1024R Accuracy of the Unified Agenda

United States General Accounting Office Washington, DC 20548

July 27, 2001 Mr. Ronald C. Kelly Executive Director Regulatory Information
Service Center

Subject: Accuracy of Information in the Unified Agenda Dear Mr. Kelly: At
the request of the Ranking Minority Member of the Senate Committee on Small
Business, we are reviewing the implementation of section 212 of the Small
Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act in selected agencies. In the
course of that review, we discovered several errors in recent editions of
the Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions. The
errors generally fell into three categories: (1) entries that should have
appeared in previous editions of the Agenda, (2) entries that reported the
wrong date of regulatory action, and (3) entries that incorrectly reported
the status of rules regarding the Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980. This
letter is intended to call those errors to your attention and to suggest a
way to improve the accuracy of the Agenda.

In our review, we examined entries in the ?completed action? sections of the
agendas prepared by the Departments of Commerce and Health and Human
Services (HHS), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and the
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for April and October of 1999 and
2000, and for April 2001. According to the Unified Agenda, ?completed
actions? include ?actions or reviews the agency has completed or withdrawn
since publishing its last agenda.? Because the Agendas are published roughly
every 6 months, items in the completed action section should reflect actions
that the agencies have taken within the previous 6 months. However, some of
the Agenda entries that we reviewed involved actions completed more than 6
months before the date of the Agenda. At least14 of the FCC ?completed
action? entries had this problem. For example, an FCC entry in the April
1999 edition of the Agenda (sequence number 4173) indicated that a final
rule had been published in the Federal Register in September 1997- 19 months
prior to the date of the Agenda in which the entry appeared. Therefore, this
?completed action? did not involve a rule that had been completed since the
agency?s last agenda.

We also discovered that, in some cases, the Unified Agenda provided the
wrong dates on which the rules were published in the Federal Register. At
least nine of the SEC entries that we reviewed had this problem. For
example, in the October 1999 edition of the Agenda (sequence number 4664),
the SEC indicated that the final rule for that

GAO- 01- 1024R Accuracy of the Unified Agenda 2 entry was published on
August 20, 1999. However, the rule was actually published on

August 27, 1999. In another entry in the same edition of the Agenda
(sequence number 4667), the SEC said that the final rule was published on
April 15, 1999, but the rule was actually published on April 21, 1999. These
errors in the Federal Register

publication dates are confusing to Agenda users and make finding the
associated rule more difficult.

Finally, we discovered that some of the regulatory actions that the agencies
indicated required a regulatory flexibility analysis, in fact, did not
require such an analysis. For example, a Department of Commerce entry in the
April 2000 edition of the Agenda (sequence number 646) indicated that the
rule at issue would require a regulatory flexibility analysis (? Regulatory
Flexibility Analysis Required: Yes?). However, the

Federal Register notice for this rule clearly stated that a regulatory
flexibility analysis was not required because the rule was not expected to
have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small
entities. We also found entries in which the opposite was true. That is, the
Agenda indicated that the rule associated with an entry did not require a
regulatory flexibility analysis, but the rule itself indicated that an
analysis was done. These errors in the ?Regulatory Flexibility Analysis
Required? field have made our review of agencies? implementation of section
212 more difficult and can create a false impression regarding the degree to
which agencies are conducting the analyses.

We recognize that it is the agencies? responsibility to provide accurate
information to your office for compilation in the Unified Agenda. We also
recognize that it is impossible to produce a document the size of the
Unified Agenda with absolutely no errors, particularly for those parts of
the Agenda that reflect forthcoming regulatory actions. However, the
completed action field is intended to reflect actions that have already been
taken. Agencies should be able to reflect those actions accurately so that
users of the Agenda can rely on the document to identify regulatory actions
of interest to them. Therefore, we recommend that you alert the agencies
contributing to the Agenda that some of their entries have been found in
error, and that they should take steps to ensure the accuracy of the
information provided for publication in future editions of the Agenda.

We appreciate your attention to this matter. If you have any questions,
please call Curtis Copeland of my staff at (202) 512- 8101.

Sincerely yours, Victor S. Rezendes Managing Director Strategic Issues

(450064)
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