Notice & Comment

Spring 2017 Projects (ACUS Update)

The Administrative Conference of the United States will soon begin spring committee meetings on a slate of projects targeted for completion at the 67th annual plenary session, to be held in June.  These projects include: (1) Adjudication Materials on Agency Websites; (2) Negotiated Rulemaking; (3) Electronic Case Management in Federal Administrative Adjudication; and (4) Marketable Permits.  A description (taken from the ACUS website) and summary of all information currently available about each of these projects is provided below.  I will provide updates as additional documents become available and committee meeting dates are announced.

If you would like to attend a committee meeting in person, you can do so by RSVPing through the agency’s website, at the link provided below for the relevant meeting.  If you cannot attend in person, you can watch the meeting, in real time or after-the-fact, on the Administrative Conference’s Livestream Channel.  Written comments are also welcome and can be submitted online through the appropriate project page, each of which is linked below, or via email to the listed Staff Counsel.

Adjudication Materials on Agency Websites: Agency websites display many of the substantive legal documents agencies generate in furtherance of their lawmaking responsibilities. Such documents include the binding orders and attendant materials (e.g., motions, briefs) produced during the course of agency adjudicative proceedings. In this study, the Conference will study the dissemination of adjudication materials through agency websites and provide guidance for agencies in improving the adjudication sections of their websites.

Negotiated Rulemaking: The Conference is studying agency use of negotiated rulemaking and other collaborative mechanisms to involve stakeholders in the process of crafting agency rules. This project builds on two past Conference Recommendations (Recommendation 85-5 and Recommendation 82-4, both entitled Procedures for Negotiating Proposed Regulations). The project aims to identify the optimal contexts for the use of negotiated rulemaking and investigate potential alternatives for collaborative policymaking that agencies may use when negotiated rulemaking is impracticable or otherwise inadvisable.

Electronic Case Management in Federal Administrative Adjudication: The Conference is studying the use and incorporation of electronic case management in agency adjudication in order to make recommendations and share best practices.  Electronic case management is a comprehensive system that enables an agency to manage its adjudications for increased efficiency and access. It encompasses not only the creation and maintenance of an electronic system in which users may file and manage documents, but also includes various procedural changes that must be made to accommodate such a system. The implementation of an electronic system can be instrumental in streamlining an agency’s adjudication practices, improving interagency communication and access, and upgrading technology in related functions, such as hearing recording systems.

Marketable Permits: The Conference is studying marketable permit programs and other market-oriented tools that use economic incentives to promote regulatory goals. The aims of this project are to identify factors that weigh in favor of or against market-based systems and to provide guidance for agencies in developing and administering these programs.

This post is part of the Administrative Conference Update series, which highlights new and continuing projects, upcoming committee meetings, proposed and recently adopted recommendations, and other news about the Administrative Conference of the United States. The series is further explained here, and all posts in the series can be found here.

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