H.R. 9643: Comment Integrity and Management Act

This bill would change how federal agencies handle public comments during the regulatory process, especially large coordinated comment campaigns and comments generated by computers or artificial intelligence.

What it would require agencies to do

• Try to verify, when comments are submitted electronically, whether a comment was made by a human being.
• Identify mass comments when practicable. A “mass comment” is defined as part of a large organized submission of identical or nearly identical comments from different people or entities.
• Label mass comments in public dockets in both machine-readable and human-readable form.
• Post fewer copies of repetitive comments in the public docket. Instead of posting every identical mass comment, an agency could post:
  • a single representative sample, or
  • one copy of a variation if the comments are similar but not exactly the same.
• Show how many similar comments were received when only a sample or one variation is posted.

Guidance and agency policies

• The Office of Management and Budget (OMB), working with the General Services Administration, would have to issue guidance within 240 days on how agencies should implement these requirements.
• That guidance would include recommendations on:
  • using technology to detect whether a comment is human-made,
  • identifying mass comments,
  • marking mass comments clearly, and
  • using new technology to create more ways for the public to participate in rulemaking.
• Each agency would then have to create its own policy on how it posts and considers computer-generated comments and mass comments within 1 year.
• Agencies would also have to post those policies publicly when feasible and update them as OMB guidance changes.

Website and system updates

• Within 18 months, agencies would need to update their websites and information systems as needed to comply.
• The General Services Administration would need to update Regulations.gov and the shared eRulemaking system to support the new requirements.

Study by GAO

• The Government Accountability Office would have to report to Congress within 2 years on computer-generated comments, including:
  • how to identify them,
  • their effect on rulemaking,
  • how often the public uses them, and
  • how common they are now and may be in 5 years.

Limits of the bill

• The bill says it should not be read as discouraging mass comments.
• It also says nothing in the bill should be interpreted as preventing agencies from considering mass comments in rulemaking.

Relevant Companies

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