Recommendation 2020-2, Protected Materials in Public Rulemaking Dockets – offers agencies best practices for protecting sensitive personal and confidential commercial information in public rulemaking dockets. It identifies, in particular, best practices for agencies to use when redacting, summarizing, and aggregating comments that contain such information. It also encourages agencies to provide public notices that discourage commenters from submitting such information in the first place.
Citation: Admin. Conf. of the U.S., Recommendation 2020-2, Protected Materials in Public Rulemaking Dockets, 86 Fed. Reg. 6614 (Jan. 22, 2021).
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Protected Materials in Public Rulemaking Dockets
As part of the rulemaking process, agencies create public rulemaking dockets, which consist of all rulemaking materials agencies have: (1) proactively published online or (2) made available for public inspection in a reading room. Public rulemaking dockets include materials agencies generate themselves and comments agencies receive from the public.