Isn’t It Ironic? FCC’s New Website Comes Short on Communication

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In an irony perhaps only lawyers can appreciate, the Federal Communications Commission’s newly revamped, state-of-the-art website has, according to one expert, a major communications flaw: Information on the agency’s rule-making is as buried as a pirate’s treasure.

The online location of FCC rules under consideration is simply “not obvious to the nonspecialist,” says University of Pennsylvania law professor Cary Coglianese, who authored a study about federal agencies’ use of electronic media in the rule-making process. Similarly, proposed air pollution rules—the subject of recent controversy for the Obama administration—were “nowhere to be found” on the website of the Environmental Protection Agency. Although we’re long past the days of lawyers and other interested parties dusting off the Federal Register to comment on proposed regulations, it remains just as hard for ordinary citizens to participate in the process because, according to Coglianese, federal agencies bury details of proposed rules in obscure places online.


Isn’t It Ironic? FCC’s New Website Comes Short on Communication Federal Agency Use of Electronic Media in the Rulemaking Process (Cary Coglianese)