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| 6 Nov 2025 | |
| Written by J.B. Wogan | |
| United States of America | |
| Blogs |
On November 3, 2025, the Data Foundation and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's Committee on National Statistics (CNSTAT) co-hosted a webinar marking the one-year anniversary of the White House Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) finalization of the Public Trust Rule. Formally known as the Fundamental Responsibilities of Recognized Statistical Agencies and Units, the regulation stems from the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act, which was signed into law by President Trump in 2019. By codifying principles for federal statistical agencies, it provides “a foundation for trustworthy federal data that Americans and businesses rely on every day,” said Data Foundation President and Chief Executive Officer Nick Hart.
The webinar explored the significance of the Public Trust Rule, risks to its implementation, and why it’s imperative that the federal government continue to make progress in strengthening and modernizing its statistical system. Amanda Cash, senior director of the Data Foundation’s Center for Data Policy, moderated the webinar with the following speakers:
The Public Trust Rule codifies four fundamental responsibilities for statistical agencies: producing timely information, conducting credible and accurate activities, maintaining objectivity, and protecting confidentiality.
Those principles “might sound pretty aspirational,” said Hart, but “we've actually been using those for years.” In fact, more than a decade ago, OMB published Statistical Policy Directive Number 1, which provides guidance to federal statistical agencies and units on the design, collection, processing, editing, compilation, storage, analysis, release, and dissemination of federal statistics. “The rule, though, specifies concrete operational requirements to make those principles real and actionable,” Hart clarified.
Beyond establishing standards for statistical agencies, the rule creates structural protections for statistical independence. For example, parent agencies—the larger governmental body that hosts a statistical agency or unit—cannot require clearance of statistical products outside the statistical agency, meaning that statistical units should respond directly to media and congressional inquiries. The regulation also ensures agencies control their methods and timing for releasing products, participate directly in budget development, maintain autonomy over their websites, and hold exclusive authority for granting access to confidential data.
As Abraham explained, "I appreciate the fact that the rule provides a roadmap for a way of doing business that not only should help to ensure that the data that the statistical agencies produce are accurate and objective, but also that they'll be perceived as accurate and objective."
The rule also establishes an accountability infrastructure through regular compliance reviews by agency inspectors general, with the chief statistician of the United States (at OMB) responsible for posting recommendations and tracking remediation. Importantly, the regulation envisions collaboration rather than isolation, requiring regular communication between statistical agency heads and parent agency leadership while recognizing the need for coordination among chief data officers, chief AI officers, evaluation officers, and privacy officers.
Potok emphasized how the regulation clarifies roles in the federal government's decentralized statistical system: "By establishing these standards and saying, look, whether you're the Census Bureau or one of the smallest statistical agencies, you still have to live with and comply with and really adhere to a set of standards."
The Public Trust Rule includes mechanisms for oversight, but questions remain about enforcement. The regulation calls for inspectors general to conduct compliance reviews every three years, with the chief statistician coordinating across agencies and tracking remediation efforts. The intent, Hart said, is that reports from the inspectors general inform and empower the chief statistician to influence changes across agencies. “It's not just about monitoring,” he said. “It's actually about systematically improving the system over time.”
However, Potok noted a gap in how the rule ensures the improvements actually happen: "If there isn't compliance, and even if the chief statistician elevates that, then what happens? What are the consequences?"
Recent developments, including OMB’s decision to withhold funding for the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE), could affect the capacity of inspectors general to conduct regular reviews of agencies’ compliance with the rule.
Nonetheless, Potok identified an alternative and potentially more effective source of oversight: "Another really important source of oversight, in fact, what I've seen is the most effective form of oversight is from the data users and stakeholders who have a direct line to members of Congress."
The panelists emphasized that data users—including businesses, state and local governments, and other stakeholders—must actively engage when their needs aren't being met. "If the public is losing trust and feels that the data they're getting is not timely, is not objective," Potok said, "then the data users have to really step up and be vocal about this and talk to Congress."
Abraham and Rothwell both strongly endorsed this approach. "We're not collecting it to edify ourselves, us statisticians," Rothwell said. "We're providing this information to others to make policy decisions, to make decisions in their own lives, to make decisions at the state or local level. And if we're not doing our job, then they need to contact Congress."
The most immediate implementation risk, Potok said, is inaction. Parent agencies face a December 2026 deadline to revise rules, procedures, and practices that impede their statistical agencies. "The risk to me is that we don't do anything in the next 12 months."
One year after the Public Trust Rule's finalization, the panelists expressed cautious optimism about the future of federal statistics, even amid broader uncertainties about government data activities.
Potok highlighted a significant positive signal: "There hasn't, to date, been a move to try to pull back or change this regulation. It stands as it is in place." She noted that other recent administration guidance, particularly the national AI Action Plan, reinforces the importance of federal statistics. "Some things in the AI Action Plan really demonstrate that, underlying all this, there is a fundamental agreement that statistics are important, that there is a federal role in producing statistics, and that they do need to be trusted."
The AI Action Plan's recognition of the need for coordination and data sharing between agencies like the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis to understand AI's workforce effects builds on the Evidence Act's foundation and the Public Trust Rule's collaborative framework.
Rothwell emphasized that the regulation provides "those beginning steps to the future" for improving timeliness, geographic granularity, credibility, and relevancy of statistical information. He called on the administration to "take the lead and direct the statistical agencies with their parent departments to take these next steps more boldly," adding that doing so would boost staff morale and set "the stage for the building of trust from a contentious time to one of cooperation."
The panelists also stressed the importance of two additional regulations required by the Evidence Act—the “presumption of access” rule and the separate “data sensitivity and access” rule—for modernizing the statistical system. Abraham expressed concern about the pace of progress on these regulations, explaining that the presumption of access rule would help statistical agencies access administrative data held by other federal agencies.
As we enter the second year of the Public Trust Rule, Hart said it’s “an important moment for the data community to reflect on progress and recommit to the rule’s effective implementation across the federal government.” The webinar panel acknowledged that the rule’s finalization was a major step forward for strengthening the federal statistical system, but now federal agencies, oversight bodies, and data users need to act to make sure that progress continues.
