Federal Agency Hails 'Historic Efficiency' After Responding to 2019 Public Comment in Fewer Than 2,000 Days
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Bureau of Regulatory Standards and Compliance issued a press release on Monday to announce what it described as a "landmark achievement in responsive federal administration": the agency had formally replied to a public comment submitted on October 14, 2019, making it, according to the Bureau's own internal calculations, the fastest resolution of a Tier-3 Public Input Submission in the agency's recorded history.
The comment, filed by a retired schoolteacher in Akron, Ohio named Donna Kessler, concerned proposed amendments to the Bureau's Rule 44-B governing the labeling of certain agricultural storage containers. It read, in its entirety: "I think the font on the labels should be bigger so older people can read them."
The Bureau's response, a 14-page letter, addressed her concern thoroughly, cited four relevant federal statutes, referenced a 2011 accessibility study, and concluded that the matter had been "carefully considered." It arrived 1,654 days after Donna Kessler submitted it. She has since moved and the letter was returned to sender.
"This is a proud moment for the Bureau," said Acting Deputy Administrator for Public Engagement, Gerald Platt. "1,654 days. Let that sink in. That's under five years. We didn't think we'd see numbers like that in our careers."
Context the Press Release Did Not Provide
Rule 44-B, the regulation at the center of Ms. Kessler's comment, has had what agency insiders describe as "an eventful few years."
The rule was finalized in January 2020. It was suspended by executive order in April 2020. It was reinstated with modifications in September 2021. It was repealed in February 2022 following a federal court ruling. It was re-enacted under a new name — Rule 44-C (Revised Agricultural Container Accessibility Standards) — in November 2022. It was amended again in March 2024 to comply with a separate piece of legislation that had not existed when Ms. Kessler first wrote in.
The font on agricultural storage container labels remains, by most accounts, quite small.
"The rule as it currently exists does include enhanced readability provisions," Gerald Platt said, when the regulation's history was summarized for him. "So in a sense, Donna's comment was heard. Just not by us, specifically, and not in response to her letter."
A Timeline of Operational Excellence
The Bureau's press release included a detailed timeline of its response process, which the agency presented as evidence of "systematic diligence."
October 2019: Comment received and logged. Assigned to the Office of Public Submissions, which at the time had a staff of three.
February 2020: Comment transferred to the newly formed Public Engagement Modernization Taskforce, which had been created to address a backlog of 14,000 unread public comments. The Taskforce's first act was to commission a study on how to prioritize the backlog.
September 2020: The prioritization study was completed. Ms. Kessler's comment was classified as Tier-3, defined as "non-urgent, non-technical, and non-statutory." Tier-3 submissions were placed in a secondary queue.
March 2021: The secondary queue was discovered to have not been monitored since its creation. A new subcommittee was formed to review it.
January 2022: The subcommittee was dissolved when two of its four members retired. Its files were transferred to the Office of Correspondence Management.
April 2023: The Office of Correspondence Management completed a transition to a new digital records system. Ms. Kessler's comment was successfully migrated after two failed attempts.
March 2024: A staff member, described in the press release as "a dedicated public servant," located the comment while searching for something else.
April 2024: The 14-page response was drafted, reviewed, approved by three supervisors, formatted, printed, signed, and mailed.
"We're very pleased with how the new system is performing," Platt said.
Experts Weigh In Enthusiastically
The Bureau's announcement drew prompt praise from the Partnership for Governmental Responsiveness, a nonprofit that monitors federal agency performance and receives partial funding from the Bureau through a grant program the Bureau also administers.
"This is genuinely encouraging," said the Partnership's Executive Director, Carol Whitmore. "When you look at the historical average for Tier-3 comment resolution, which we estimate at somewhere between six and eleven years, a sub-five-year response is a meaningful improvement. We're talking about a paradigm shift in the making."
When asked what the historical average was based on, Whitmore said the Partnership was currently finalizing a study on that question and expected to have results within eighteen to thirty-six months.
A professor of public administration at Georgetown, who asked not to be named because he is tired of being quoted in articles about this sort of thing, described the situation as "depressingly normal" and said that the Bureau's self-congratulation was "at least honest, in a roundabout way, about how low the bar has gotten."
The Bureau Looks to the Future
Building on its momentum, the Bureau announced Monday that it is launching a new initiative: a formal public comment period to gather input on whether the agency should implement a faster public comment response system.
The comment window is open for 90 days. Submitted comments will be reviewed by the Office of Public Submissions, which currently has a staff of two following a recent retirement.
Acting Deputy Administrator Platt expressed confidence in the process.
"We've learned a lot," he said. "We know how to handle public comments now. We have a system. We have a queue. We have a subcommittee to review the queue." He paused. "We're forming the subcommittee next quarter. But the queue is ready."
Donna Kessler, reached by phone at her new address, said she had forgotten she ever sent the comment. She said the font on her new prescription bottles was also quite small, and asked if there was someone she could write to about it.
She was given the Bureau's public comment submission portal. Average response time: historically under five years.
