From: The Regulatory Review
Cary Coglianese and Todd Rubin
Federal agencies issue thousands of regulations each year. In making these rules, agencies follow a notice-and-comment process that allows the public to weigh in on new regulatory proposals. These public comments can boost the quality of regulations by giving regulators access to well-informed views and relevant information they might not otherwise have.
From: Forbes
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But a Democratic Congress is unlikely to entertain regulatory reform, and certainly not stoop to working with Trump on it apart from perhaps some half-hearted tweaks accompanying big infrastructure spending. For that reason I have been suggesting a new “iconic” executive order on guidance, since most law is from agencies now, not Congress. In 2018, there were 313 laws passed by Congress and signed by Trump, but 3,368 rules and regulations, not even counting guidance.
From: The Free State Foundation
Posted by Randolph J. May
Jim Tozzi, one of the nation’s foremost experts on regulation, and a “founder” of the notion of centralized executive branch regulatory review, has started a new site to track developments relating to regulation of social media. His new page is here.
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As I say, Jim is one of the “founders” of the modern regulatory reform movement, so whatever he is doing at any time bears watching – and certainly, now, no one denies that potential regulation of social media bear watching.
From: National Review
By Wayne Crews & Ryan Young
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Dark matter can take the form of guidance documents, memoranda, notices, circulars, or even press releases indicating a policy change, such as Labor Department designation of independent contractors. Guidance is not supposed to be legally binding on citizens, or even the issuing agency, yet as the Administrative Conference of the United States has detailed, those who are regulated by agencies have reason to feel obliged to comply with the policy content of such pronouncements.
Editor’s Note: The use of guidance documents as backdoor regulations is a long standing concern of business communities around the world. See also, for example, SEC Guidance on Social Media and Business Disclosures Stirs Controversy (2013), The Fragile State of the Term “Guidance” (Regulatory Pacesetters 2017), Regulatory Guidance Processes: Selected Departments Could Strengthen Internal Control and Dissemination Practices (GAO 2015), and OMB To Give Agencies New Guidelines for Guidance Docs (Bloomberg (2018).
From: The Regulatory Review
Editor’s Note: GAO is substantially bolstering its analytic capabilities by creating a new Science, Technology Assessment, and Analytics (STAA) team. The agency explains that STAA’s activities will include conducting “peer reviews and other expert reviews.” The question is open as to whether STAA will voluntarily adhere to the Office of Management and Budget’s Final Information Quality Bulletin for Peer Review, Updated Principles for Risk Analysis, and Guidelines for Ensuring and Maximizing the Quality, Objectivity, Utility, and Integrity of Information Disseminated by Federal Agencies.
From: US GAO Watchblog
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