Sourcebook of United States Executive Agencies Jennifer L

Administrative Conference of the United States Sourcebook of United States Executive Agencies Jennifer L. Selin David E. Lewis Second Edition October 2018 About the Administrative Conference of the United States he Administrative Conference is an independent federal agency dedicated to improv- Ting the fairness, efficiency, and effectiveness of federal agency processes and practices through consensus-driven applied research. The Conference’s members include: the Chairman and 10 other presidential appointees, who comprise the Council; 50 senior government officials drawn from federal agencies, boards, and commissions; and 40 public members drawn from the private sector, including academia, who reflect a wide diversity of views and backgrounds. The work of the Conference is also supported by a small, full-time staff in the Office of the Chairman. To fulfill its mission, the Conference and its staff perform a variety of functions. One of the chief activities of the Conference is conducting research that, in turn, serves as the foundation for identifying best practices and issuing formal recommendations to agencies, Congress, or the Judicial Conference. These recommendations have addressed a wide variety of administrative and regulatory issues, from the Conference’s seminal work developing a practical framework to advance the use of alternative dispute resolution by federal agencies to more recent efforts aimed at e-Rulemaking, video hearings, and other innovative agency practices. Since its inception in 1968, the Conference has issued over 200 such recommendations—several of which Congress has enacted into law and numerous others of which have been followed by agencies and courts. The Conference also serves as a central resource for agencies, as well as other federal officials, by providing nonpartisan, expert advice and publishing reference guides on administrative procedural or regulatory topics. Conference staff also engages in extensive outreach by, for example, appearing as speakers and conducting workshops and forums (often in collaboration with other federal agencies or private sector groups) to promote best practices or further the implementation of its recommendations. Administrative Conference of the United States Sourcebook of United States Executive Agencies Jennifer L. Selin David E. Lewis Second Edition October 2018 This report was prepared for the Administrative Conference of the United States pursuant to a consultant contract with the Office of the Chairman. While it has been widely circulated for comment, the views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the members of the Conference or its committees. i Chairman’s Foreword to the Second Edition f all the Administrative Conference’s many publications, none has assumed as Oprominent a role as the first edition of the Sourcebook of United States Executive Agencies (2012). All three branches of the federal government have found in the Sourcebook an invaluable guide to the statutory structure and organization of federal agencies available nowhere else. They will find in the second edition a still more valuable guide. The second edition expands the coverage of the Sourcebook significantly (by, among other things, including agency bureaus), accounts for ongoing constitutional debates about agency structure, and addresses the renewed importance of “government-wide legal man- dates” in the administrative state. The Conference is very grateful and honored that Professors David Lewis and Jennifer Selin, the authors of the first edition, answered the Conference’s call to prepare a second. They might well have begged off to pursue any number of projects in furtherance of their important academic work rather than devote the countless hours (none of them well compensated, even by academic standards) required to prepare the second edition. Their willingness to do so should be recognized as an act of public service. While the Conference commissioned this book, it does not reflect the Confer- ence’s views. Only recommendations adopted by the Conference’s Assembly do so. That said, numerous Conference members contributed to this book along the way by sharing their expertise with the authors. Those members are thanked in the authors’ acknowledgements. I wish to thank as well the following Conference staff who made publication of the second edition ii Sourcebook of United States Executive Agencies possible: Gisselle Bourns for overseeing the project; Shawne McGibbon and David Pritzker for carefully reviewing the close-to-final manuscript; and Frank Massaro and Harry Seidman for seeing the final manuscript through to publication. Matthew Lee Wiener (Acting Chairman) Chairman’s Foreword to the Second Edition iii Chairman’s Foreword to the First Edition his volume honors important traditions and events. The first is the Adminis- Ttrative Conference’s commitment to publishing significant reference works— labeled “sourcebooks”—that are invaluable tools for agencies, executive officials, members of Congress, and the general public. A complete list of prior Conference sourcebooks and other publications can be found on our website. This Sourcebook also honors a 32-year-old classic by Ronald Moe of the Con- gressional Research Service, called The Federal Executive Establishment: Evolutions and Trends, published by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee in May 1980. The Moe report described and analyzed the “growth, development and operation” of federal agencies, and has proven an indispensable reference tool for government officials and academics alike, as I can personally attest. The present volume expands, deepens, and updates the research in the Moe report, while acknowledging the debt owed to CRS and the Senate Committee for publishing in-depth research on governmental organizations. The report has been prepared by the Office of the Chairman, which means that it is not the result of the formal approval process used by the Council and the Assembly of the Administrative Conference for Conference recommendations, although numerous Conference members provided their input as the work progressed. But the Office of the Chairman des- ignation elides the work of individuals who should be recognized. At the Conference, this includes our Research Director, Gretchen Jacobs, and Deputy General Counsel, David Pritzker, who reviewed and edited various drafts along the way to publication. It also includes Jeffrey Lubbers, now Special Counsel, who brought to my attention the Moe report many years ago when Jeff was the Conference’s Research Director. iv Sourcebook of United States Executive Agencies The laboring oars on this project belonged to our consultants, David Lewis and Jennifer Selin. At my urging and cajoling, Professor Lewis enthusiastically undertook this project and shared the research burden with his colleagues and graduate students at Vanderbilt University. The hours put into crafting this work are far too numerous to count, and they include a presentation by Professor Lewis on a preliminary draft to congressional staff in August 2012. The purpose of this volume •is to make government work better, which is the overall mission of the Conference. For agency general counsels, congressional staff, executive officials, and members of the judiciary, this is the place to broaden understanding of how agencies are organized. For those involved in reorganization and reform of administrative agencies, it will be a treasure trove of sources and ideas. It does not answer all questions, of course, but it answers many, including some that readers may not even have been asking. It is the latter kind of answers that often lead reformers to innovative and creative solutions, to “imagine another reality” in Thomas Mann’s words. I am proud of the many efforts that produced this work, and I commend it to all who are committed to understanding and improving the administrative process. Paul R. Verkuil Chairman’s Foreword to the First Edition v About the Authors Jennifer L. Selin is a Kinder Institute Assistant Professor of Constitutional Democ- racy at the University of Missouri. Professor Selin’s scholarship has been published in political science, public administration, and law journals. Her current research explores how the federal bureaucracy functions in the American separation of powers system and illustrates that the legal structure of an executive agency’s decision-making environment has important implications for agency performance. Professor Selin holds a Ph.D. in political science from Vanderbilt University and a J.D. from Wake Forest University. David E. Lewis is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of the Department of Political Science at Vanderbilt University. He is the award-winning author of two books, Pres- idents and the Politics of Agency Design (Stanford University Press, 2003) and The Politics of Presidential Appointments: Political Control and Bureaucratic Performance (Princeton University Press, 2008). Professor Lewis is also the author of numerous articles on American politics and public-sector management performance. His work has been translated into Japanese and Spanish and has been written up in Nature, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. Professor Lewis holds a Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University. vi Sourcebook of United States Executive Agencies Acknowledgments The Authors would like to thank Christopher Piper, Yuko Sato, Allison Archer, Ted Briggs, Evan Haglund, John Hudak, Gbemende Johnson, and Mark Richardson

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