WASHINGTON—The House last week passed the Regulatory Integrity Act of 2016, HR 5226, which would mandate that each executive agency make publicly available a list of each pending regulatory action.
“The bill would direct each agency in the executive branch to make available on its website or in the rulemaking docket on Regulations.gov a list of each pending regulatory action, the date the action was developed, its status and an estimated date of when the action will be final, among other details,” NAFCU stated.
The information would need to be published within 24 hours after pending regulations are issued and be publicly available for at least five years after actions are finalized.
The bill, authored by Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) was introduced in response to activities by the Environmental Protection Agency regarding its Waters of the U.S. rule that the Government Accountability Office determined violated the law, noted NAFCU.
“The bill was approved with three amendments: One that would require agencies to post cost-benefit analyses from their regulatory activities online, the second that would bar officials from using private email to discuss pending actions and a third that would require agencies to disclose when proposed actions duplicate or overlap with existing regulations,” NAFCU reported.