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 released a set of draft ideas for changes to 12866 meetings and invited feedback on those ideas from the public. You can read the public comments OIRA received here.

In addition, OIRA organized a public listening session 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.

The agenda for the listening session was as follows, and you can watch recordings of the sessions by clicking on the respective links below:

• 1:30-2:00 PM: Welcome and Introduction from the OIRA team; Background on 12866 Meetings and Proposed Changes (watch a recording of this session).
• 2:00-2:45 PM: Public Listening Session 1: Expanding Participation in 12866 Meetings. In this session, we invited ideas about how OIRA can support greater participation in the 12866 meeting process, including from members of the public who have not previously used this process (watch a recording of this session).
• 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 invited ideas about how OIRA should consolidate and/or prioritize meeting requests in a transparent and fair manner (watch a recording of this session).
• 4:00-4:55 PM: Public 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 invited 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 welcomed general feedback on 12866 meetings in this session (watch a recording of this session).