Guidance Documents

Federal agencies routinely communicate with the public through “guidance.” Agencies use guidance to explain how they propose to exercise discretionary powers and how they interpret statutes and rules. Guidance comes in many forms: written and unwritten, authoritative and non-authoritative, significant and routine, and directed internally to agency personnel and externally to people outside the government.

This page provides access to many of the recommendations, publications, and other materials related to guidance that have been prepared by ACUS or for its consideration. It will be updated as new materials become available.

Please contact Jeremy Graboyes (jgraboyes@acus.gov) for more information or to provide additions, updates, or corrections.

Assembly Recommendations

• Recommendation 2019-3, Public Availability of Agency Guidance Documents

• Recommendation 2019-1, Agency Guidance Through Interpretive Rules

• Recommendation 2018-5, Public Availability of Adjudication Rules

• Recommendation 2017-5, Agency Guidance Through Policy Statements

• Recommendation 2015-3, Declaratory Orders

• Recommendation 2014-3, Guidance in the Rulemaking Process

• Recommendation 92-2, Agency Policy Statements

• Recommendation 76-5, Interpretive Rules of General Applicability and Statements of General Policy

• Recommendation 76-2, Strengthening the Information and Notice-Giving Functions of the Federal Register

• Recommendation 71-3, Articulation of Agency Policies

• Recommendation 70-2, SEC No-Action Letters Under Section 4 of the Securities Act of 1933

Publications and Reports

• Cary Coglianese, Public Availability of Agency Guidance Documents (May 15, 2019)

• Blake Emerson & Ronald M. Levin, Agency Guidance Through Interpretive Rules: Research and Analysis (May 28, 2019)

• Todd Phillips, Public Availability of Adjudication Rules (Sep. 28, 2018)

• Nicholas R. Parrillo, Federal Agency Guidance: An Institutional Perspective (Oct. 12, 2017)

• Emily S. Bremer, Declaratory Orders (Oct. 30, 2015)

• Kevin M. Stack, Guidance in the Rulemaking Process: Evaluating Preambles, Regulatory Text, and Freestanding Documents as Vehicles for Regulatory Guidance (May 16, 2014)

• Robert A. Anthony, Interpretive Rules, Policy Statements, Guidances, Manuals, and the Like—Should Federal Agencies Use Them to Bind the Public?, 41 Duke L.J. 1311 (1992)

• Michael Asimow, Public Participation in the Adoption of Interpretive Rules and Policy Statements, 75 Mich. L. Rev. 520 (1977)

• Edward A. Tomlinson, Publication in the Federal Register of Interpretations of General Applicability and Statements of General Policy (May 28, 1975)

• Brice McAdoo Clagett, Informal Action—Adjudication—Rule Making: Some Recent Developments in Federal Administrative Law, 1971 Duke L.J. 51 (1971)

• William J. Lockhart, Report of the Committee on Informal Action in Support of Recommendation No. 19 (SEC No-Action Letters Under Section 4 of the Securities Act of 1933) (1970)

Current Projects

• Classification of Agency Guidance

News Releases and Blog Posts

• Blake Emerson & Ronald M. Levin, Interpretive Rules in Practice (Nov. 1, 2019) (originally published on The Regulatory Review)

• Cary Coglianese, Making Guidance Available to the Public (Oct. 30, 2019) (originally published on The Regulatory Review)

• Aaron L. Nielson, Accessing Agency Procedure (May 31, 2019) (originally published on The Regulatory Review)

• Nicholas Parrillo & Lee Lieberman Otis, Understanding and Addressing Controversies About Agency Guidance (Mar. 5, 2018) (originally published on The Regulatory Review)