Hearing from You: How OIRA Meets with the Public

The President’s Executive Order on Modernizing Regulatory Review calls on the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) to consider changes in how OIRA meets with the public regarding rules under OIRA review, with the goal of expanding who OIRA hears from and increasing transparency about those meetings.

Members of the public can schedule these meetings on proposed regulations, called 12866 meetings, while regulatory proposals are under review by OIRA. These meetings offer members of the public an opportunity to provide information to OIRA that may be relevant for the regulatory review process, such as pointing out potential impacts of a regulation or offering alternatives to a regulation. 12866 meetings with OIRA, though, are not a substitute for submitting comments to the regulatory agencies under their applicable regulatory procedures.

OIRA has released a set of draft ideas for changes to 12866 meetings and is now inviting feedback on these ideas from the public. Interested members of the public can submit written feedback on these ideas here through June 6, 2023.

In addition, OIRA is organizing a public listening event on May 4, 2023, from 1:30-5:00 ET to hear from members of the public about how we should change our policies regarding 12866 meetings. You can RSVP for the listening session here.

As part of the RSVP process you can specify which sections of the listening session you’d like to join to share your feedback, so you don’t need to join for the whole time. The event will be recorded, so if you are unable to attend you can watch it on this page after the event. You can also reach out to publicparticipation@omb.eop.gov with further questions.

The agenda for the listening session is as follows, and you can RSVP for the sessions you’re interested in joining and providing feedback:

1. 1:30-2:00 PM: Welcome and Introduction from the OIRA team; Background on 12866 Meetings and Proposed Changes.
2. 2:00-2:45 PM: Public Listening Session 1: Expanding Participation in 12866 Meetings. In this session, we invite you to share ideas about how OIRA can support greater participation in the 12866 meeting process, including by members of the public who have not previously used this process.
3. 3:00-3:45 PM: Public Listening Session 2: Accommodating Increased Demand for 12866 Meetings. Currently, OIRA is able to accommodate virtually all requests for 12866 meetings. If efforts to expand participation in 12866 meetings are successful, OIRA may not be able to accommodate all requests for meetings in all cases. In this session, we invite you to share ideas about how OIRA should consolidate and/or prioritize meeting requests in a transparent and fair manner.

4:00-4:55 PM: Listening Session 3: Increasing Transparency in 12866 Meetings + General Feedback. Currently, OIRA releases public data on 12866 meetings, including the identity of meeting requestors and government staff participants. In this session, we invite you to share ideas about additional information OIRA should collect from meeting requestors and release to the public to improve transparency about the 12866 meeting process, as well as other steps to improve accessibility of data on these meetings. We also welcome general feedback on 12866 meetings in this session.