Issue: It's often difficult for the public to have input into a reg because it's difficult to find out:

--about one that affect you as a citizen or professional for that matter

--how to have input

-- how to narrow down the volume of information to the issue of interest and dechiper the reg-speak.

Suggestion:

Each agency should post on the home page of its Web site a reg question for which it is seeking input from the public.

The question should be in states in layman's terms and should be accompanied by some background and possibly choices.

I direct that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Federal departments and agencies implement the four steps outlined below and that the progress be reported to me and to the American people except as noted below within 100 days.

1.Because the people who would be affected by a rule cannot help shape it unless they know that an agency has begun addressing a problem with a rulemaking, all departments and executive agencies must, and all independent agencies (those such as the FTC, CPSC, and SEC which are headed by boards of commissioners) are encouraged to provide information in monthly updates in the form specified by the Director of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) about rulemakings newly approved for development. Success will be measured by statistics on how much time there is between when an agency first notifies citizens about a rulemaking and when the Agency publishes a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.

2.The Director of OIRA will be responsible for ensuring that the Executive Branchs existing electronic tools for fostering participation in rulemaking, the Regulatory Agenda, the Regulatory Plan, and Regulations.gov are significantly improved and better integrated to make it easier for citizens to find out about and participate in the rulemakings that regulate significant parts of all of our lives. Effective with the fall 2009 Agenda and Plan, OIRA will instruct agencies to include all of their rulemakings in the Agenda except those that must remain secret to protect the Nations security. The Long Term category will be eliminated and the rulemakings listed there will be included in the other categories to help citizens understand that it is important that they participate early in the rulemaking process. NAICS (North American Industrial Classification System) codes will be added to all Agenda entries where they could help the public understand with a future Where You Live tool that linked NAICS codes and locations, what geographic areas would be affected by a rulemaking. Regulations.gov, a Bush Administration initiative, has made a good start at bringing the rulemaking process into the Internet age. So far it has focused almost exclusively on dockets for commenting on Notices of Proposed Rulemakings. Within the next eighteen months I direct that Regulations.gov be significantly expanded to help citizens participate throughout the rulemaking process. I direct that dockets be made more useful and more accessible to the average citizen. Agencies will open dockets on at least all rules that they expect will be significant rulemakings under EO 12866 whenever an action is added to the Action Initiation List or to the Regulatory Agenda. Within 60 days agencies will start including in dockets information that is in plain English that will help citizens understand the rulemaking that is being worked on. Furthermore, within 120 days the e-Rulemaking program will submit to OIRA a publicly vetted plan for adding structure to at least all future dockets to make it easier for the public to get to the information that they need. Substantial new features will be added to Regulations.gov to educate citizens in the importance of rulemaking and how to participate effectively.

3.We will make better use of technology and the Whitehouse.gov platform to improve the visibility of, and participation in our most important rulemakings, and also to save resources. Besides highlighting our most important individual rulemakings at key points in the process, we will also rely on Whitehouse.gov and Regulations.gov as our basic platforms for the annual Regulatory Plans. No longer will we consume the resources required to print, mail, and store more than 7,500 Regulatory Plan books containing more than 2,000,000 pages printed in the Federal Register.

4.As suggested by the American Bar Association we will re-organize the e-Rulemaking Project which is responsible for Regulations.gov and create a new or expanded organization to house it and the Regulatory Information Service Center which is Responsible for the Regulatory Agenda and Regulatory Plan. In general, I think re-organization is an overused tool. But in this case I think it is entirely appropriate and will result in significantly better service and long run cost savings. I direct the Office of Management and Budget to draft a re-organization plan within 45 days.

A centralized institution will be created that citizens from all states can sign in to in order to participate both in rulemaking discussion on a federal, state, and local level. The institution will be in charge of the creation and maintenance of the web portal; the requirements of which will be outlined below. This web portal will provide participation opportunities and popular user submitted topics (described below) access on a nationwide, statewide, and local level. This institution will create a template web portal that each state and local portal will use to keep things standardized. States and local governments can provide links to their own web pages from the main portal.

The web portal itself will be created in a contest. Designers are to create a prototype that will be linked to from a central web page (such as whitehouse.gov) along with other prototypes. The prototypes do not need to be aesthetically pleasing (yet), but they do need to meet the functional requirements of the system, which includes usability. Users online will register and vote for the design that they feel is best, although only designs that meet the functional requirements given will be among the candidates. The prototypes do not need to do any database linking other than a sample database they will create. In addition to their entry, each prototype will be accompanied by a resume of the applicant. The winner will be awarded $500,000 USD, and offered the position of lead web architect for the system (salary TBD). In addition to overseeing the project and ensuring it is running, he will also be an interviewer of the hiring process whom will coordinate with other individuals (TBD) in hiring qualified applicants to assist with the portal. Employees will assist state and local governments hire and maintain their own portals as well.

Success will be measured by users responding to a survey after the final product is released. They will rate on a scale of 1-10 their overall satisfaction with the portal, as well as rate other aspects to help improve it. This survey will include questions relating to their satisfaction on the federal, state, and local level as well to help address where the most deficiencies are.

Requirements:

The index page of the portal will provide a list of newly submitted discussions they can take part in, divided into three categories federal, state, and local levels. They must be able to log in or register an account from this main page. Elected government officials can post new topics to be discussed that will show up within their respective portal from this main page. Additionally, there is a link to an anything goes area for each level where citizens can post their concerns and ideas. For the most part, the portal will be like slashdot.org except divided into federal, state, and local levels and instead of news for nerds its discussion topics. I had a lot more that is actually specific but unfortunately there is a size limit to our drafts...

Rulemaking is theoretically one of the most democratic processes in government but currently it is one of the most obscure. Federal agencies issue over 4,000 rules every year, with far-reaching implications for every part of American life. These rules determine how food safety is audited, who will qualify for government health care, and whether polar bears are an endangered species. When agencies develop rules, they are required to solicit public comments and take those comments into account before the rules are finalized. However, while technically open to all, the rulemaking process is effectively closed, even to otherwise well-informed citizens. Participation in rulemaking should be easy to understand, easy to share, and easy to see an impact from. A public education campaign should be undertaken to inform the public about rulemaking, in order to give the public an understanding of the processes that they can join.Federal Register notices of rulemaking processes are dense and confusing, if anyone can find them at all. These notices should have the issues and questions raised in plain language, so that the public can address them.It is still hard for ordinary citizens to navigate the obscure regulatory language on regulations.gov, let alone figure out how rules will impact their daily lives. As a primary goal, regulations.gov must be made more usable, allowing users to see relevant rules, search the full text of a rule and associated documents, and give an API for the data so that third parties can create new and innovative features for users. The rulemaking process must be explained and presented simply to the public, including a plain language explanation of each rule and the issue it addresses. In typical rulemaking, dialogue is one way, from the citizen to the government there is no interaction among citizens, and thus no progress toward consensus. Instead, agency staff are left at the end of the comment process with a series of unconnected comments which staff must reconcile on their own. The public should be asked to enter the rule drafting process; collaborative efforts like negotiated rulemaking, which involves the stakeholders well before the rule is published, have been major successes. Involving the public in the drafting process online may result in better proposed rules, and shorter rulemaking processes.