Understanding the Public Trust Rule: What It Is, What It Means, and Where We Are in 2025

Overview

One year after the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) finalized the Public Trust Rule—a regulation required by the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018—many stakeholders who depend on federal statistics remain unfamiliar with its requirements and implications. The Data Foundation and the National Academies for Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's (NASEM) Committee on National Statistics (CNSTAT) co-hosted a webinar to provide a clear explanation of the final regulation, its significance for the federal statistical system and data governance, and the current state of implementation in 2025.

The webinar aims to address three fundamental questions: 

• What is it? The Public Trust Rule codifies four fundamental responsibilities for federal statistical agencies. 
• What does it mean? The rule establishes how federal agencies, including the Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bureau of Economic Analysis, and National Center for Health Statistics, must operate to maintain or build public trust. 
• Where are we in 2025? Federal agencies are operationalizing the rule with varying degrees of progress. Speakers will explore implementation challenges, connections to the Trump Administration's AI Action Plan and Evidence Act priorities, and Year Two focus areas.

Speakers

• Katharine G. Abraham, chair of The National Academies' Committee on National Statistics and former chair of the U.S. Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking
• Nick Hart, president and chief executive officer of the Data Foundation
• Nancy Potok, former chief statistician of the United States
• Charlie Rothwell, former director of the National Center for Health Statistics
• Amanda Cash, moderator and senior director of the Data Foundation's Center for Data Policy