This Month at ACUS: September 2022 | Administrative Conference of the United States

This series highlights selected ACUS projects. To learn more about ongoing projects, subscribe to our mailing list.

In the next several months, three committees will consider projects directed toward the development of recommendations.

Rulemaking Committee: The committee will consider Regulatory Enforcement Manuals. This project addresses whether and when enforcement manuals provide an effective means for agencies to communicate enforcement policies internally and publicly and seeks to identify best practices for their development, use, and dissemination. Jordan Perkins, who recently completed a fellowship with ACUS, is serving as the project consultant.
Regulation Committee: The committee will consider Public Availability of Settlement Agreements in Agency Enforcement Proceedings. This project seeks to identify best practices for providing public access to such agreements consistent with the transparency objectives and privacy considerations of FOIA, the Privacy Act, and other relevant laws and directives. Professor Elysa Dishman (BYU Law) is serving as the project consultant.
Adjudication Committee: The committee will consider Precedential Decision Making in Agency Adjudication. This project examines when agencies should issue precedential decisions and according to what criteria, what procedures agencies should follow to designate decisions as precedential, how agencies should structure and write precedential decisions, how agencies should enforce precedential decisions, and how agencies should communicate precedential decisions internally and publicly. Professor Chris Walker (Michigan Law), Professor Melissa Feeney Wasserman (University of Texas Law), and Matthew Wiener are serving as project consultants.

A fourth recommendation project, Disclosure of Agency Legal Materials, is well underway. The project’s consultative group met four times this summer to discuss issues associated with the disclosure of adjudication materials, regulations and guidance documents, legal opinions, and other agency legal materials.