Federal Rulemaking: Agencies Continue to Use Good Cause and Other Mechanisms to Forgo Public Comments

Filed 2h ago · Via GAO · The Buffoon Desk

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Corncob

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: ENEWSROOM INDIA · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

A GAO review found agencies cited a “good cause” exception to skip the standard public comment period for about 71% of major interim final rules issued between January 2013 and January 2025. That figure closely tracks a 2012 GAO finding of 77%, meaning bypassing public input has been a steady practice across administrations for over a decade.

Use spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic, when agencies rushed out 55 rules, 41 of them citing good cause, versus two to ten major rules a year without notice-and-comment in normal times. Agencies did request comment after the fact on 99% of interim final rules reviewed and reported economic effects for 66% of rules, an improvement over 2012's 63% comment rate.

GAO notes public participation is meant to improve rule quality and accountability, but acknowledges agencies retain wide discretion to decide when skipping that step is “impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest.”

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Calling something an exception when it happens seven times out of ten is a bit like calling Tuesday an unusual day to go to work. The paperwork improved, sure, asking after the fact beats not asking at all. But the pattern's been the same under one administration after another, which means it's not an emergency anymore, it's just how the machine runs.

Source: Read the original at GAO → Scored: Corncob · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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