DOJ Report Urges Congress to Modernize APA

A DOJ report on ways to update the Administrative Procedure Act includes proposals to require agencies to disclose the data used in the rulemaking process, revive agency hearings for rules with major impacts, and to base the amount of scrutiny a new rule is subjected to on its importance. "Modernizing the Administrative Procedures Act," released Tuesday, collected the remarks of panelists and speakers at DOJ's December workshop on the subject. The current APA leads to overly costly and burdensome regulations that may at times infringe on the Constitution, said Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen in the report’s forward. The consistent theme of the workshop was that Congress should intervene to update the rules instead of relying on the current structure of executive orders and agency rulings, Rosen said. Legislation would “promote stability by codifying procedures that, in their current form, can be undone at the stroke of a presidential pen” and “honor the separation of powers.” said Rosen. “The Justice Department, which significantly shaped the original APA, hopes that the ideas and insights discussed in the report will encourage and inform much needed action by Congress to modernize the APA,” said the DOJ release on the report.