FreedomWorks Foundation Submits Comments on Regulatory Transparency
The text of the formal comment can be found here, in the attachment at the bottom of this page, and is excerpted directly below:
President Trump aimed to provide Americans “an open and fair regulatory process” by requiring that agencies use notice-and-comment rulemaking procedures when formulating new obligations on the public; guidance documents on which the agency relies would have to be published on a searchable website, and documents not published could no longer be used; and future guidance documents could be issued only after providing the public a chance to comment. Agencies across the federal government were directed to review their guidance and make available to the public those documents that remained valid.
This effort to combat “bureaucratic abuse and hold federal agencies accountable” should have continued, and not been reversed by the Biden Administration. But on his first day in office, President Biden direct[ed] agencies to “promptly take steps to rescind any orders, rules, regulations, guidelines, or policies…implementing or enforcing the [Trump] Executive Orders.”
The Department of Energy (DOE) is first to implement President Biden’s order. It proposes to withdraw its final rule implementing Trump’s regulatory transparency, claiming that the “urgent challenges facing the nation” mean that regulators need all “available tools…to tackle these challenges.”
[W]e oppose the Biden Administration’s effort to give regulators more tools that make it easier to restrict our liberties without proper transparency. Americans have a right to know what their regulators are doing. Washington bureaucrats already have immense power over our lives and economy. We should at least be ensured of open, transparent government: fair notice and an opportunity for input on the rules that govern our lives and livelihoods. We urge DOE to leave the regulatory transparency rule in place.
