Articles
The rapid growth of federal agencies and programs during the New Deal era was accompanied by the increasing use of regulations. Regulations allow agencies to set wide-ranging policies. They are not limited to individual cases, as are adjudications, which in earlier years had been the primary vehicle for agency decisions. Read More
Executive Order 12866, issued by President Clinton on September 30, 1993, amended and consolidated long-standing Executive Orders put in place during the Reagan Administration.
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When making decisions, agencies often seek advice from advisory committees composed of individuals from outside the federal government. To keep such committees from representing only limited interests, Congress enacted The Federal Advisory Committee Act in 1972 (5 USC App. 1). The Act requires agencies to follow specific procedures when creating advisory committees. The law also provides guideline for the conduct of advisory committee activities. For example, advisory committees must provide advance public notice of their meetings and hold open meetings.
When creating an advisory committee, an agency must issue a charter, approved by the General Services Administration, and must select committee members in such a way as to assure that diverse views will be considered on the issues under review. An advisory committee expires automatically after two years unless it is rechartered.
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) (5 USC 552), enacted in 1966, allows public access to government information. Individuals are assured the right to a judicial hearing to enforce its provisions.
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Many federal agencies, most notably the independent regulatory agencies, are headed by collegial bodies, e.g., the five commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission. These agencies make most of their decisions through discussions and voting by the board or commissions members. To ensure that such meetings and decisions do not take place in secret, Congress passed the Government in the Sunshine Act in 1976 (5 USC 552b). About 50 federal agencies are subject to the law. Read More
The Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), which was passed in 1993 and fully implemented on Oct. 1, 1997, set out to establish a system for measuring each agency's performance — both as a whole and for specific programs — that can be tied to the congressional appropriations process.
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The Congressional Review Act(1) set up a process in which Congress has 60 session days to review and possibly reject agency rules. Read More
The most important of the secondary controls is the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980 (44 USC 3501). This Act actually had its origins in the 1940's, but in its new form has come to have a major impact on agency rulemaking and on the principles of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA). Read More
Originally written on May 22, 1995
President Clinton signed the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PL 104-13) into law on May 22, 1995. The law states its purpose is, "To further the goals of the Paperwork Reduction Act to have Federal agencies become more responsible and publicly accountable for reducing the burden of Federal paperwork on the public, and for other purposes." This law is the final result of many years of struggle and is a true mixed bag for the public interest community.
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There has been little public or media attention to the ?Program Assessment Performance Tool? (PART) developed by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), even though its explicit and primary purpose is to evaluate and tie program ?performance? to budget appropriations. OMB Is also taking this effort very seriously. Why this sudden renewed attention to ?government performance?? Read More
Complaints from small business that they were drowning in federal forms and going broke because of federal regulations led to the passage of the Regulatory Flexibility Act in 1980 (5 USC 601). Agencies proposing rules that would have a "significant" economic impact on small business, small not-for-profit organizations, or small governmental entities must prepare a Regulatory Flexibility Analysis (RFA) and try to find simpler, less burdensome ways for such small organizations to comply with federal requirements. Read More
The Unfunded Mandates Reform Act — which was enacted on March 15, 1995, following intense pressure from the National Governors Association and others — sets up procedural mechanisms that aim to prevent Congress from imposing costs on states without providing federal funds. Read More