Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics
COPAFS Highlights December Meeting
C
OPAFS, the Council of Professional Associations on organization that maintains objectivity and does not advocate
Federal Statistics is comprised of more than 60 organiza- specific programs.
tions, including professional associations, businesses, BTS produces numerous data products and reports to
research institutes, and others interested in federal statistics. As a Congress based on data from a variety of public and private
member of COPAFS, the ASA has two representatives from the sources. The Commodity Flow Survey is their flagship product
Government Statistics Section who represent the association by and includes data on the nation’s freight transportation system.
attending its quarterly meetings and reporting back to the mem- BTS also works on geospatial information systems (software
bership. Following are highlights from the December 5, 2007, related to routing), a national transportation library (an online
meeting at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. repository), and a transportation services index (of for-hire trans-
portation services).
America’s Children
BTS publications are available at www.bts.gov.
Jennifer Madans from the National Center for Health Statistics
distributed copies of “America’s Children: Key National
Hill Activities
Indicators of Well-Being 2007,” a report produced by the Federal Whimsically described as “the new Terri Ann Lowenthal,” Mary
Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. The forum, Jo Hoeksema is public affairs specialist with the Population
formed in 1994 and formally established in 1997, fosters coordi- Association of America and no stranger to those who follow census
nation and cooperation among agencies in the collection, report- and other population data issues. Hoeksema introduced Darryl
ing, and dissemination of federal data on children and families. Piggee, who started in September as staff director for the House
The forum consists of 22 agencies, many of which are involved subcommittee with oversight of the Census.
with health statistics. Piggee remarked that, while he is still new on the job, he
The forum used to publish The Book every year, but that was already has seen bureau director Louis Kincannon make three
difficult to maintain with a limited staff, so now it is published “final” appearances before the subcommittee. Piggee looks for-
every other year, alternating with a report issued in the in-between ward to working with census stakeholders, but said his first major
years. One frustration is that by the time The Book is released, task is dealing with the continuing resolution and its implications
much of its data are out of date, but the reports are popular and for 2010 Census preparations. The first continuing resolution
the most recent data are always available on the web. did not exempt the census from flat funding, and Piggee cred-
The 2007 book marks the publication’s 10th anniversary, and ited stakeholder communications as critical in getting the urgently
the forum has taken the opportunity to review and revise its struc- needed exemption into the second continuing resolution. Piggee
ture and scope. Looking to the future, Madans indicated that the then reviewed the impact of the first continuing resolution on the
forum plans to research possible new topics, including foster care census dress rehearsal, 2010 contracts, and SIPP and the census
and the time use and physical activity of children. partnership program. He suggested that, to the extent possible, it
would make sense to minimize the amount of critical census activ-
BTS Plans
ity that takes place in the October–November timeframe.
Steven Dillingham noted that he is the new director at the Bureau Piggee described recent hearings looking at the 2010 Census
of Transportation Statistics (BTS), an agency that just had a series information technology contracts, including the hand-held com-
of acting directors. Established in 1992 under the Intermodal puters and new DADS system. He said everything with the census
Surface Transportation Efficiency Act, BTS is the youngest of is moving well and attention is being paid to areas where it is
the federal statistical agencies and currently authorized under the needed. Looking ahead, Piggee stressed the need for educating
Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient, Transportation Equity Act: members in advance of appropriations cycles. Specifically, he sees
A Legacy for Users. BTS is now a component of the Department the need for a hearing on the ACS—what it is, what it does, and
of Transportation Research and Innovative Technology why it is important to constituents. We can also look for a hear-
Administration, which has a broad mission covering transporta- ing on the census undercount—alerting members of the dollar
tion research and statistics. impact of undercount on some areas and examining the reasons
The BTS mission is to create, manage, and share transporta- for undercount to determine what can be done about it.
tion statistical knowledge by developing high-quality transpor-
tation data and data products. Dillingham said BTS employees
Poverty, Disability, and Health Insurance Data
consider the BTS a performance- and results-oriented agency and Charles Nelson of the U.S. Census Bureau reviewed the fed-
take their work seriously, given the importance of transportation eral poverty definition—a set of poverty thresholds developed in
to the U.S. economy. To illustrate this importance, Dillingham the 1960s based on food costs, income, and family size. There
noted that transportation costs are three times the annual health have been only minor adjustments to this official definition,
care expenditures for the average American family. BTS has to and Nelson noted the universe excludes about 300,000 people
be efficient, as its budgets have been static, and its staff is about per year. Measurement issues include the narrow definition of
half the size it once was. He described BTS as a knowledge-based resources (money income only), thresholds that do not vary by
MARCH 2008 AMSTAT NEWS 23
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