Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act

The Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking 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. The Evidence Act contains three parts, which address evidence capacity, open data, and data confidentiality.

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. 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.
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.

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. 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
Title 2 relates to data management and chief data officers with additional information available at and through the Federal Data Strategy
Title 3 relates to statistical policy with additional information available at