This project studies agencies’ appellate review of hearing-level adjudicative decisions. Topics include the structure, composition, functions, procedures, and authority of agency appellate bodies. Resulting recommendations will focus on the ways in which agencies can enhance both the efficiency and fairness of appellate review.
This project studies whether and how agencies should make their federal court filings and relevant court opinions available to the public on their websites. Particular emphasis will be placed on litigation dealing with agency regulatory programs. The project will look at ways agencies can post documents to maximize their accessibility to interested members of the public while minimizing the resource burden imposed on the agencies.
This project addresses whether, when, and how, before issuing notices of proposed rulemaking, agencies should solicit public input on alternatives to rules under consideration. It seeks to identify targeted measures for obtaining public input, such as small meetings with groups of experts or regulated parties, that provide valuable information to agencies as they weigh alternatives, while minimizing the associated procedural burden.
This project studies the procedures governing agency-level, procurement contract disputes — which are commonly called bid protests — under the Federal Acquisition Regulation and agency-specific regulations. It analyzes the rules governing a variety of bid protest procedures, including higher-level agency review and discovery and exchange of information during protests.
This project seeks to identify agency best practices for handling mass, computer-generated, and fraudulent comments in rulemakings. Treating each type of comment separately, it examines both the legal and practical issues associated with processing and responding to such comments.
This project seeks to identify best practices for agencies in undertaking periodic review of their existing regulations. Whereas past Conference studies on retrospective review have addressed the topic in the broad sense, this project focuses on the special hurdles agencies confront when they attempt to implement regulatory review on a periodic and more regularized basis.
This project examines how agencies protect confidential business information, such as trade secrets and financial regulatory information, and personally identifiable information, such as medical information, within their public rulemaking dockets, while achieving an appropriate level of disclosure.
This project addresses whether and when agencies should adopt rules setting forth the procedures the agencies follow when engaging in informal rulemaking. These procedures can include internal approval requirements for proposed rules.
