Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review

Executive Order 13563 of January 18, 2011

Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review

By the authority vested in me as President by the
Constitution and the laws of the United States of
America, and in order to improve regulation and
regulatory review, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. General Principles of Regulation. (a) Our
regulatory system must protect public health, welfare,
safety, and our environment while promoting economic
growth, innovation, competitiveness, and job creation.
It must be based on the best available science. It must
allow for public participation and an open exchange of
ideas. It must promote predictability and reduce
uncertainty. It must identify and use the best, most
innovative, and least burdensome tools for achieving
regulatory ends. It must take into account benefits and
costs, both quantitative and qualitative. It must
ensure that regulations are accessible, consistent,
written in plain language, and easy to understand. It
must measure, and seek to improve, the actual results
of regulatory requirements.

    (b) This order is supplemental to and reaffirms the
principles, structures, and definitions governing
contemporary regulatory review that were established in
Executive Order 12866 of September 30, 1993. As stated
in that Executive Order and to the extent permitted by
law, each agency must, among other things: (1) propose
or adopt a regulation only upon a reasoned
determination that its benefits justify its costs
(recognizing that some benefits and costs are difficult
to quantify); (2) tailor its regulations to impose the
least burden on society, consistent with obtaining
regulatory objectives, taking into account, among other
things, and to the extent practicable, the costs of
cumulative regulations; (3) select, in choosing among
alternative regulatory approaches, those approaches
that maximize net benefits (including potential
economic, environmental, public health and safety, and
other advantages; distributive impacts; and equity);
(4) to the extent feasible, specify performance
objectives, rather than specifying the behavior or
manner of compliance that regulated entities must
adopt; and (5) identify and assess available
alternatives to direct regulation, including providing
economic incentives to encourage the desired behavior,
such as user fees or marketable permits, or providing
information upon which choices can be made by the
public.
    (c) In applying these principles, each agency is
directed to use the best available techniques to
quantify anticipated present and future benefits and
costs as accurately as possible. Where appropriate and
permitted by law, each agency may consider (and discuss
qualitatively) values that are difficult or impossible
to quantify, including equity, human dignity, fairness,
and distributive impacts.

Sec. 2. Public Participation. (a) Regulations shall be
adopted through a process that involves public
participation. To that end, regulations shall be based,
to the extent feasible and consistent with law, on the
open exchange of information and perspectives among
State, local, and tribal officials, experts in relevant
disciplines, affected stakeholders in the private
sector, and the public as a whole.

    (b) To promote that open exchange, each agency,
consistent with Executive Order 12866 and other
applicable legal requirements, shall endeavor to
provide the public with an opportunity to participate
in the regulatory process. To the extent feasible and
permitted by law, each agency shall afford the public a
meaningful opportunity to comment through the Internet
on any proposed regulation, with a comment period that
should generally

be at least 60 days. To the extent feasible and
permitted by law, each agency shall also provide, for
both proposed and final rules, timely online access to
the rulemaking docket on regulations.gov, including
relevant scientific and technical findings, in an open
format that can be easily searched and downloaded. For
proposed rules, such access shall include, to the
extent feasible and permitted by law, an opportunity
for public comment on all pertinent parts of the
rulemaking docket, including relevant scientific and
technical findings.
    (c) Before issuing a notice of proposed rulemaking,
each agency, where feasible and appropriate, shall seek
the views of those who are likely to be affected,
including those who are likely to benefit from and
those who are potentially subject to such rulemaking.

Sec. 3. Integration and Innovation. Some sectors and
industries face a significant number of regulatory
requirements, some of which may be redundant,
inconsistent, or overlapping. Greater coordination
across agencies could reduce these requirements, thus
reducing costs and simplifying and harmonizing rules.
In developing regulatory actions and identifying
appropriate approaches, each agency shall attempt to
promote such coordination, simplification, and
harmonization. Each agency shall also seek to identify,
as appropriate, means to achieve regulatory goals that
are designed to promote innovation.

Sec. 4. Flexible Approaches. Where relevant, feasible,
and consistent with regulatory objectives, and to the
extent permitted by law, each agency shall identify and
consider regulatory approaches that reduce burdens and
maintain flexibility and freedom of choice for the
public. These approaches include warnings, appropriate
default rules, and disclosure requirements as well as
provision of information to the public in a form that
is clear and intelligible.

Sec. 5. Science. Consistent with the President's
Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and
Agencies, “Scientific Integrity” (March 9, 2009), and
its implementing guidance, each agency shall ensure the
objectivity of any scientific and technological
information and processes used to support the agency's
regulatory actions.

Sec. 6. Retrospective Analyses of Existing Rules. (a)
To facilitate the periodic review of existing
significant regulations, agencies shall consider how
best to promote retrospective analysis of rules that
may be outmoded, ineffective, insufficient, or
excessively burdensome, and to modify, streamline,
expand, or repeal them in accordance with what has been
learned. Such retrospective analyses, including
supporting data, should be released online whenever
possible.

    (b) Within 120 days of the date of this order, each
agency shall develop and submit to the Office of
Information and Regulatory Affairs a preliminary plan,
consistent with law and its resources and regulatory
priorities, under which the agency will periodically
review its existing significant regulations to
determine whether any such regulations should be
modified, streamlined, expanded, or repealed so as to
make the agency's regulatory program more effective or
less burdensome in achieving the regulatory objectives.

Sec. 7. General Provisions. (a) For purposes of this
order, “agency” shall have the meaning set forth in
section 3(b) of Executive Order 12866.

    (b) Nothing in this order shall be construed to
impair or otherwise affect:

(i) authority granted by law to a department or agency, or the head
thereof; or

(ii) functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget
relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

    (c) This order shall be implemented consistent with
applicable law and subject to the availability of
appropriations.

    (d) This order is not intended to, and does not,
create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural,
enforceable at law or in equity by any party against
the United States, its departments, agencies, or
entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any
other person.

    (Presidential Sig.)

THE WHITE HOUSE,

    January 18, 2011.