Response of the Environmental Protection Agency to Public Submissions: Notice and Comment Process in Methane Emission Deregulation
Improvements recommended to make the EPA’s regulatory input process more effective
By Patrick Agri and Robert Kleinberg
July 2021
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) notice-and-comment process is an important forum for stakeholder input in agency rulemaking, representing diverse interests that range from concerned citizens to multi-national corporations. Through deep analysis of the 2020 methane deregulation rule, this report poses the question of whether the EPA was unbiased in considering the principal arguments of stakeholders. Authors Agri and Kleinberg reveal inadequacies, finding the EPA was often unpersuaded by reasonable arguments or suggestions and sometimes ignored them.
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Key Takeaways
- An in-depth qualitative study of the effectiveness of the notice-and-comment process for 2019-2020 methane emission deregulation showed the EPA expended enormous resources analyzing stakeholders’ comments but derived little benefit from either the arguments and insights of commenters or its analyses of substantive comments.
- The EPA was not fair in truly considering all points of view, remaining unpersuaded by reasonable arguments and resistant to reasonable suggestions, even when these were advanced by multiple commenters with generally conflicting interests.
- The notice-and-comment process is administratively problematic. Comments are received after the EPA has invested considerable effort in formulating regulations, creating a less receptive environment for agency due diligence. The EPA must expend disproportionate resources responding to all comments since any of them could form the basis of a legal attack, limiting its ability to perform its proper civic function.
- In this case, the administration had a goal, clearly spelled out in an executive order and implemented by an EPA administrator specifically selected for the job. Any delay that could jeopardize the overall goal would naturally be resisted.
This study is limited to one regulatory action taken by one administration. The authors do not claim it is representative of the EPA’s processes in the long term or of federal agencies’ processes in general.