When Do Agencies Change Their Proposed Rules?
16 Pages Posted: 1 Nov 2007 Last revised: 13 Aug 2009
Date Written: October 30, 2007
Abstract
When do government agencies change their mind? It is well established by those who follow the regulatory process that when a federal agency issues a proposed rule, that proposal is generally a document that the agency has put a great deal of thought into and has considerable stake in finalizing. But, sometimes agencies change their proposed rules. This article uses a dataset of 427 regulations that were preceded by proposed rules to determine the conditions under which agencies make changes to their proposals. I find that the number of comments has a significant effect on agency propensity to change proposed rules. This is true even after I control for the salience and complexity of the rule and variables measuring the political environment. No other variable has a statistically significant impact besides a variable measuring whether the rule is of general or particular applicability with general rules more likely to be changed. These conclusions have implications for notice and comment rulemaking and for anlaysis of bureaucratic decisionmaking in general.
Keywords: rulemaking, regulation, participation, bureaucracy
JEL Classification: D73, K23
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation