Editor’s Note: The following is a brief excerpt from a Commentary article by Cass R. Sunstein, “The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs: Myths and Realities.”  The complete Commentary may be found here, http://www.harvardlawreview.org/media/pdf/vol126_sunstein.pdf.

One of OIRA’s most important missions is to increase the likelihood that rulemaking agencies will benefit from dispersed information inside and outside the federal government. OIRA sees itself as a guardian of a well-functioning administrative process. Federal officials, most of them nonpolitical, know a great deal, and the OIRA process helps to ensure that what they know is incorporated in agency rulemakings. In addition, those outside of the federal government often have indispensable information, and OIRA understands one of its crucial tasks as encouraging the receipt and careful consideration ofthat information.