GAO Says Its Rulemaking Advice Goes Unused

Many regulatory recommendations made over the past 13 years have gone unimplemented, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said March 15. The ideas came in seven reports: three on a Clinton-era executive order (129866) that governs regulatory planning and review (including the semiannual agenda reports) as well as four others covering regulatory guidance, retrospective review (two), and rulemaking exceptions.

Overall, explained GAO, the Office of Management of Budget (OMB) has implanted only nine of 25 (36%) of the recommendations from those assessments. The new report highlighted six areas of concern:

• Cost-Benefit Analysis: Agencies should better explain rule-significance judgements and why they change them. They also should better highlight such decisions.

 

• Rule Reviews: OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) needs more transparency for its reviews of rules and for agencies' reactions.

 

• Draft Rules: OIRA rejected seven of eight ideas from a 2003 report that aimed to clarify the review process to the public as well as why agencies respond with changes.

 

• Regulatory Guidance: Policies for creating these, such as getting input from stakeholders, were lacking at some agencies GAO reviews (CPSC not reviewed).

 

• Retrospective Reviews: OIRA is taking steps to implement suggestions on transparency and clarity on procedures for and responses to such overviews.

 

• Rulemaking Exceptions: OMB did not follow a 2012 suggestion to issue a guidance on dealing with comments on rules that were expedited via skipping steps like NPRs.

The report is at 1.usa.gov/1RoeLUw.