Wheeler Signs Final Guidance Rule, Touts 'Transparency' On Documents

摘要

EPA's final rule setting up new procedures for issuing, rewriting and rescinding guidance documents largely codifies the proposed version the agency released in May, with the sole major addition being a new right for members of the public to petition for reinstatement of a withdrawn guidance. The final guidance rule, which EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler signed Sept. 14 ahead of publication in the Federal Register, requires a 30-day comment period for new "significant" guidance and establishes a procedure for petitions seeking the repeal, modification or reinstatement of previously issued documents - an expansion of the proposal, which only allowed for petitions to withdraw or rewrite the documents. The rule also requires regional offices to seek "concurrence" from headquarters on new guidance documents and requires all active guidances to be posted on EPA's recently-established web portal for the documents, with guidance not posted there presumed to be withdrawn and thus invalid. "This rule sheds light on final guidance development and for the first time provides for public participation" in crafting guidance documents, Wheeler said on a Sept. 14 webcast to announce the rule hosted by the conservative nonprofit Federalist Society.