Executive Order (EO) 13563

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Presidential Documents

Federal Register
Vol. 76, No. 14
Friday, January 21, 2011

Title 3—

Executive Order 13563 of January 18, 2011

The President

Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the
laws of the United States of America, and in order to improve regulation
and regulatory review, it is hereby ordered as follows:

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Section 1. General Principles of Regulation. (a) Our regulatory system must
protect public health, welfare, safety, and our environment while promoting
economic growth, innovation, competitiveness, and job creation. It must
be based on the best available science. It must allow for public participation
and an open exchange of ideas. It must promote predictability and reduce
uncertainty. It must identify and use the best, most innovative, and least
burdensome tools for achieving regulatory ends. It must take into account
benefits and costs, both quantitative and qualitative. It must ensure that
regulations are accessible, consistent, written in plain language, and easy
to understand. It must measure, and seek to improve, the actual results
of regulatory requirements.
(b) This order is supplemental to and reaffirms the principles, structures,
and definitions governing contemporary regulatory review that were established in Executive Order 12866 of September 30, 1993. As stated in that
Executive Order and to the extent permitted by law, each agency must,
among other things: (1) propose or adopt a regulation only upon a reasoned
determination that its benefits justify its costs (recognizing that some benefits
and costs are difficult to quantify); (2) tailor its regulations to impose the
least burden on society, consistent with obtaining regulatory objectives, taking
into account, among other things, and to the extent practicable, the costs
of cumulative regulations; (3) select, in choosing among alternative regulatory
approaches, those approaches that maximize net benefits (including potential
economic, environmental, public health and safety, and other advantages;
distributive impacts; and equity); (4) to the extent feasible, specify performance objectives, rather than specifying the behavior or manner of compliance
that regulated entities must adopt; and (5) identify and assess available
alternatives to direct regulation, including providing economic incentives
to encourage the desired behavior, such as user fees or marketable permits,
or providing information upon which choices can be made by the public.
(c) In applying these principles, each agency is directed to use the best
available techniques to quantify anticipated present and future benefits and
costs as accurately as possible. Where appropriate and permitted by law,
each agency may consider (and discuss qualitatively) values that are difficult
or impossible to quantify, including equity, human dignity, fairness, and
distributive impacts.
Sec. 2. Public Participation. (a) Regulations shall be adopted through a
process that involves public participation. To that end, regulations shall
be based, to the extent feasible and consistent with law, on the open exchange
of information and perspectives among State, local, and tribal officials, experts in relevant disciplines, affected stakeholders in the private sector,
and the public as a whole.
(b) To promote that open exchange, each agency, consistent with Executive
Order 12866 and other applicable legal requirements, shall endeavor to
provide the public with an opportunity to participate in the regulatory
process. To the extent feasible and permitted by law, each agency shall
afford the public a meaningful opportunity to comment through the Internet
on any proposed regulation, with a comment period that should generally

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Federal Register / Vol. 76, No. 14 / Friday, January 21, 2011 / Presidential Documents
be at least 60 days. To the extent feasible and permitted by law, each
agency shall also provide, for both proposed and final rules, timely online
access to the rulemaking docket on regulations.gov, including relevant scientific and technical findings, in an open format that can be easily searched
and downloaded. For proposed rules, such access shall include, to the
extent feasible and permitted by law, an opportunity for public comment
on all pertinent parts of the rulemaking docket, including relevant scientific
and technical findings.
(c) Before issuing a notice of proposed rulemaking, each agency, where
feasible and appropriate, shall seek the views of those who are likely to
be affected, including those who are likely to benefit from and those who
are potentially subject to such rulemaking.
Sec. 3. Integration and Innovation. Some sectors and industries face a significant number of regulatory requirements, some of which may be redundant,
inconsistent, or overlapping. Greater coordination across agencies could reduce these requirements, thus reducing costs and simplifying and harmonizing rules. In developing regulatory actions and identifying appropriate
approaches, each agency shall attempt to promote such coordination, simplification, and harmonization. Each agency shall also seek to identify, as
appropriate, means to achieve regulatory goals that are designed to promote
innovation.
Sec. 4. Flexible Approaches. Where relevant, feasible, and consistent with
regulatory objectives, and to the extent permitted by law, each agency shall
identify and consider regulatory approaches that reduce burdens and maintain flexibility and freedom of choice for the public. These approaches
include warnings, appropriate default rules, and disclosure requirements
as well as provision of information to the public in a form that is clear
and intelligible.
Sec. 5. Science. Consistent with the President’s Memorandum for the Heads
of Executive Departments and Agencies, ‘‘Scientific Integrity’’ (March 9, 2009),
and its implementing guidance, each agency shall ensure the objectivity
of any scientific and technological information and processes used to support
the agency’s regulatory actions.
Sec. 6. Retrospective Analyses of Existing Rules. (a) To facilitate the periodic
review of existing significant regulations, agencies shall consider how best
to promote retrospective analysis of rules that may be outmoded, ineffective,
insufficient, or excessively burdensome, and to modify, streamline, expand,
or repeal them in accordance with what has been learned. Such retrospective
analyses, including supporting data, should be released online whenever
possible.
(b) Within 120 days of the date of this order, each agency shall develop
and submit to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs a preliminary
plan, consistent with law and its resources and regulatory priorities, under
which the agency will periodically review its existing significant regulations
to determine whether any such regulations should be modified, streamlined,
expanded, or repealed so as to make the agency’s regulatory program more
effective or less burdensome in achieving the regulatory objectives.
Sec. 7. General Provisions. (a) For purposes of this order, ‘‘agency’’ shall
have the meaning set forth in section 3(b) of Executive Order 12866.

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(b) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) authority granted by law to a department or agency, or the head
thereof; or
(ii) functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget
relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(c) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and
subject to the availability of appropriations.

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(d) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or
benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any
party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its
officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

THE WHITE HOUSE,
January 18, 2011.
[FR Doc. 2011–1385
Filed 1–20–11; 8:45 am]

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