The White House announced a new opportunity for the public to get involved with the Open Government Initiative. In a recent blog post, U.S. Chief Technology Officer, Aneesh Chopra and Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Administrator, Cass Sunstein asked for public feedback “on ideas related to two of the key challenges – improving public services and increasing public integrity.” They posed an interesting question: “How can Regulations.gov, one of the primary mechanisms for government transparency and public participation, be made more useful to the public rulemaking process?” To better inform public feedback our team behind Regulations.gov would like to share key aspects of this Federal-wide program. We will also share an example about the efficacy of public participation in regulatory policy.
Purpose. Regulations.gov serves a dual purpose: transparency and public participation. These are two out of three core democratic values of the President’s Memorandum. Regulations.gov is the public’s primary source for information on the development of Federal regulations. However, it’s not just about access. The other purpose of Regulations.gov aims to continually improve the ability of citizens to participate in a high quality, efficient, and open rulemaking process. This means we go beyond the minimum of an online window to regulations (i.e. rules) to providing an increasing matrix of features.
Easy access to the entire rule docket folder (i.e. collection of documents relevant to the rule’s development) allows for deeper transparency than in the past. It contains Federal Register documents (e.g. rules and notices), public comments, and other documents used by decision makers. Citizens can comment on regulatory issues at all stages of the rulemaking process. Anyone can search by topic, keyword, and read or submit comments, including those submitted by other citizens.
Participation. Citizens have the ability to access not only rules, past and present, but to participate in interactive ways. For example, submitted comments are automatically sent to the appropriate agency with a tracking number. This unique number can be cited by citizens to quickly search for and locate a public comment once it has been posted to the website. In addition, members of the public register for email alerts when changes occur to a docket folder of interest. These tools equip the public to participate at a solid level of engagement. However, this is only the beginning.
In the latest version of Regulations.gov, one of the coolest features of the website is the Exchange. The Exchange is a forum for the public to provide feedback about the website and various Federal agency initiatives. Contributions to the forum are not classified as official comments in the rulemaking process. However, such conversations foster citizen-to-citizen (C2C) and government-to-citizen (G2C) communication. Over time these conversations help to refine perspectives of those actively participating. Is there room for improvement for public participation? Sure. Read on for an outline of our plans.
Plans. The team at Regulations.gov has a relentless focus to advance the purpose of the program. We’re planning new web features and a communications strategy with the end-user in mind. We align program values to public needs. It’s an inside-out approach.
From a technical perspective, to increase the level and quality of public participation our team plans to incorporate comment-on-a-comment features, enhance search capabilities, and streamline navigation. The public can see the program’s strategic goals and best practices for a glimpse into the future of the current website. One of these goals is to help agencies better manage their electronic dockets. Last year our team released a best practices document entitled, “Improving Electronic Dockets on Regulations.gov.” Moreover, we strive to provide all content in Plain Language and encourage agencies to do the same. Mobile integration is also on our radar.
From a communications perspective, we recently started the first steps with social media as a gateway for giving citizens a voice in regulatory decisions and, in a matter of weeks, soon as a familiar forum with Facebook. Indeed, strategic plans are being developed here for a More Social Open Government. As a first step, here’s our Twitter page. We also plan to raise awareness of the regulatory process. We’re rethinking not only web usability and access, but also the core value proposition of public participation. Some might ask, “Why would I get involved when the impact of my comments remains a mystery?” Part of our strategy moving forward involves identifying case studies and data surrounding this impact—a missing link in government communications.
In the words of some, we are taking a citizen-focused approach. Other value propositions ground our strategy; however, the core value of citizen impact often remains overlooked. This is how transparency and public participation intersect. A report by Pew Internet and American Life confirms this inextricable link, concluding “Those who believe they can impact their community are more likely to be engaged.” By illustrating the effectiveness of public comment we raise public confidence. The voice of the people matters. This is fundamental to fortifying public trust.
