Parkplanning and PEPC will be offline for Data Center maintenance from 4 PM MT on Fri., Apr. 19th to as late as 3:00 PM MT on Mon., Apr. 22nd.

Rulemaking is the process used by federal agencies to formulate, amend, or repeal a regulation. A regulation generally is an authoritative requirement issued by departments and agencies that implements a statute and has the force of law.

In a traditional, agency rulemaking process, the agency generally produces a draft regulation in-house. Negotiated rulemaking ("reg-neg") allows the agency and interest groups involved in the issue to collaborate in the rulemaking process to seek agreement on a proposed solution. At its best, negotiated rulemaking increases citizen participation, results in more creative solutions, eases implementation, increases compliance and reduces the prospect of future conflict and litigation.

The steps of the process are described in the Negotiated Rulemaking Act of 1990 (5 U.S.C. 561-570).

* indicates the current step in the planning process
Step 1. Assessment Phase
Step 2. Establishing the Reg-Neg Committee *
Step 3. Conduct of the Committee
Step 4. Drafting the Proposed Rule

The proposed rule will be reviewed under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The NEPA process, managed by NPS staff, will occur concurrent with the reg-neg process and will include public scoping, public comment period(s) and at least one public meeting.