The National Geographic periodically publishes updated maps of the contours of the U.S. but there is no institution that takes on a similar task, updating the contours of the ever-changing federal government. However the Administrative Conference has recently updated a long-forgotten “map” last prepared by the Congressional Research Service in 1980. The authors are David Lewis and Jennifer Selin, of Vanderbilt University.
Forty years ago, Congress passed a law to make government agencies more accountable and transparent in how they sought advice from industry and the public. It was called the Federal Advisory Committee Act.
The federal government uses rulemaking to controls all sorts of things – the size and color of highway signs, coal plant emissions, dirt biking and snow mobiling on national lands, the grading of eggs, the nutrition information on food packages, and of course the tax code.
