Cornell lawyers and computer experts team up to make government rule-making accessible in Internet age

At least 160 federal agencies churn out rules and regulations -- more than 4,000 a year -- from specifying the height of steps on buses for the disabled to the method of calculating food's fiber content. Before finalizing a rule, government agencies are required to solicit and consider public comment, which, until recently meant publishing a notice in the Federal Register, accessible mostly to lobbyists. Now, all notices and requests for comment are to go through the Web site http://regulations.gov. Although that site communicates about as clearly as the instructions that come with income tax forms, it sometimes produces more public participation than regulators would prefer. To help the agencies deal with rule-making in the Internet age and make the process more accessible to the public, Cornell scientists and legal experts have created the Cornell e-Rulemaking Initiative (CeRI), funded by a $750,000, three-year grant from the National Science Foundation.