Improving Regulations

As called for by President Obama in Executive Order 13563, "to facilitate the periodic review of existing significant regulations," GSA finalized its plan to perform a retrospective review of existing significant regulations.  The menu to the left directs you to the following GSA regulations:  the Federal Management Regulation, the Federal Travel Regulation, and the General Services Acquisition Regulation.  GSA’s plan identifies regulations that should be amended, revised, streamlined, or removed to make the Agency's regulatory program more effective or less burdensome in achieving the regulatory objectives.

The January 2012, updated plan reflects the latest activities concerning the regulatory analysis.  The highlighted activities address progress and accomplishments as well as a targeted or completion date for each rule and information collection. 

Comments were received through June 30, 2011 on developing a plan and process to complete a thorough analysis of rules that may be outdated, ineffective, inadequate, or excessively burdensome; and, to modify, streamline, expand or remove those regulations.  GSA’s Retrospective Analysis of Existing Rules plan was approved on August 18, 2011.  Our plan has been updated as of January 9, 2012.   

While our aim is to define a method and schedule for periodically identifying certain significant rules that warrant revision or removal because they are no longer justified or necessary, our review also may reveal that an existing rule is needed, or that has not operated as well as expected, and that a stronger, expanded, or somewhat different approach is justified.

Thank you in advance for your continued input on this important effort.

In May 2012, the President issued Executive Order 13610, which requires Federal agencies to continually scrutinize rules and requirements on the books to make sure they are still necessary, streamlined and up-to-date.  He emphasized that agencies should give special consideration to reducing burdens on small businesses and should prioritize “initiatives that will produce significant quantifiable monetary savings or significant quantifiable reductions in paperwork burdens.” Following up on that directive, last June the Administration launched an aggressive paperwork burden reduction effort to eliminate unnecessary burdens on the American people and businesses. Agencies across the Administration heeded the President’s call and submitted paperwork reduction plans.

GSA's Paperwork Reduction Plan is included in the Retrospective Analysis (November 2012).

Retrospective Analysis - May 2012 >>

The shortcut for this page is www.gsa.gov/improvingregulations