AUWCL's Administrative Law Review Hosts 2018 Fall Symposium on Mass and Fake Comments in Agency Rulemaking
Oct. 2, 2018
American University Washington College of Law’s Administrative Law Review partnered with the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) on Friday, Oct. 5 to host the 2018 Fall Symposium on Mass and Fake Comments in Agency Rulemaking.
The symposium featured two panel discussions regarding the role of comments and public input in the rulemaking process, and issues related to mass comments and fraudulent comments.
The keynote address was delivered by Dominic Mancini, deputy administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), Office of Management and Budget.
The definition of fake comment OIRA uses when discussing these comments, Macini said, is any comment submitted to an agency's rulemaking docket attributed to a person of the agency, which is then subsequently determined not to have been written, submitted, or authorized by that person.
"Some of the things agencies have done is keeping the comment in the public docket, but removing its attribution — treating it as an anonymous comment; requesting a subsequent comment saying the original comment was fake; or an attempt to validate the person and potentially remove the comment from the public docket," he said. "One of the issues here is that we don't have a uniformed position of how to handle comments with this issue, and I think a forum like this would really help us think harder about whether we need to have one."
AUWCL Vice Dean Tony Varona moderated the event’s second panel, “The Rise of Fake Comments in Rule Making.” Professor Andrew Popper, Ann Loeb Bronfman Distinguished Professor of Law and Government, provided closing remarks.
Over 150 practitioners from several government agencies, law firms, and other companies are registered to attend, including from the Department of Agriculture, ACUS, Bloomberg, Booz Allen Hamilton, Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, Department of Education, Department of Labor, Department of Treasury, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, and more.