Once-Promising Guidance Document Disclosures Are Stagnating Under Biden: Inventory and Observations

Laws passed by Congress are archived by subject matter in the U.S. Code. The rules and regulations that incubate in the daily Federal Register are ultimately cataloged in a Code of Federal Regulations now exceeding 186,000 pages.

The numbers of “sub-regulatory” guidance documents, however, swamp both laws and regulations. Guidance documents can include agency memoranda, notices, bulletins, directives, news releases, letters, blog posts, no-action letters, and even speeches by agency officials. The “Guidance Out of Darkness Act” (GOOD Act), which would require agencies to disclose such proclamations on website portals, was recently reported out of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability on a unanimous 41-0 vote.