Executive Order No. 13563. Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review

• Executive Order No.: 13563
• Published date: 21 January 2011
• Citation: 76 FR 3821
• Date: 18 January 2011
• Section: Presidential Documents
• Issuer: Executive Office of the President

3821 
Federal Register 
Presidential Documents
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: 
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 estab-
lished 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 perform-
ance 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, ex-
perts 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 sci-
entific 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 signifi-
cant number of regulatory requirements, some of which may be redundant, 
inconsistent, or overlapping. Greater coordination across agencies could re-
duce these requirements, thus reducing costs and simplifying and harmo-
nizing rules. In developing regulatory actions and identifying appropriate 
approaches, each agency shall attempt to promote such coordination, sim-
plification, 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 main-
tain 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. 
(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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Federal Register / Vol. 76, No. 14 / Friday, January 21, 2011 / Presidential Documents 
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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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