Ongoing Projects

Committee:

This project considers how artificial intelligence (AI) tools can be used to identify rules that are outdated or redundant; that contain typographical errors or inaccurate cross-references; or that might benefit from elaboration or clarification.

This project will examine how federal agencies receive, process, and respond to congressional inquiries made on behalf of constituents who need assistance accessing federal programs or navigating adjudicative and other similar administrative processes. Based on that study, the project will identify best practices for agencies to promote quality, efficiency, and timeliness in agency procedures for responding to such inquiries.

This project considers whether the main statutes governing disclosure of agencies’ legislative rules, guidance documents, adjudicative decisions, and other important legal materials should be amended to consolidate and harmonize their overlapping requirements, account for technological developments, correct certain statutory ambiguities and drafting errors, and address other potential problems that may be identified.

This project recommends best practices, such as public engagement and data analysis, that agencies can use to identify unnecessary burdens that members of the public face when they engage with administrative programs or participate in administrative processes. It also recommends strategies agencies can use to reduce unnecessary burdens, such as streamlining processes and digitizing services.

This project will survey strategies—including procedural, technological, personnel, and other reforms—that agencies have used or might use to address backlogs or delays in administrative adjudication. Based on this survey, it will identify best practices to help agencies devise plans to promote timeliness in administrative adjudication, in accord with principles of fairness, accuracy, and efficiency.

Committee:

This project recommends best practices for developing online processes by which private parties, representatives, and other participants in agency adjudications can file forms, evidence, and briefs; view case materials and status information; receive notices and orders; and perform other common adjudicative tasks.

This project will recommend best practices for agencies—and Congress, if warranted—to consider in designing and implementing user fees in administrative programs.

This project studies and offers recommendations on agencies’ efforts to promote enhanced transparency, accessibility, and accountability by using virtual tools to engage the public in connection with agency rulemaking activities.