Priorities

A new bipartisan Senate bill would scrap hundreds reporting requirements for federal agencies, including an annual review involving dog and cat fur protections.

The measure, introduced this week by Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), would eliminate, combine or modify more than 320 reports that agencies have identified as unnecessary, duplicative or outdated.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) plan to introduce companion legislation in the House, according to a joint statement from Warner and Ayotte, who head the Senate Budget Committee’s Government Performance Task Force.

Among the requirements that would disappear under the Senate bill, one mandates that U.S. Customs and Border Protection produce annual reports on violations of the Dog and Cat Fur Protection Act of 2000. Only one recorded infraction has occurred in the past five years, according to the statement.

The Senate bill would also eliminate an annual report the Social Security Administration is required to file on its printing activities. No lawmaker has ever taken action on the findings from those reviews, the statement said.

“If these unnecessary-but-required reports are wasting staff time and resources and are sitting on a shelf collecting dust, then it’s long past time for them to be eliminated or consolidated,” Warner said.