Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act

Evidence Act

Long title	Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018
Nicknames	Evidence Act
Enacted by	the 115th United States Congress
Effective	01/14/2019
Citations
Public law	Pub. L. 115–435 (text) (PDF)
Legislative history
Introduced in the House by Paul Ryan (R–WI) on 10/31/2017 Signed into law by President Donald Trump on 01/14/2019

The Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act (Evidence Act) is a United States law that establishes processes for the federal government to modernize its data management practices, evidence-building functions, and statistical efficiency to inform policy decisions.^[1] The Evidence Act contains four parts ("titles"), which address evidence capacity, open data (OPEN Government Data Act),^[a][2] and data confidentiality (the reauthorization of the Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act).^[3]

The bill was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by former House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin on October 31, 2017.^[1] Senator Patty Murray filed counterpart legislation in the U.S. Senate. Rep. Ryan and Sen. Murray acknowledged that the basis of the legislation was a set of recommendations issued by the U.S. Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking. The Evidence Act addresses half of the recommendations from that commission.^[3]

In November 2017, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform advanced the bill, which was approved unanimously by the full House. The Senate advanced a modified version of the bill in December 2018, which returned to the House for a final vote. The U.S. president signed the bill into law on January 14, 2019.^[1]

Federal agencies have undertaken extensive activities to support implementation of the Evidence Act, beginning in 2019. Many activities are documented in a report from the Data Foundation describing the status of the Evidence Commission's recommendations after 5-years.^[4] The federal government also published new resources that describe implementation progress that reflect respective titles of the law. For example:

• Title 1 relates to evidence-building functions and evaluation with additional information available at evaluation.gov
• Title 2 relates to data management and chief data officers with additional information available at cdo.gov and through the Federal Data Strategy
• Title 3 relates to statistical policy with additional information available at statspolicy.gov

• Open data in the United States
• U.S. Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking, est. March 2016

• "Transparency-seeking OPEN Government Data Act signed into law", TechCrunch, January 15, 2019
• Nick Hart; Nancy Potok (July 2020), Modernizing U.S. Data Infrastructure: Design Considerations for Implementing a National Secure Data Service to Improve Statistics and Evidence Building, Washington, D.C.: Data Foundation

• Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018 (PDF/details) as amended in the GPO Statute Compilations collection
• H.R.4174 - Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018 bill information on Congress.gov
• Overview of the Evidence Act from the Data Foundation's Data Coalition
• GSA Technology Transformation Services. Draft 2019-2020 Federal Data Strategy Action Plan
• Data Coalition. OPEN Government Data Act (assorted info from advocacy group supporting machine-readable data)
• Office of Mgmt. & Budget, Exec. Office of the President, OMB Mem. No. M-19-23, Phase 1 Implementation of the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018: Learning Agendas, Personnel, and Planning Guidance (2019), https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/M-19-23.pdf
• Office of Mgmt. & Budget, Exec. Office of the President, OMB Mem. No M-13-13, Open Data Policy---Managing Information as an Asset (2013), https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/omb/memoranda/2013/m-13-13.pdf

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