August 7, 2009—The inter-agency eRulemaking Program has launched a significant upgrade to the Web site that provides one-stop public access to information related to current and forthcoming regulations issued by the federal government. Enhancements to Regulations.gov include improved search capabilities, new navigation tools, and easier access to areas for the public to provide comments on proposed regulations.
Visitors to Regulations.gov can now streamline search results with date ranges, select specific U.S. government departments or agencies, and view results by docket or file folder. Other changes include interactive icons and links to common user tasks that pre-populate search fields to help users find regulations and comments. The Web site also provides quick access, simplified navigation, and additional information sharing, such as social bookmarking and RSS feeds by specific government departments or agencies.
Regulations.gov helps individuals provide written comments to agencies before regulations are finalized. The site supports more than 160 federal agencies accounting for 90 percent of all federal rulemaking production. On average, federal agencies, departments, and commissions issue 8,000 regulations annually, according to eRulemaking. To date, the public can access more than 2 million documents on Regulations.gov, and in the first half of 2009, visitors to the Web site reportedly submitted more than 200,000 comments on new or existing regulations.
