OMB to offer online access to regulatory reviews

The White House Office of Management and Budget announced Friday that it plans to provide the public with greater access to information on its regulatory reviews by posting the information on the Internet. The objective is to "increase public understanding of OMB's regulatory review responsibilities, thereby allowing public scrutiny, criticism and praise of what we do," John Graham, administrator of the OMB Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, said in a statement. "If OMB is to be a credible advocate of e-government, we must practice e-government ourselves," Graham said. In the short-term, more information on regulations under review will be posted on the Internet. In the long-term, the goal is to integrate regulation and paperwork review by developing a new computerized tracking system to manage the reviews of both regulations and information-collection requests. The system will replace an outmoded 20-year-old tracking system.