The Missing Transparency: Where’s The Unified Agenda?

Some stories don’t get the press they deserve. When it comes to government transparency, it is essential to throw at least some sunlight on the problem. Over at The Daily Caller, Wayne Crews try to do just that:

Every spring and fall, as certain as the turning of the seasons, the General Services Administration’s Regulatory Information Service Center (RISC) issues a new edition of the Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions. Or it did, until this year. Published in the Federal Register around April and October of every year, the Unified Agenda is one of the more important transparency measures we have for keeping an eye on federal regulations (available online at RegInfo.gov). In it, rulemaking agencies disclose what rules they have at various stages of the regulatory pipeline, along with rules likely to move in the near future.

The problem is that it’s now October, and neither the spring nor the fall 2012 editions of the Unified Agenda have been published. The most recent edition we have is that of fall 2011, and even that was published late.

This might not be a particularly sexy issue (hence the lack of coverage), but it’s very important. The Unified Agenda is one of the most important transparency measures that we have for keeping an eye on regulations.

Read the whole thing here.