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]
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
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
