Like the rest of the world, the Administrative Conference of the United States has been thrown off its usual schedule by the pandemic. But this month, the agency springs back into action with a block of online committee meetings on a new recommendation project, as well as two virtual symposia. I anticipate that there will be additional events as summer turns to fall, and I’ll inform you of those as they are announced.

First, the Committee on Rulemaking has three meetings scheduled this month to consider a project on Protected Materials in Public Rulemaking Dockets. As explained on the ACUS project page:

This project examines how agencies protect confidential business information, such as trade secrets and financial regulatory information, and personally identifiable information, such as medical information, within their public rulemaking dockets, while achieving an appropriate level of disclosure. Recommendation 2013-4, Administrative Record in Informal Rulemaking, urged agencies to seek “maximum disclosure” in the public rulemaking docket but did not address precisely how agencies should safeguard protected materials that underlie proposed rules. This project builds on Recommendation 2013-4 by studying practices agencies use to balance transparency and confidentiality in rulemaking, such as disclosing aggregate data without compromising the underlying information’s confidentiality and redacting protected information.

The draft report was prepared by Professor Christopher S. Yoo of the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. The Committee on Rulemaking is scheduled to hold three online meetings to discuss the draft report and work towards a recommendation:

• Tuesday, August 4 from 10:00 am to noon EDT;
• Tuesday, August 18 from 10:00 am to noon EDT; and
• Monday, August 31 from 10:00 am to noon EDT.

You can RSVP to attend a meeting or submit a comment via the links provided above. A draft recommendation is not yet up, but I’ll provide an update when that becomes available.

In addition to these committee meetings, ACUS is hosting two virtual symposia in August. One is the four-part series on Federal Agency Adjudication that was recently highlighted on this blog. It kicks off with a first panel this Thursday, August 6th. In addition, on Thursday, August 13 from 1:00 to 2:15 pm EDT, ACUS is hosting the final installment in a four-part series on Artificial Intelligence in Federal Agencies. This symposia has been jointly sponsored with the Institute for Technology Law and Policy at Georgetown University Law Center and the August 13 panel is Artificial Intelligence In The Trenches: A View From Inside The Agencies. As ACUS explains:

In this final panel, current and former agency officials will discuss how their agencies currently use or contemplate using AI to support their missions and improve the government’s efficiency and effectiveness.

RSVP at https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/6989945470876531724

Panelists:
Marco Enriquez, Senior Applied Mathematician, Office of Data Science, Securities and Exchange Commission
Kurt Glaze, Program Analyst, Office of Analytics, Review, and Oversight, Social Security Administration
Sean Khozin, Global Head of Data Strategy, Janssen R&D; Formerly Associate Director, Oncology Center of Excellence, Food and Drug Administration
Steven Babitch, Head of AI Portfolio, Technology Transformation Service, General Services Administration

Moderator:
Stephen Sanford, Director, Center for Strategic Foresight, Government Accountability Office

Videos of the first three panels in this series are available here.

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.