WASHINGTON - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has launched a new Website - Rulemaking Gateway - designed to serve as a portal to the EPA’s priority rules, providing earlier and more concise information about agency regulations.

According to the EPA, Rulemaking Gateway will provide information as soon as work begins on a regulation and will supply updates on a monthly basis as new information becomes available. Time-sensitive information, such as notice of public meetings, will be updated on a daily basis.

EPA said Rulemaking Gateway complements Regulations.gov, the federal government’s main portal for tracking rules from all federal agencies, by providing brief overviews of specific EPA rules and additional ways to search those rules based on the phases they are in (e.g., pre-proposal, proposal), the topics they relate to (e.g., air, water), and the impacts they might have (e.g., impacts on small businesses). The new Website is said to offer a distilled snapshot of a rule. Visitors to the site can then use the links to Regulations.gov and to other EPA sources where comprehensive information is available.

In addition, EPA has established a Rulemaking Gateway discussion forum to allow the public to suggest enhancements to the site. The forum will be open through July 16, 2010, after which EPA plans to make enhancements based on the ideas received.

For more information on Rulemaking Gateway, visit www.epa.gov/rulemaking.

Publication date: 03/08/2010