For the project report click here: https://www.acus.gov/report/project-report-recommendation-82-4
The complexity of government regulation has increased greatly compared to that which existed when the Administrative Procedure Act was enacted, and this complexity has been accompanied by a formalization of the rulemaking process beyond the brief, expeditious notice and comment procedures envisioned by section 553 of the APA. Procedures in addition to notice and comment may, in some instances, provide important safeguards against arbitrary or capricious decisions by agencies and help ensure that agencies develop sound factual bases for the exercise of the discretion entrusted them by Congress, but the increased formalization of the rulemaking process has also had adverse consequences. The participants, including the agency, tend to develop adversarial relationships with each other causing them to take extreme positions, to withhold information from one another, and to attack the legitimacy of opposing positions. Because of the adversarial relationships, participants often do not focus on creative solutions to problems, ranking of the issues involved in a rulemaking, or the important details involved in a rule. Extensive factual records are often developed beyond what is necessary. Long periods of delay result, and participation in rulemaking proceedings can become needlessly expensive. Moreover, many participants perceive their roles in the rulemaking proceeding more as positioning themselves for the subsequent judicial review than as contributing to a solution on the merits at the administrative level. Finally, many participants remain dissatisfied with the policy judgments made at the outcome of rulemaking proceedings.
Participants in rulemaking rarely meet as a group with each other and with the agency to communicate their respective views so that each can react directly to the concerns and positions of the others in an effort to resolve conflicts. Experience indicates that if the parties in interest were to work together to negotiate the text of a proposed rule, they might be able in some circumstances to identify the major issues, gauge their importance to the respective parties, identify the information and data necessary to resolve the issues, and develop a rule that is acceptable to the respective interests, all within the contours of the substantive statute. For example, highly technical standards are negotiated that have extensive health, safety, and economic effects; lawsuits challenging rules are regularly settled by agreement on a negotiated rule; public law litigation involves sensitive negotiation over rule-like issues; and many environmental disputes and policies have been successfully negotiated. These experiences can be drawn upon in certain rulemaking contexts to provide procedures by which affected interests and the agency might participate directly in the development of the text of a proposed rule through negotiation and mediation.
The Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) has, however, dampened administrative enthusiasm for attempts to build on experience with successful negotiations. Without proposing a general revision of FACA, the Administrative Conference urges that Congress amend the Act to facilitate the use of the negotiating procedures contemplated in this recommendation.
The suggested procedures provide a mechanism by which the benefits of negotiation could be achieved while providing appropriate safeguards to ensure that affected interests have the opportunity to participate, that the resulting rule is within the discretion delegated by Congress, and that it is not arbitrary or capricious. The premise of the recommendation is that provision of opportunities and incentives to resolve issues during rulemaking, through negotiations, will result in an improved process and better rules. Such rules would likely be more acceptable to affected interests because of their participation in the negotiations. The purpose of this recommendation is to establish a supplemental rulemaking procedure that can be used in appropriate circumstances to permit the direct participation of affected interests in the development of proposed rules. This procedure should be viewed as experimental, and should be reviewed after it has been used a reasonable number of times.
Recommendation
1. Agencies should consider using regulatory negotiation, as described in this recommendation, as a means of drafting for agency consideration the text of a proposed regulation. A proposal to establish a regulatory negotiating group could be made either by the agency (for example, in an advance notice of proposed rulemaking) or by the suggestion of any interested person.
2. Congress should facilitate the regulatory negotiation process by passing legislation explicitly authorizing agencies to conduct rulemaking proceedings in the manner described in this recommendation. This authority, to the extent that it enlarges existing agency rulemaking authority, should be viewed as an experiment in improving rulemaking procedures. Accordingly, the legislation should contain a sunset provision. The legislation should provide substantial flexibility for agencies to adapt negotiation techniques to the circumstances of individual proceedings, as contemplated in this recommendation, free of the restrictions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act and any ex parte limitations. Legislation should provide that information tendered to such groups, operating in the manner proposed, should not be considered an agency record under the Freedom of Information Act.
3. In legislation authorizing regulatory negotiation, Congress should authorize agencies to designate a “convenor” to organize the negotiations in a particular proceeding. The convenor should be an individual, government agency, or private organization, neutral with respect to the regulatory policy issues under consideration. If the agency chooses an individual who is an employee of the agency itself, that person should not be associated with either the rulemaking or enforcement staff. The convenor would be responsible for (i) advising the agency as to whether, in a given proceeding, regulatory negotiation is feasible and is likely to be conducive to the fairer and more efficient conduct of the agency’s regulatory program, and (ii) determining, in consultation with the agency, who should participate in the negotiations.
4. An agency considering use of regulatory negotiation should select and consult with a convenor at the earliest practicable time about the feasibility of its use. The convenor should conduct a preliminary inquiry to determine whether a regulatory negotiating group should be empanelled to develop a proposed rule relating to the particular topic. The convenor should consider the risks that negotiation procedures would increase the likelihood of a consensus proposal that would limit output, raise prices, restrict entry, or otherwise establish or support unreasonable restraints on competition. Other factors bearing on this decision include the following:
(a) The issues to be raised in the proceeding should be mature and ripe for decision. Ideally, there should be some deadline for issuing the rule, so that a decision on a rule is inevitable within a relatively fixed time frame. The agency may also impose a deadline on the negotiations.
