Public Participation in Regulatory Decision-Making: Cases from Regulations.gov
Keywords
regulations; civic engagement
Abstract
Regulations.gov is an award winning government website that has democratized the rulemaking process by making it easier for citizens to search, read, and comment on proposed rules advanced by federal agencies. Submitted comments from three cases are analyzed; cases come from the Department of Health and Human Services, Environmental Protection Agency, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The issues in each are classified as low salience/high complexity, high salience/high complexity, and high salience/low complexity, respectively. Quality of comments submitted is analyzed across cases. It is suggested in conclusion that if costs are not accepted to better prepare citizens to be effective participants in the regulatory decision making process, then the democratization experiment might best be called for the facade it is and terminated.
Date Created
January 2011
STARS Citation
Bryer, Thomas, "Public Participation in Regulatory Decision-Making: Cases from Regulations.gov" (2011). EGS Content. 136.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/egs_content/136
https://works.bepress.com/thomasbryer/2/download/