This report, commissioned by the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS), investigates agency practices in soliciting, circulating, and responding to public comments during the federal rulemaking process.
Since the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) was enacted in 1946, the technological landscape has changed dramatically, while the basic framework for notice and comment rulemaking has largely gone unchanged. Federal regulators, looking to embrace the benefits of e-Rulemaking, face considerable ambiguity about how established legal requirements apply to the web.
We examine the correlation between federal government activity and the performance of the D.C. area's National Football League team, the Washington Redskins. We find a significantly positive, non-spurious, and robust correlation between the Redskins' winning percentage and the amount of federal government bureaucratic activity as measured by the number of pages in the Federal Register.
Over the past 15 years, various efforts have been undertaken by the U.S. government, think tanks, interest groups, and academia to advance eRulemaking. While some eRulemaking improvements have been made, substantial opportunities remain.
This paper provides an overview of the U.S. regulatory process to facilitate discussion of stakeholder consultation at the joint Bertelsmann Stiftung and George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center workshop on December 1, 2010.