ABA Report on E-Rulemaking Proposes Overhaul of Government-Wide Program

United States-Agencies: ABA Report on E-Rulemaking Proposes Overhaul of Government-Wide Program [From U.S. Law Week, 10/28/08]

A high-level American Bar Association task force Oct. 21 released a report finding significant flaws in the federal government's effort to place all agency rulemaking dockets online and calling for a "fundamentally new approach" to the six-year, multimillion dollar project.

The task force report examined all aspects of the E-Rulemaking initiative and concluded that the project has failed to achieve its groundbreaking potential because of a series of interrelated problems involving funding, system design, and governance.

"If a government-wide electronic docket and rulemaking support system were being designed in today's technological environment, the preferred architecture almost certainly would not be a single and exclusive centralized system," the task force said in the report.

At the same time, the task force stopped short of calling for a complete reinvention of the system, calling such a move "a radical step."
Instead, it recommended that the centralized Web-based system be enhanced by allowing agencies to experiment with customized applications built off the core system, while preserving government-wide document access from a single Web site.

The goal of the 22-member task force was to provide a "clear-eyed assessment" of the current system and offer recommendations for consideration by the incoming administration and Congress, according to Sally Katzen, the task force chair, who previewed the report Oct. 17 at a meeting of the ABA's Administrative Law Section. She said she expects the ABA to endorse the report. http://www.abanet.org/adminlaw/home.html

"It is our fervent hope that this tome does not sit on bookshelves,"
said Katzen, who served as administrator of the Office of Management and Budget's regulatory policy office during the Clinton administration.

The task force report was officially released at an event sponsored by the Council for Excellence in Government. http://www.excelgov.org/