[Federal Register Volume 76, Number 14 (Friday, January 21, 2011)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 3821-3823]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2011-1385]


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                         Presidential Documents 
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  Federal Register / Vol. 76 , No. 14 / Friday, January 21, 2011 / 
Presidential Documents  

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 Title 3--
 The President

[[Page 3821]]

                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

[[Page 3822]]

                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.

[[Page 3823]]

                    (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.

[FR Doc. 2011-1385
Filed 1-20-11; 8:45 am]
Billing code 3195-W1-