Law Commons^™

Reason-Giving, Rulemaking, And The Rule Of Law, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Strategic Rulemaking Disclosure, Jennifer Nou, Edward H. Stiglitz

Jed Stiglitz

Congressional enactments and executive orders instruct agencies to publish their anticipated rules in what is known as the Unified Agenda. The Agenda’s stated purpose is to ensure that political actors can monitor regulatory development. Agencies have come under fire in recent years, however, for conspicuous omissions and irregularities. Critics allege that agencies hide their regulations from the public strategically, that is, to thwart potential political opposition. Others contend that such behavior is benign, perhaps the inevitable result of changing internal priorities or unforeseen events. To examine these competing hypotheses, this Article uses a new dataset spanning over thirty years of …

The Problem With Words: Plain Language And Public Participation In Rulemaking, Cynthia R. Farina, Mary J. Newhart, Cheryl Blake

Cynthia R. Farina

This Article, part of the special issue commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Administrative Conference of the United States (“ACUS”), situates ACUS’s recommendations for improving public rulemaking participation in the context of the federal “plain language” movement. The connection between broader, better public participation and more comprehensible rulemaking materials seems obvious, and ACUS recommendations have recognized this connection for almost half a century. Remarkably, though, the series of presidential and statutory plain-language directives on this topic have not even mentioned the relationship of comprehensibility to participation until very recently. In 2012, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (“OIRA”) issued …

Rulemaking Vs. Democracy: Judging And Nudging Public Participation That Counts , Cynthia R. Farina, Mary Newhart, Josiah Heidt

Cynthia R. Farina

This Article considers how open government “magical thinking” around technology has infused efforts to increase public participation in rulemaking. We propose a framework for assessing the value of technology-enabled rulemaking participation and offer specific principles of participation-system design, which are based on conceptual work and practical experience in the Regulation Room project at Cornell University. An underlying assumption of open government enthusiasts is that more public participation will lead to better government policymaking: If we use technology to give people easier opportunities to participate in public policymaking, they will use these opportunities to participate effectively. However, experience thus far with …

Fail To Comment At Your Own Risk: Does Issue Exhaustion Have A Place In Judicial Review Of Rules?, Jeffrey Lubbers

Jeffrey Lubbers

Knowledge In The People: Rethinking "Value" In Public Rulemaking Participation, Cynthia R. Farina, Dmitry Epstein, Josiah Heidt, Mary J. Newhart

Cynthia R. Farina

A companion piece to Rulemaking vs. Democracy: Judging and Nudging Public Participation that Counts, this Essay continues to examine the nature and value of broader public participation in rulemaking. Here, we argue that rulemaking is a “community of practice,” with distinctive forms of argumentation and methods of reasoning that both reflect and embody craft knowledge. Rulemaking newcomers are outside this community of practice: Even when they are reasonably informed about the legal and policy aspects of the agency’s proposal, their participation differs in kind and form from that of sophisticated commenters. From observing the actual behavior of rulemaking newcomers in …

Achieving The Potential: The Future Of Federal E-Rulemaking: A Report To Congress And The President, Cynthia R. Farina

Cynthia R. Farina

Federal regulations are among the most important and widely used tools for implementing the laws of the land – affecting the food we eat, the air we breathe, the safety of consumer products, the quality of the workplace, the soundness of our financial institutions, the smooth operation of our businesses, and much more. Despite the central role of rulemaking in executing public policy, both regulated entities (especially small businesses) and the general public find it extremely difficult to follow the regulatory process; actively participating in it is even harder. E-rulemaking is the use of technology (particularly, computers and the World …

Rulemaking 2.0, Cynthia R. Farina, Mary J. Newhart, Claire Cardie, Dan Cosley

Cynthia R. Farina

In response to President Obama's Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government, federal agencies are on the verge of a new generation in online rulemaking. However, unless we recognize the several barriers to making rulemaking a more broadly participatory process, and purposefully adapt Web 2.0 technologies and methods to lower those barriers, Rulemaking 2.0 is likely to disappoint agencies and open-government advocates alike. This article describes the design, operation, and initial results of Regulation Room, a pilot public rulemaking participation platform created by a cross-disciplinary group of Cornell researchers in collaboration with the Department of Transportation. Regulation Room uses selected live …

Rulemaking Vs. Democracy: Judging And Nudging Public Participation That Counts, Cynthia R. Farina, Mary J. Newhart, Josiah Heidt

Cynthia R. Farina

An underlying assumption of many open government enthusiasts is that more public participation will necessarily lead to better government policymaking: If we use technology to give people easier opportunities to participate in public policymaking, they will use these opportunities to participate effectively. Yet, experience thus far with technology-enabled rulemaking (e-rulemaking) has not confirmed this “if-then” causal link. This Article considers how this flawed causal reasoning around technology has permeated efforts to increase public participation in rulemaking.

Rulemaking 2.0: Understanding And Getting Better Public Participation, Cynthia R. Farina, Mary J. Newhart

Cynthia R. Farina

More than a decade after the launch of Regulations.gov, the government-wide federal online rulemaking portal, and nearly four years since the Obama Administration directed agencies to use “innovative tools and practices that create new and easier methods for public engagement,” there are still more questions than answers about what value social media and other Web 2 .0 technologies can bring to rulemaking–and about how agencies can realize that value. This report, commissioned by the IBM Center for the Business of Government, begins to provide those answers. Drawing on insights from a number of disciplines and on three years of actual …

The Value Of Words: Narrative As Evidence In Policymaking, Dmitry Epstein, Josiah Heidt, Cynthia Farina

Cynthia R. Farina

Policymakers today rely primarily on statistical, financial, and other forms of technical data as their basis for decision-making. Yet, there is a potentially underestimated value in substantive reflections of the members of the public who will be affected by a particular piece of regulation. We discuss the value of narratives as input in the policy making process, based on our experience with Regulation Room–a product of an interdisciplinary initiative using innovative web technologies in real-time online experimentation. We describe professional policymakers and professional commenters as a community of practice that has limited shared repertoire with the lay members of the …

Enhancing The Use Of Negotiated Rulemaking By The U.S. Department Of Education, Jeffrey Lubbers

Jeffrey Lubbers

The Soda Ban Or The Portion Cap Rule? Litigation Over The Size Of Sugary Drink Containers As An Exercise In Framing, Rodger D. Citron, Paige Bartholomew

Rodger Citron

The authors discuss the litigation over New York City’s “Portion Cap Rule,” which restricts the size of sugary drink containers. The authors provide a history of the rule, from its promulgation by the Board of Health to the Appellate Division’s decision invalidating the rule. The authors also comment on the dispute between the parties over how to frame the rule. Opponents of the rule characterize the measure as an unwarranted and unprecedented incursion of consumer choice and personal freedom. Proponents of the rule, including the City, view the rule as a modest measure intended to address obesity, a significant—even alarming—public …

Administrative Law Through The Lens Of Immigration Law, Jill Family

Jill E. Family

A New Paradigm For Irs Guidance: Ensuring Input And Enhancing Participation, Leslie Book

Leslie Book

This article highlights how, in light of the increasing role that the IRS plays in the lives of poorer and marginalized individuals, when promulgating rules, the IRS will have to go beyond the mechanism of the APA notice and comment regime to ensure robust public participation. While others have discussed the IRS’s approach to the notice and comment regime, commentators generally have overlooked the problems associated with lower income taxpayers’ lack of voice in the rulemaking process. To remedy that shortfall, I call for changes in agency conduct to encourage public participation in formulating rules. I build upon a model …