from the no-thanks-for-your-feedback dept
Ideally, the U.S. public is supposed to be able to comment on government policy proceedings, and the government is supposed to listen to that input. Of course it doesn’t really work that way: for years we’ve noted how U.S. regulatory comment proceedings are full of bots and fake comments from industries trying to game regulators, and make shitty policy (giant mergers, mindless deregulation, the elimination of consumer protection) seem like it has broad public support.
And now the government is making it harder than ever for real Americans and activist groups to comment on regulatory proceedings. Matthew Gault at 404 Media notes that the General Services Administration (GSA), the government agency in charge of regulations.gov, notified API key holders in an email last week that they’d soon lose the ability to POST directly to the site’s API.
That makes it significantly harder for consumer groups and others to file collected public comments with regulatory agencies on issues of importance:
“POST is a common function that allows users to send data to an application. POST allowed third party organizations like Fight for the Future (FFTF), the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and Public Citizen gather comments from their supporters using their own forms and submit them to the government later.”
The GSA isn’t responding to comments explaining why it’s making it harder for the public to comment. But with the Trump administration taking an absolute hatchet to labor rights, environmental regulations, consumer protections, and whatever was left of corporate oversight, it’s not hard to figure out why this government is looking to mute larger scale public feedback.
Consumer groups like Fight For The Future tell 404 Media that while they can still submit comments through the regulations.gov website, the interface is a nightmare to deal with, forcing organizations to jump through multiple hoops just to comment on proceedings:
“The experience on our campaign sites right now is like, we make our impassioned case for why you should care about this and then give you one box to type something and click a button. But the experience going forward is going to be like: ‘Alright now here’s a link and some instructions on how to fill out your taxes,’” Ken Mickles, FFTF’s chief technology officer said.”
As noted earlier, the comment system was already mess, and routinely gamed by industry. As we saw during the net neutrality fight, when big telecom was caught using fake and dead people to flood federal government websites with fake support for the repeal of the popular rules. Their punishment was a light wrist slap by NY’s AG, who couldn’t even be bothered to cite the telecoms by name.
Previously, our semi-functional democracy at least maintained the illusion that public input mattered and was being considered. The Trump administration isn’t even bothering with the pretense. And the erosion of any public comment mechanism is the least of our problems, given the wholesale devastation the administration is imposing on regulatory independence, consumer protections, and corporate oversight.
Wealth and power needs the illusion that this is still a Democracy to mute dissent and maintain control. As the very real world (and likely extremely fatal) harms of napalming the regulatory state begin to manifest over the next few years, the public is going to have a lot to say about it. And it’s very clear this administration wants to pretend it can’t hear you.
Filed Under: consumers, feedback, policy, regulations, regulations.gov, transparency
