Training for Regulatory Agency Appointees

1. Establish a basic training program for Presidential appointees to
regulatory agencies. (2)

The President should direct political appointees to regulatory agencies
to attend a comprehensive training program on the issues and processes
involved in regulatory development. The President should direct ACUS,
which has expertise in the administrative adjudication and rulemaking
processes and access to experts across the federal government and
academia, to establish such an ongoing training program for presidential
appointees. Among the topics that should be included in the curriculum
are:

--role and organizations of regulatory agencies,

--personnel management,

--alternative regulatory approaches,

--the budget process,

--program evaluation,

--policy formation and the rulemaking process,

--the Administrative Procedure Act and various other applicable statutes
and executive orders,

 --the relationship between agency rulemaking and settlement,

--the relationship between regulatory agencies, the White House and OMB,

--cost-benefit analysis use (but not abuse),

--judicial review,

--relationships with the public, the press, and the state and local
governments,

--regulatory reform, and

--alternative dispute resolution.[Endnote 14]

Faculty could include representatives. from the White House, Congress,
various federal agencies, the federal judiciary, OMB, academia, and
industry.  Training programs should ideally be held at a site outside of
Washington and should last for at least three days. They should be
organized on a periodic basis, most frequently in the first half of the
administration as new appointees are nominated or confirmed.


Endnotes

14. Discussion with officials of ACUS. The list is derived from the 1977
ACUS program discussed in "Shaping Up Federal Agencies," supra note 1,
at pp.  360-64.