Significant Guidance Documents - Good Guidance Practices

Department of Commerce
Significant Guidance Documents

In compliance with the Office of Management and Budget’s Final Bulletin for Agency Good Guidance Practices (Good Guidance Bulletin), the following provides a link to all of the Department’s significant guidance documents that are currently in effect, as well as draft guidance documents that are currently available for comment. New documents will be added to this list within 30 days from the date of issuance.

– Significant guidance documents currently in effect
– Draft guidance documents available for comment

If you would like to submit a request for a significant guidance document to be issued, reconsidered, modified, or rescinded, you may send an e-mail to Guidance@doc.gov, with the word “GUIDANCE” in the subject heading. You can use this address to submit a comment or complaint indicating that an operating unit of the Department is not following the procedures set out in the Good Guidance Bulletin or is improperly treating a guidance document as a binding requirement. You may also comment that a specific guidance document should be treated as a significant or economically significant guidance document under the Good Guidance Bulletin.

Comments and complaints may also be mailed to:

Department of Commerce
Office of the General Counsel
ATTN: Guidance Herbert C. Hoover Building
14th & Constitution Avenue, NW Room 5876
Washington, DC. 20230

Definitions

A “guidance document” is an agency statement of general applicability and future effect, other than a regulatory action, that sets forth a policy on a statutory, regulatory or technical issue or an interpretation of a statutory or regulatory issue.

A “significant guidance document” is a guidance document that is disseminated to regulated entities or the general public that may reasonably be anticipated to:

i. Lead to an annual effect on the economy of $100 million or more or adversely effect in a material way the economy, a sector of the economy, productivity, competition, jobs, the environment, public health or safety, or State, local, or tribal governments or communities;
ii. Create a serious inconsistency or otherwise interfere with an action taken or planned by another agency;
iii. Materially alter the budgetary impact of entitlements, grants, user fees, or loan programs or the rights and obligations of recipients thereof; or
iv. Raise novel legal or policy issues arising out of legal mandates, the President’s priorities, or the principles set forth in Executive Order 12,866, as further amended.

An “economically significant guidance document” is a significant guidance document that may reasonably be anticipated to lead to an annual effect on the economy of $100 million or more or adversely affect in a material way the economy or a sector of the economy, except that economically significant guidance documents do not include guidance documents on Federal expenditures and receipts.