1 C.F.R. s 305.80-6

s 305.80-6 Intragovernmental Communications in Informal Rulemaking Proceedings (Recommendation No. 80-6).

(a) The growing complexity and scope of government regulation resulting from informal rulemaking proceedings have increased the importance of communication and coordination among agencies. Because the President, as the nation's Chief Executive, may be deemed accountable for what agencies do, efforts to achieve policy coordination through Presidential channels have become increasingly significant. In recent years the President has attempted to do this through a variety of analytical and procedural mechanisms, such as the promulgation of Executive Order 12044 and establishment of the Regulatory Analysis Review Group and the Regulatory Council. The exercise of Presidential direction has not been limited to the establishment of general mechanisms, however. The President, his advisers, and units of the Executive Office have also on occasion intervened directly in the formation of policy during particular rulemaking proceedings. This intervention has raised questions by private participants about the manner in which executive influence should be exercised.

(b) This recommendation addresses the appropriate standards for communication to Executive departments and agencies from the President, advisers to the President, units of the Executive Office, and other Executive branch and independent agencies when the recipient agency is making policy decisions through the process of informal rulemaking. It pertains to rulemaking of general applicability, not to proceedings (whether rulemaking or adjudication) that involve the distribution, modification or withdrawal of valuable privileges to identifiable private interests. To some degree it is a corollary to ACUS Recommendation, which is concerned with restrictions upon private participants' oral and written communications in informal rulemaking. The recommendation is based upon the need to accommodate two competing elements of a good rulemaking process. The first is the desirability of being able to identify a coherent body of factual information upon which the rulemaking agency's decision is based, and to make this information available to all-- other participants in the process, the staff of the agency itself, and reviewing courts. The second is the desirability of affording government officials opportunity to engage in uninhibited internal debate over the policy implications of this body of information, subject only to the requirement that the ultimate conclusion be rational and adequately explained. Both principles are recognized in this recommendation. Units of the government other than the one conducting the rulemaking may have perspectives or expertise not readily available to the rulemaking agency that would enhance the quality of internal debate on the implications of the information in the public file, and their participation should be encouraged. At the same time, rulemaking agencies should not permit, and other units of the government should not request, any opportunity to introduce into the proceeding material factual information (as distinct from indications of governmental policy) not made available t other participants.

(c) The Conference is also concerned with avoiding any possibility that intragovernmental communications from outside the rulemaking agency might serve as undisclosed or inadvertent conduits for new material factual information, and with providing adequate opportunities for other participants to respond to material factual information that is introduced.

(d) The recommendation addresses the degree to which agencies should be free to receive certain kinds of intragovernmental communications in informal rulemaking without having a duty to place them in the public file of the proceeding. It is not intended to suggest any limitation on the discretion of any rulemaking agency to disclose such communications to the public.

1. Any Executive department or agency engaged in informal rulemaking in accordance with the procedural requirements of section 553 of the Administrative Procedure Act should be free to receive written or oral policy advice and recommendations at any time from the President, advisers to the President, the Executive Office of the President, and other administrative bodies, without having a duty to place these intragovernmental communications in the public file of the rulemaking proceeding except to the extent called for in paragraph 2.

2. When the rulemaking agency receives communications from the President, advisers to the President, the Executive Office of the President, or other administrative bodies which contain material factual information (as distinct from indications of governmental policy) pertaining to or affecting a proposed rule, the agency should promptly place copies of the documents, or summaries of any oral communications, in the public file of the rulemaking proceeding. All communications from these sources containing or reflecting comments by persons outside the government should be so identified and placed in the public file, regardless of their content. A rulemaking agency should consider the importance of giving public participants adequate opportunity to respond if the material presents new and important issues or creates serious conflicts of data.

3. The Administrative Conference takes no position in the present recommendation concerning rulemaking by other than Executive departments and agencies.

Note: Several members joined in a separate statement concerning this recommendation. The text appears in the Federal Register.

[45 FR 86407, Dec. 31, 1980]

Authority: 5 U.S.C. 591-596.

SOURCE: 38 FR 19782, July 23, 1973; 57 FR 61760, 61768, Dec. 29, 1992, unless otherwise noted.