Comment Integrity and Management Act

The Comment Integrity and Management Act aims to enhance the integrity and management of public comments submitted during the federal regulatory review process. It specifically addresses challenges posed by mass comments and computer-generated comments , without discouraging public participation, which it acknowledges as vital. The bill amends the E-Government Act of 2002 to achieve these objectives. The legislation mandates that federal agencies verify, to the greatest extent possible, whether electronic comments are submitted by a human being. Agencies must also identify mass comments—defined as organized submissions of identical or substantively identical comments—and label them on publicly available platforms. To streamline display, agencies may present only a single representative sample or variation of a mass comment in their electronic dockets, provided they indicate the total number of similar submissions received. The Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), in consultation with the General Services Administration (GSA), is directed to issue guidance within 240 days on human verification, mass comment identification, and labeling. Agencies must then establish and post policies within one year for the posting and consideration of both computer-generated and mass comments, consistent with new requirements and OMB guidance.