The Social Security Administration (SSA) administers the retirement, survivors, and disability insurance programs under title II of the Social Security Act (the Act) and the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) Program under title XVI of the Act. For the most part, SSA's regulations do not impose burdens on the private sector or on State or local governments. Our regulations codify the requirements for entitlement to benefits under the programs we administer.
Our nine entries for The Regulatory Plan represent areas of major importance in benefit program administration of the retirement, disability, and supplemental security income programs.
Included in this year's Plan are proposed regulations that will provide more choices for people with disabilities who seek Return-to-Work services so that they may become self-sufficient. These proposed regulations parallel provisions of legislation, The Work Incentives Improvement Act of 1998, presently pending in Congress.
We are currently preparing two final regulations to implement several elements of a major agency initiative known as ``process unification,'' which is designed to produce one set of adjudicative standards for all levels of disability review within SSA. The first, Weight of Disability Determination Service (DDS) Medical Consultant Opinions, will define the specific weight to be given to DDS medical consultant opinions in hearing decisions. The second, Assessment of Residual Functional Capacity, will clarify the guidelines in our regulations used in determining whether an individual under age 50 lacks the capacity to perform less than a full range of sedentary work.
In response to the Reinventing Government Initiative to create a Federal Government that works better and costs less, we list one regulatory initiative--Permit Department of State and the Immigration and Naturalization Service to Collect Information Needed to Assign Social Security Numbers to Aliens. The goal of this process is to coordinate services to customers who, under current procedures, must deal with multiple Federal agencies to establish their status as alien residents of the United States. This regulatory authority will support a project with INS whereby it would transmit data to SSA electronically so that SSA can issue social security numbers to certain resident aliens.
We have also included in this year's Plan a regulation, Administrative Res Judicata, that will set forth principles by which SSA distinguishes its policies on administrative res judicata and administrative collateral estoppel from the common-law doctrines of res judicata and collateral estoppel that courts sometimes apply in Social Security cases.
To improve management in the area of debt collection, we plan to develop regulations to implement the new debt collection tools authorized by recent legislation. Four of the entries in this year's Plan will further our efforts in this initiative. The first, Federal Salary Offset, will enable us to collect qualifying, delinquent title II debts owed by former beneficiaries who are currently Federal employees. The second, Private Collection Agencies, permits us to refer qualifying, delinquent title II debts owed by former beneficiaries to private collection agencies for further debt collection efforts. The third, Administrative Wage Garnishment, will enable us to collect qualifying, delinquent title II and title XVI debts owed by former beneficiaries who are now employed (by other than the Federal Government). The last in this category, Interest Charging/Indexing, will provide us authority to charge interest on qualifying, delinquent title II debts owed by former beneficiaries.
Consistent with the President's Regulatory Reinvention Initiative, we are working diligently to improve our program benefit regulations and to develop partnerships with large segments of the community of stakeholders interested in Social Security programs. We expect that the partnerships will contribute to the successful development of our Regulatory Plan entries.