(b) The resolution of issues should not be such as to require participants in negotiations to compromise their fundamental tenets, since it is unlikely that agreement will be reached in such circumstances. Rather, issues involving such fundamental tenets should already have been determined, or not be crucial to the resolution of the issues involved in writing the proposed regulation.
(c) The interests significantly affected should be such that individuals can be selected who will adequately represent those interests. Since negotiations cannot generally be conducted with a large number of participants, there should be a limited number of interests that will be significantly affected by the rule and therefore represented in the negotiations. A rule of thumb might be that negotiations should ordinarily involve no more than 15 participants.
(d) There should be a number of diverse issues that the participants can rank according to their own priorities and on which they might reach agreement by attempting to optimize the return to all the participants.
(e) No single interest should be able to dominate the negotiations. The agency’s representative in the negotiations will not be deemed to possess this power solely by virtue of the agency’s ultimate power to promulgate the final rule.
(f) The participants in the negotiations should be willing to negotiate in good faith to draft a proposed rule.
(g) The agency should be willing to designate an appropriate staff member to participate as the agency’s representative, but the representative should make clear to the other participants that he or she cannot bind the agency.
5. If the convenor determines that regulatory negotiation would be appropriate, it would recommend this procedure to the agency. If the agency and the convenor agree that regulatory negotiation is appropriate, the convenor should be responsible for determining preliminarily the interests that will likely be substantially affected by a proposed rule, the individuals that will represent those interests in negotiations, the scope of issues to be addressed, and a schedule for completing the work. It will be important for potential participants to agree among themselves as to these matters, and their agreement can be facilitated by either the convenor or a possible participant conducting a preliminary inquiry among identified interests. Reasonable efforts should be made to secure a balanced group in which no interest has more than a third of the members and each representative is technically qualified to address the issues presented, or has access to qualified individuals.
6. The subject matter of the proposed regulation may be within the jurisdiction of an existing committee of a non-governmental standards writing organization that has procedures to ensure the fair representation of the respective interests and a process for determining whether the decision actually reflects a consensus among them. If such a committee exists and appears to enjoy the support and confidence of the affected interests, the convenor should consider recommending that negotiations be conducted under that committee’s auspices instead of establishing an entirely new framework for negotiations. In such a case, the existing committee could be regarded as a regulatory negotiation group for purposes of this recommendation. (Alternatively, the product of the committee could be used as the basis of a proposed regulation pursuant to Administrative Conference Recommendation 78-4.1)
7. To ensure that the appropriate interests have been identified and have had the opportunity to be represented in the negotiating group, the agency should publish in the Federal Register a notice that it is contemplating developing a rule by negotiation and indicate in the notice the issues involved and the participants and interests already identified. If an additional person or interest petitions for membership or representation in the negotiating group, the convenor, in consultation with the agency, should determine (i) whether that interest would be substantially affected by the rule, (ii) if so, whether it would be represented by an individual already in the negotiating group, and (iii) whether, in any event, the petitioner should be added to the negotiating group, or whether interests can be consolidated and still provide adequate representation.
8. The agency should designate a senior official to represent it in the negotiations and should identify that official in the Federal Register notice.
9. It may be that, in particular proceedings, certain affected interests will require reimbursement for direct expenses to be able to participate at a level that will foster broadly-based, successful negotiations. Unlike intervenors, the negotiating group will be performing a function normally performed within the agency, and the agency should consider reimbursing the direct expenses of such participants. The agency should also provide financial or other support for the convenor and the negotiating group. Congress should clarify the authority of agencies to provide such financial resources.
10. The convenor and the agency might consider whether selection of a mediator is likely to facilitate the negotiation process. Where participants lack relevant negotiating experience, a mediator may be of significant help in making them comfortable with the process and in resolving impasses.
11. The goal of the negotiating group should be to arrive at a consensus on a proposed rule. Consensus in this context means that each interest represented in the negotiating group concurs in the result, unless all members of the group agree at the outset on another definition. Following consensus, the negotiating group should prepare a report to the agency containing its proposed rule and a concise general statement of its basis and purpose. The report should also describe the factual material on which the group relied in preparing its proposed regulation, for inclusion in the agency’s record of the proceeding. The participants may, of course, be unable to reach a consensus on a proposed rule, and, in that event, they should identify in the report both the areas in which they are agreed and the areas in which consensus could not be achieved. This could serve to narrow the issues in dispute, identify information necessary to resolve issues, rank priorities, and identify potentially acceptable solutions.
12. The negotiating group should be authorized to close its meeting to the public only when necessary to protect confidential data or when, in the judgment of the participants, the likelihood of achieving consensus would be significantly enhanced.
13. The agency should publish the negotiated text of the proposed rule in its notice of proposed rulemaking. If the agency does not publish the negotiated text as a proposed rule, it should explain its reasons. The agency may wish to propose amendments or modifications to the negotiated proposed rule, but it should do so in such a manner that the public at large can identify the work of the agency and of the negotiating group.
14. The negotiating group should be afforded an opportunity to review any comments that are received in response to the notice of proposed rulemaking so that the participants can determine whether their recommendations should be modified. The final responsibility for issuing the rule would remain with the agency.
Citations:
47 FR 30708 (July 15, 1982)
1982 ACUS 21 (vol 1)
1 Federal Agency Interaction with Private Standard-Setting Organizations in Health and Safety Regulation, 1978 ACUS Recommendations and Reports 13, 1 CFR 305.78-4.