This bill would change how federal agencies run rulemaking. It would require people who submit scientific, economic, or technical studies to an agency to disclose who paid for the work, any sponsors, who reviewed or revised the work, and any financial ties to parties affected by the rule. Agencies would generally make submitted studies public unless a disclosure exemption applies. Agencies must also post conflicts when at least 10% of a study's funding comes from an entity regulated by the agency or when such an entity reviewed or revised the study. Agencies may exclude or disregard submissions that fail to make required disclosures.
The bill creates an Office of the Public Advocate inside the Office of Management and Budget. The office would be led by a Senate-confirmed National Public Advocate. Duties include helping the public take part in rulemaking, conducting social equity assessments for proposed rules on request, researching social equity impacts, and improving outreach to communities.
The bill sets a 60-day limit for OIRA review of significant regulatory actions, with a single 30-day extension allowed for written justification. If OIRA does not complete review on time or waives review, the agency may publish the regulatory action. The bill requires agencies to publish changes between drafts they sent to OMB and the versions published in notices or the Federal Register. Agencies that withdraw a proposed rule must publish a detailed explanation and say whether the withdrawal was influenced by OMB, another agency, or another federal official.
Other provisions include narrowing negotiated rulemaking to government-to-government negotiations (Federal, State, local, or tribal), requiring agencies to expand public awareness when rulemakings start or publish proposed or final rules and to maintain participation logs, requiring agencies to respond within 60 days to petitions with more than 100,000 signatures, adding civil penalties for public companies that knowingly submit materially false information to agencies, adding a 6-year statute of limitations for judicial review of agency actions, allowing agencies to reinstate certain previously disapproved rules, and directing agencies doing cost-benefit analyses to account for nonquantifiable benefits and social equity and to prioritize rules that provide public benefits.
No publicly available information.
The bill's findings and "sense of Congress" state that Congress relies on agencies to implement broadly written statutes, that agency economic analyses often underestimate public health and safety benefits and overestimate industry costs, and that agencies sometimes fail to consider distributional and social equity effects. Supporters, as reflected in the bill text, seek more disclosure about study funding and review, stronger public participation, faster OIRA timelines, and more social equity analysis to increase transparency and trust in rulemaking.
No publicly available information.