Rulemaking by Cornelius M. Kerwin;Scott R. Furlong; & Scott R. Furlong

Author:Cornelius M. Kerwin;Scott R. Furlong; & Scott R. Furlong
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sage Publications Inc.
Published: 2020-10-26T19:35:17.330146+00:00

Despite the general failure to identify rulemaking management by name, it is clear that most agencies recognize the function and staff it. These offices or clusters of responsibility have not been studied in any systematic manner. What is known about the functions they house is largely anecdotal. They include stewardship of the priority-setting process, scheduling monitoring of deadlines, working group support (and occasional facilitation), management of the concurrence processes and clearance, liaison with the OMB, oversight of compliance with ancillary legal requirements, drafting services and communication with the Office of the Federal Register, and development and delivery of staff training. In most agencies, these offices have limited authority and staffing. But such offices carry the potential to elevate the regulation management function: They have the potential to extend and enhance key aspects of regulation management, such as staff development.

Agency-level management systems can be sources of, and solutions to, certain problems. If procedures for setting priorities and initiating rules work well, they should reduce the number of unnecessary rules. Early policy guidance, concurrence systems, and effective liaison with the OMB and Congress can increase the quality of rules and decrease the conflict in the rulemaking process. Scheduling and monitoring can expedite rulemaking and thus reduce delay in the issuance of important rules.

If they work poorly, however, management systems at the agency level can delay rules. Volatility in priorities can be particularly costly. Frequent changes in the priority of rules lead to erratic application of resources to individual projects, delaying those that are suddenly downgraded. Similarly, initiation procedures and concurrence systems can lengthen the rulemaking process. Rulemaking management systems must be able to adapt to changing circumstances. Several forces have converged in recent years to threaten the ability of agencies to keep their management systems current. As we noted earlier, although the management tasks of agencies have increased dramatically, their resources have not kept the pace.

The management systems described here can change quickly, as can senior political appointees. We cannot render a comprehensive judgment on the effectiveness of rulemaking management systems in agencies. We can, however, state that rulemaking management at the agency level has not yet attracted scholarly or practitioner attention commensurate with its importance. The same is true for management at the level of the individual rule.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.