Recent upgrades to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) new "Rulemaking Gateway" offers small businesses "an easy way" to track most rulemakings, according to the Agency. This website provides an overview of EPA's priority rulemakings that are currently under development. It also serves as a portal to more in-depth information on other federal websites such as Regulations.gov. AGC previously reported in the Observer on the launch of these websites, along with other tools to help contractors stay informed and involved with policymaking decisions at EPA and other federal government agencies.
The Rulemaking Gateway (www.epa.gov/rulemaking/) does not cover every rule, just EPA's "priority rulemakings." (See a definition of "priority rulemaking" here.) If a small business stakeholder doesn't have the time to visit the Gateway on a regular basis, he or she can now sign up for "RSS feeds" that send electronic notifications out when information is added or changed (e.g., a new rulemaking is added to the Gateway), according to EPA's Tracy Westfield, Regulatory Management Division, EPA's Office of Policy, Economics & Innovation.
EPA recently added a Get Alerts page where users can sign up for regular notifications on priority rulemakings that are likely to affect small businesses. An RSS feed is available for each of the effects displayed on the Sort by Effects page. Another key feature is the "small entities filter" page that lists those rulemakings that are likely to have an adverse economic impact on small entities. Other recent upgrades to the Rulemaking Gateway include hyperlinks to documents published in the Federal Register and users can see a list of rules added to the Rulemaking Gateway in the last 30 days on the Newly Added Rules page. Information on the Rulemaking Gateway is updated on a monthly basis.
As a general matter, every new rulemaking that EPA starts working on in a given month (whether it's a priority rulemaking or not) is announced on EPA's Action Initiation List (AIL) (www.epa.gov/lawsregs/search/ail.html). After a rule appears in the AIL, a small business stakeholder can track it in 1) the Rulemaking Gateway (if it is a priority rulemaking), which is updated on a monthly basis or 2) the Regulatory Agenda, which is updated every six months.
During July 2010, EPA is hosting a Discussion Forum (http://blog.epa.gov/rulegateway/) to gather your suggestions for ways to continue to improve the Rulemaking Gateway.
Final rules, EPA guidance and compliance assistance tools are also available on EPA's website at http://www.epa.gov. In addition, AGC of America has worked extensively with EPA to provide online compliance information tailored to the construction industry, available at the Construction Industry Compliance Assistance Center, http://www.cicacenter.org.
- Industry Priorities
- Education
- News
- Connect
- Benefits
- Events
- Shop