[Code of Federal Regulations]
[Title 28, Volume 2]
[Revised as of July 1, 2003]
From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access
[CITE: 28CFR50.17]

[Page 70]
 
                    TITLE 28--JUDICIAL ADMINISTRATION
 
              CHAPTER I--DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE (Continued)
 
PART 50--STATEMENTS OF POLICY--Table of Contents
 
Sec. 50.17  Ex parte communications in informal rulemaking proceedings.

    In rulemaking proceedings subject only to the procedural 
requirements of 5 U.S.C. 553:
    (a) A general prohibition applicable to all offices, boards, bureaus 
and divisions of the Department of Justice against the receipt of 
private, ex parte oral or written communications is undesirable, because 
it would deprive the Department of the flexibility needed to fashion 
rulemaking procedures appropriate to the issues involved, and would 
introduce a degree of formality that would, at least in most instances, 
result in procedures that are unduly complicated, slow, and expensive, 
and, at the same time, perhaps not conducive to developing all relevant 
information.
    (b) All written communications from outside the Department addressed 
to the merits of a proposed rule, received after notice of proposed 
informal rulemaking and in its course by the Department, its offices, 
boards, and bureaus, and divisions or their personnel participating in 
the decision, should be placed promptly in a file available for public 
inspection.
    (c) All oral communications from outside the Department of 
significant information or argument respecting the merits of a proposed 
rule, received after notice of proposed informal rulemaking and in its 
course by the Department, its offices, boards, bureaus, and divisions or 
their personnel participating in the decision, should be summarized in 
writing and placed promptly in a file available for public inspection.
    (d) The Department may properly withhold from the public files 
information exempt from disclosure under 5 U.S.C. 552.
    (e) The Department may conclude that restrictions on ex parte 
communications in particular rulemaking proceedings are necessitated by 
considerations of fairness or for other reasons.

[Order No. 801-78, 43 FR 43297, Sept. 25, 1978, as amended at Order No. 
1409-90, 55 FR 13130, April 9, 1990]