HR 1515: GOOD Act

HR 1515 in plain English: The GOOD Act requires federal agencies to post all active guidance documents online on the day they are issued, organize them in a single searchable location, and clearly mark any that have been rescinded. The Government Accountability Office must report on agency compliance within five years of enactment.

Stated purpose

To increase public access to federal agency guidance documents by requiring agencies to post them online in a single, organized location on the day they are issued and to clearly mark any that have been rescinded.

Key points

• Requires agencies to publish guidance documents online on the same day they are issued
• All active guidance documents must be collected in one location on a designated website
• Agencies must display a hyperlink giving public access to their guidance documents
• Rescinded guidance documents must be clearly labeled as such on the agency website
• GAO must report on agency compliance within 5 years of enactment

Arguments supporters make

• When agencies issue guidance through memos, letters, or blog posts without making them easy to find, the public and businesses can unknowingly violate policies they never knew existed — central posting fixes that.
• Transparency in government rulemaking is a basic democratic value; people have a right to easily see what interpretations and policies federal agencies are actively applying to them.
• Requiring agencies to clearly label rescinded guidance prevents outdated or court-rejected policies from continuing to influence behavior after they are no longer valid.

Arguments opponents make

• The bill does not give the public any new legal right to challenge guidance documents or stop agencies from relying on them — easier visibility alone may do little to curb the informal power these documents already hold.
• Broadly defining guidance to include speeches, blog posts, and news releases could create an enormous and confusing archive that is harder, not easier, for ordinary people to navigate.
• Compliance burdens on agencies — especially smaller ones with limited IT resources — could be significant, and the five-year window before any GAO accountability check means problems may go unaddressed for years.

Tradeoffs

Requiring full public disclosure of agency guidance makes government more transparent and accountable, but exempting FOIA-protected documents means some guidance affecting the public may still remain hidden; also, the law imposes new administrative duties on agencies without changing the legal weight of guidance documents themselves.

Current status in Congress: Passed House.

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