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Greater disclosure of regulatory compliance information is a critical step to encourage the public to hold the government
and regulated entities accountable, and foster fair and consistent enforcement of important regulatory obligations. Accordingly,
the Administration committed in the Plan to enhance enforcement of regulations through further disclosure of compliance information.
The Administration has met this commitment in several ways. First, Federal agencies have been directed to develop plans to
make public information concerning their regulatory compliance and enforcement activities accessible, downloadable, and searchable
online, as required in the President's Memorandum on Regulatory Compliance. All major agencies have created such plans, and
several agencies - such as the EPA, the Departments of Transportation and Commerce, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
- have made their plans public. The Memorandum also requires agencies to make the enforcement and compliance data available
online in a centralized format so that it can be shared across the Federal Government, and the Administration is working to
create this centralized platform in the coming months, to help ensure greater information is made available between agencies.
Second, the Administration has worked with agencies to explore new ways to improve data disclosure, such as through EPA's
Compliance and Enforcement History Online (ECHO) Database, and the Department of Labor's Data Enforcement. ECHO has information
on more than 800,000 regulated facilities, in addition to analytics and trends that help the public more easily digest the
data, and has added new features such as the Criminal Cases Search, which allows the public to search criminal prosecutions
that result from environmental investigations. Likewise, the Data Enforcement website has been improved to make enforcement
data collected by Department of Labor agencies in the exercise of their mission accessible and searchable, while also engaging
the public in ways that make the data even more useful. The Administration looks forward to exploring innovative opportunities
to work with agencies to improve data disclosure and accessibility. Finally, it is important to note that civil society partners
have met with their agency colleagues throughout the Administration on this commitment and have offered helpful advice on
the type of data that should be published. The Administration is grateful for the input from these partners and hopeful that
they will continue to work collaboratively with agencies on these important issues.
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Agencies will continue to develop plans for providing greater transparency about their regulatory compliance and enforcement
activities, and look for new ways to make that information accessible to the public.
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