The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is working with Cornell University’s e-Rulemaking Initiative and the Legal Information Institute on a pilot program called Regulation Room.
The experimental public rulemaking website provides an online environment for people and groups to learn about, discuss and react to selected rules proposed by federal agencies, organizers said.
According to Lead Technologist Eddie Tejeda, Regulation Room uses Digress.it technology to expand the public input available to regulatory agencies during the rulemaking process, while also serving as a teaching a research platform for faculty and students at the Ivy League school in Ithaca, N.Y.
Discussions on Regulation Room are moderated by CeRI students and faculty or other nongovernmental researchers collaborating with CeRI.
Individual contributions to Regulation Room will not become formal public comments on the CFPB’s docket, the bureau said, but the CFPB expects contributions will be incorporated into a public report prepared by CeRI researchers and submitted to the CFPB’s docket for use in preparation of a final rule.
The federal agencies whose rules are presented on the site collaborate in the Cornell research in order to learn about the most effective Web 2.0 strategies for increasing public understanding and participation during rulemaking.
The Regulation Room was chosen by the Department of Transportation as its open-government flagship initiative and received a Leading Practices Award by the White House after a government-wide review of such projects.
