by Jbs022210 i3 — February 24, 2010—The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is launching a Web site giving the public additional opportunity to participate in the agency’s rulemaking process, in accordance with President Obama’s commitment to more transparent government.
The online Rulemaking Gateway serves as a portal to EPA’s priority rules, providing citizens with earlier and up-to-date information about agency regulations.
Rulemaking Gateway complements Regulations.gov, the Federal Government’s main portal for tracking rules from all federal agencies, by providing brief overviews of EPA rules and ways to search rules based on the phases they are in (e.g., pre-proposal, proposal), the topics they relate to (e.g., water, waste), and the impacts they might have (e.g., on small businesses or energy supply, distribution or use). An interested reader can then follow links to Regulations.gov or to other EPA sources for more comprehensive information.
In addition, EPA has established a Rulemaking Gateway discussion forum to allow the public to suggest enhancements to the site. The forum will be open through July 16, 2010, after which EPA plans to make enhancements based on ideas received.