Specifically, we plan to raise the public’s awareness of the increasing variety of ways citizens can interact with the U.S. Federal decision making process. This includes increasing the number of spotlights on public participation efficacy. It’s also about taking openness to next level. We will showcase the impact of public comment on regulatory outcomes. Already, we are finding interesting examples.
Case Study. As a case in point, let’s look at the protective regulations for killer whales. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) received thousands of oral and written comments regarding regulations that protect killer whales from marine vessels under the Endangered Species Act. The details of the rule and the various comments can be accessed online in the docket folder at Regulations.gov. Rule writers grouped comments and responded with reasoned, thoughtful explanations (see final rule). After responding to 18 different types of comments, the they acknowledged the inherent efficacy of public participation:
“Public comments on the no-go zone raised several suggested alternatives that we had not fully analyzed in the draft EA [Environmental Assessment]. In addition, we recognize that to be effective, regulations must be understood by the public and have a degree of public acceptance. Because of the many alternatives suggested by the public, and because of the degree of public opposition, we have decided to gather additional information and conduct further analysis and public outreach on the concept of a no-go zone. Therefore, the final rule does not adopt a no-go zone” (italics mine).
Clearly, as we can see in this testimonial and in other final rules, public participation makes a difference in the quality of regulatory policy. Agencies take input from its citizens seriously. In this spirit, our team always looks forward to hearing from the public as we further advance this exciting Federal program. We encourage everyone in the GovLoop community to visit the website. Discover for yourself the difference you can make.
Alex,
In the “Case Study” that you cited, I went to your link to the docket folder and then looked for the list of public comments, but could find no links with “Comments” on it.
I’m willing to believe that one of the links leads to “Comments”, but the lay-out of the webpage is very NOT self-explanatory. It’s been that way for a number of years. I may have even raised that issue before on Regulations.gov. Hmm, let’s see. Oh, here it is. (But I never got feedback, so I didn’t stay engaged.)
That was two years ago. Do you know what happened with any of the suggestions since then? Thanks.
+1 on Stephen’s remarks. I followed your link to see if I could check out the comments…and wasn’t able to find it. Also, to be honest, I had not submitted a comment before on Regulations.gov, so I just conducted a test with one of the open regs. I submitted my comment and got this discouraging message:
I bolded those words above because I have to admit – I’m not going to keep checking back to see if it’s posted…mostly because I couldn’t see any other comments on the page and doubt I’d ever see mine.
These observations bring me to this statement/question which jumped off the page to me as the single biggest problem with Regulations.gov. It’s the core question you need to address, in my opinion:
Exactly how I felt – and it erodes trust and the likelihood that a person will return in the future.
Here are three recommendations:
I look forward to seeing responses from other GovLoopers.
Steve and Andy: Thank you for posting comments. They are good suggestions. More clarity and ease of communicate features (i.e. email thank yous, real-time comment impact, and comment policy). The comment policy we’ve worked out just recently for Facebook (soon to be launched).
In terms of locating comments on this particular rule, for now, I can clarify some aspects here. Here’s a more targeted hyperlink: http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=NOAA-NMFS-2008-0327-0009
This is the final rule in both HTML and PDF format, which if you review, you can see all of the comments collected and the responses. The specific rule writer quote derives from page 20884. I’ll check and see if publicly submitted comments are retrievable individually for this particular rule. Real-time comment access might be a neat feature too. This will be a topic of discussion for the team.
Stephen, you say: “But I never got feedback, so I didn’t stay engaged.” Well, now you will good sir, because I’m here to make sure that happens. 🙂
I’ll follow up with you, Stephen, about your comments from two years ago (before my time, of course). Our plans include more openness on public comment impact. A first step, as you both identify, is to make the comments more accessible or open to the public. That’s legitimate and we’ll pursue some effective ways of doing so.
Let’s keep the discussion ongoing. More follow up this week.
