Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act

Not to be confused with Evidence Act.

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]

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

Legislative history

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]

Implementation

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

See also

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

Notes

1. The OPEN Government Data Act is Title II of the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act