미국 행정법상 E-Rulemaking의 법리

Through the rulemaking process, government agencies set standards that affect every major aspect of economic and social life in the United States. The volume and impact of government regulations have grown significantly over the past half century, making rulemaking one of the most important vehicles for government policymaking today. As a result, any proposal that promises to improve the rulemaking process by making it more efficient, less burdensome, or more accountable merits careful attention by both regulatory officials and policy researchers. E-rulemaking is one such proposal. The term e-rulemaking actually encompasses a broad range of applications of information technology to the rulemaking process. While some agencies are beginning to make rulemaking documents available on the Internet, information technology could play a still more significant role. As participants in the Regulatory Policy Program’s e-rulemaking workshops suggested, the potential for using IT in the rulemaking process is considerable. Agencies may be able to use new technologies to communicate more effectively with the public, conduct more informed regulatory analyses, and implement rules more quickly and efficiently. This article has identified numerous ways that information technology can be used to try to solve some of the problems associated with rulemaking. It has also highlighted key avenues for future research on e-rulemaking. Through coordinated efforts over the next decade, researchers should be able to answer many of the significant questions posed in this article and help bring about the development of more effective IT applications for rulemaking. The e-rulemaking efforts made so far by OMB and a core group of leading regulatory agencies represent important first steps, but sustained cooperation between these regulatory agencies and research community will be essential to take e-rulemaking into its next generation.