This is positive progress on regulations.gov. Congratulations to the team. In today’s globalized era of the internet, it would be helpful to connect the appropriate data,gov data sets and provide analytic tools for citizens to provide objective, data driven comments. In addition, public comments now should integrate discussion threading with real-time posting to counteract the growing popular view that government is filtering the information it provides the public.
Alex,
These are all positive steps. I have recently completed an analysis of public comments on Regulations.gov, which is in press for a future issue of Public Performance and Management Review. For now, the penultimate draft of the paper is accessible at: http://works.bepress.com/thomasbryer/2/ I have another paper coming out a few weeks in Administrative Theory & Praxis (contact me if you want a copy), which addresses similar issues, which I label in this case as “Costs of Democratization.” The conclusion of the Regulations.gov analysis and the core argument of the Costs of Democratization article is that unless costs are incurred to properly educate and ensure understanding among citizens, the comments citizens make may not be fully relevant for the decision-making process. As a consequence, citizens may lose trust and efficacy once it is understood that their commentary is not valued.
Recommendations I offer in those articles include: (1) Make explicit the ways in which citizen comments will be analyzed, interpreted, and ultimately used, aka–manage expectations appropriately, and (2) Present Federal Register information in more simple, readable ways, taking advantage of new media tools. These both would involve greater costs are worth it if we want to truly empower our citizens to inform the decision-making process and increase their trust in government at the same time.
Beginning next month, I am beginning an experiment with students on my campus that will establish experimental groups in which I vary the complexity of information presentation and the ambiguity of expectations established. I will be measuring the quality of comments to the proposed rule, as well as pre- post-trust and efficacy. I will look forward to sharing results.
Mark, Thank you for posting. Indeed, the more interconnections to relevant data sets, along with analytic tools for citizens to inform (objective when possible) data driven comments would be awesome. Part of our strategy being developed includes providing educational opportunities about the regulatory process and guidelines for effective commenting.
In personal use, I’m more familiar with recovery.gov. When you say, ‘analytic tools’ which ones are good precedents in your mind? For discussion threading with real-time posting what might be a best practice in your mind? There are private sector examples I’m aware of. You’re right, there’s a need to provide counterexamples that government is filtering the information. Augmented transparency here is key goal.
Thomas, thank you for posting. Our team would be interested in your analysis of public comments on Regulations.gov. As an MPA student, I’m familiar with Public Performance and Management Review. You’re paper for Administrative Theory & Praxis we would also be grateful to read.
Over the next 6 months the team is working to make it easier for citizens to understand, search, read, and comment on proposed rules. We agree that the bedrock challenge is build and maintain trust with citizens and improve the communication of different degrees of citizen efficacy. All comments have some value and are considered carefully and equally. However, merely saying this to the citizen is not enough. Moving forward, we recognize and that is why by integrating the communications and technical strategy into one roadmap is key.
Your recommendations are duly noted. We agree that these are necessary goals to achieve. It will be interesting to hear back from you about your next student project coming up. Let’s stay in touch.
Alex, let me know where I should send the papers; both the two mentioned plus one other that deals more specifically with citizen expectations. You can email me offline at [email protected]
Best,
Alex, thank you for your work here. For analytics, most agencies have enterprise licenses for SAS, Microstrategy, Oracle (which has significant data analysis tools in some modules), SPSS, and/or Statistica. There are some open source packages as well. I would also incorporate mash-up software to let people do their own assessments, such as JackBe. For discussion threading, Linked-in and NING seem very useful (as you may know govloop uses NING).
All the best,
Mark
Alex, I like your direction a lot. I have a question which continues to perplex me and your C2C and G2C brought it into even more focus. Maybe you, or someone else reading, this can answer it for me.
At the last State of the Union the President made a call for innovation and ideas from Americans, more “sputnik” moments. Great and very exciting, but he never said where to send those ideas. I have asked and looked and researched and written. It’s a mystery.
I know not all ideas are good ones. But in a time of such public dissatisfaction and frustration, it could be incredibly powerful, useful and authentic. Do you know the answer?