eRulemaking

The eRulemaking program is a shared service that provides the public with one-stop access to review regulatory dockets and electronically submit comments on proposed rulemakings and other agency actions for multiple Federal agencies.

GSA serves as the managing partner of the eRulemaking program and is the home to the eRulemaking Program Management Office (PMO). The PMO supports 45 federal partner agencies and their components, which are represented through a governance body. See https://www.regulations.gov/about.

In collaboration with the U.S. Office of the Federal Register, the PMO supports electronic regulatory notice-and-comment requirements in accordance with the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946 and E-Government Act of 2002. The services also facilitate public comment on a variety of non-rulemaking activities with or without a corresponding Federal Register notice. 

For the public, these shared IT services provide one-stop access to the agencies to participate in rulemaking and non-rulemaking activities. Researchers, attorneys, interest groups, and a variety of other actors search existing and historical rulemaking dockets to gain additional context from supporting materials and review comments submitted by other members of the public.

Our vision

• Enable public access to regulatory materials;
• Increase rulemaking participation; and
• Improve agencies’ efficiency and effectiveness

The eRulemaking PMO manages the following two interrelated information systems:

Federal Docket Management System (FDMS): FDMS is a secure system that supports over 9,500 federal users with role-based access through the Login.gov federated identity solution. 

The system supports agencies in creating dockets, managing the supporting documents, and publishing selected documents for public access through Regulations.gov. 

Regulations.gov: Regulations.gov is publicly accessible and provides one-stop access to dockets published by partner agencies. Members of the public can subscribe to email notifications of activity for specified dockets, comment on documents, and view comments from other members of the public. Comments may be submitted anonymously or with identifying information. 

Since its initial launch, usage of the Regulations.gov web site has grown steadily. In 2020, Regulations.gov received 3.8 million visits and over 614,000 public comments via the webform. In some cases, agencies may also receive comments through the mail or email, which are scanned and uploaded into FDMS and posted to Regulations.gov.