[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 31, Number 21 (Monday, May 29, 1995)]
[Pages 884-886]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on Signing the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995

May 22, 1995

    Thank you very much. Mr. Bersoff, thank you for your comments and 
for the outstanding example of the family business you have built to 
such a remarkable extent. Thank you, Sally Katzen.
    Before I begin, as a matter of personal privilege, I would just like 
to say a brief word about the death of my good friend Les Aspin. Hillary 
and I grieve his loss, and along with all other Americans, we thank him 
for the remarkable service he rendered to our country as a distinguished 
Congressman from Wisconsin, as the Chairman of the Armed Services 
Committee of the House, as Secretary of Defense, and as head of the 
President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. He did a lot of work to 
keep us safe through a turbulent time, and we are all very, very much in 
his debt.
    Let me thank the Members of Congress who are here. You know, I've 
got to say, I was sitting here listening to Mr. Bersoff talk, and I 
thought it'll be a miracle if we get this on the news tonight, because 
this is something we did without anybody fighting. [Laughter] And the 
real reason this languished around for 5 years was because nobody was 
fighting anybody else about it. And after I got here, I discovered some 
of the best ideas in Washington were not being implemented simply 
because there was no anger attached to them. It's a sad thing to say, 
but it's absolutely right.
    And so, sometimes energy is not behind things that hang around here 
for years, because there's no real brutal conflict. And in that context, 
I want to thank the Members of Congress who are here for overcoming all 
the inertia against consensus--[laughter]--and actually passing a bill 
that everybody was for. And I thank you. I thank Senators Nunn, Roth, 
and Glenn; Representatives Meyers, Sisisky, Peterson, and Davis, all of 
whom are here, and of course, former Congressman Horton and former 
Senator, now Governor Lawton Chiles for the work that they have done.
    This is a remarkable bill, and I want to talk about what it does. 
But first, let me say

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that for a bill in which there was not a lot of opposition, there was an 
awful lot of support and input about exactly how to do this. People all 
over our country, big and small businesses, organizations from the 
National Governors' Association to the National Association of Towns and 
Townships to librarians actually testified in favor of this bill--what 
we ought to do and how it ought to be done.
    The legislation recognizes that the private sector is the engine of 
our prosperity, that when we act to protect the environment or the 
health of our people, we ought to do it without unnecessary paperwork, 
maddening redtape, or irrational rules.
    We have to reform our regulatory system in ways that protects the 
larger public interest without strangling business. These changes 
reflect the right way to reform Government. It is very consistent with 
the things that I believe need to be done. In the last 2 years we have 
already reduced the size of the Federal bureaucracy by more than 100,000 
employees, going down under existing budgets to a reduction of more than 
272,000, and if the last few weeks are any indication, we're about to 
reduce the Government some more.
    This Paperwork Reduction Act helps us to conquer a mountain of 
paperwork that is crushing our people and wasting a lot of time and 
resources and which actually accumulated not because anybody wanted to 
harm the private sector but because we tend to think of good ideas in 
serial form without thinking of how the overall impact of them impacts a 
system that is very dynamic and very sensitive to emerging technologies 
but which Government does not always respond to in the same way.
    I want to say again how much I appreciate the work that Sally Katzen 
and her shop have done. And I want to thank the Congress for enabling 
them to continue on the job.
    In recent months, some others have made similar announcements. Carol 
Browner, at the EPA, announced that she would cut the paperwork 
requirements of the EPA on the private sector by 25 percent. To give you 
an idea of what that means, that is 20 million hours of labor a year.
    We often debate here what we can give the American people. We're 
about to have a debate: Should we give the American people more funds 
for education, more funds for Medicare, or more money back in a tax cut? 
But nothing is more precious, I see as I get older, than your own time. 
And for a Government to give the American people back, at no cost to the 
public interest, 20 million hours, is an extraordinary gift and worth a 
great deal of money and additions to the quality of life.
    The FDA is going to dramatically speed approvals of many different 
kinds of medical devices. The SBA has reduced the inch-thick loan form 
applications to one page.
    Here are some other places we will cut. The Department of 
Agriculture so far has eliminated the need for more than 3 million pages 
of Government forms from a quarter million farmers. The Department of 
Energy took these three big binders here, filled with reporting 
requirements, and sliced them to 11 pages--11 pages from those three big 
binders. That saved $48 million a year, but it also gave the gift of 
time back to the people who were subject to it.
    The Department of Education required both parents to sign a student 
loan and other financial aid forms. This is impossible in some cases 
when the non-custodial parent is not available. In lots of homes today, 
it's hard for both parents to be in the same place at the same time 
anyway. Now, one parent signature is all that's required.
    So far, we have eliminated the forms represented in this large stack 
of papers here on the table. When you count all the people and all the 
businesses that have to fill out the forms already eliminated, in one 
year, we've eliminated paper that would stretch end to end from 
Washington, DC, to San Francisco, California.
    To further reduce these burdens, I have directed our agencies to 
continue to review their regulations, to eliminate the outdated and 
streamline the bloated. I have also directed them, whenever possible, to 
cut in half the frequency of reports they require from citizens. For 
example, if they ask for quarterly reports, why don't we just have them 
twice a year instead?
    As we reform, we need not compromise the quality of life or the 
needed oversight from the Government. But the truth is, we

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can actually improve the system by making it less hidebound and by 
innovating as Americans are innovating.
    Today I want to add another dimension to this effort: From this 
point forward, I want all of our agencies to provide for the electronic 
submission of every new Government form or demonstrate to OMB why it 
cannot be done that way. The old way will still be available, but I 
think once people see how fast and efficient electronic filing can be, 
we'll see less paperwork and more of these. So, we're trying to do our 
part to act in good faith the way these Members of Congress intended the 
executive branch to act.
    As you know, these little things store incredible volumes of 
information--incredible. My daughter knows more about it than I do, but 
I'm learning myself just in the things that we do incredibly how much 
more we can do and at a tiny fraction of the space involved, not to 
mention the speed. So the more we use electronic transmissions, the more 
we'll all be working quicker and smarter, giving better service to the 
American public, a more efficient Government, and far, far less 
paperwork.
    I want to say again, the remarkable thing about this effort was that 
at the time we actually got it through the Congress, there was not a 
single dissenting vote. But very often the things we do not do in life 
are the things we all know we should do. That is a principle that 
extends beyond this bill.
    And we owe a great debt of gratitude to the Members of Congress, 
especially those here present, who exercised the leadership to get this 
done as well as to Governor Chiles and former Congressman Horton for the 
work they did to pave the way. So I would like to ask the Members to 
come up while we sign the bill, and Congressman Horton and Governor 
Chiles to come up as well. Please come up, and we'll do it.
    Thank you very much.

[At this point, the President signed the bill.]

    Thank you very much. We're adjourned. Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 2:18 p.m. in Room 450 of the Old Executive 
Office Building. In his remarks, he referred to Ed Bersoff, president 
and chief executive officer, BTG, Inc. S. 244, approved May 22, was 
assigned Public Law No. 104-13.