For anyone with a keen interest in what the federal government does to estate planning, retirement, annuity and general income tax regulations, Congress has a new secret weapon: a Congressional Research Service guide to the federal Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.
OIRA is the arm of the White House Office of Management and Budget that tries to estimate how much the information collection and recordkeeping requirements in every other agency's regulations will affect the regulated people and entities.
OIRA is the agency that, for example, estimated in 2024 that imposing fiduciary requirements on annuity professionals could reduce annuity fees by an average of about $3,100 to $5,100 per annuity professional per year.
OIRA scheduled an extensive series of meetings with financial professionals to discuss the impact of the fiduciary requirements that were then in development, but the agency ended up canceling many of the meetings.
If Congress ends up enacting a package of "Secure 3.0" retirement savings provisions or One Big Beautiful Bill health savings account provisions, OIRA will predict how much filling out any new Secure 3.0 paperwork created will cost.
In some cases, OIRA analyses could persuade the agencies implementing laws and regulations to change their approach, postpone implementation of new requirements or even cancel new requirements.
What it means: The CRS guide may help readers understand what, in some cases, may be an unpredictable but potentially powerful regulatory requirement softener.
The Congressional Research Service: The CRS is an arm of Congress that helps members of Congress and their aides understand the details behind how the government really works.
The OIRA paper: The 28-page CRS paper about OIRA describes OIRA's history, explains who works for OIRA, talks about how OIRA reviews regulations and analyzes a regulation's paperwork burden impact, and discusses other OIRA activities, such as statistical analysis services.
What the CRS says: Congress created OIRA when it passed the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980.
OIRA started out giving the Office of Management and Budget advice about federal information policy.
Former President Ronald Reagan later asked OIRA to prepare impact analyses for most major proposed federal regulations.
OIRA now has 58 full-time employees and full-time employee equivalents and an annual budget of $16 million.
OMB has 510 full-time employees and full-time employee equivalents and an annual budget of $144 million, and some of OMB's employees and budget support OIRA.
The administrator in charge of OIRA, Richard Revesz, was nominated to his post in 2022.
The OIRA "paperwork burden" reviews now cover many different kinds of information collection activities, including oral communications and use of computers, according to the CRS analysis.
Today, OIRA is also helping the federal government cope with statistics integrity, data privacy and information security issues.
OIRA policy questions for Congress include whether OIRA has enough funding to handle its workload and whether it's working closely enough with other entities to carry out its mission, according to the CRS analysts.
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