Edward Rubin over on the Administrative Law JOTWELL, in the post “Uncovering the Hidden World of Administrative Guidance” exposed me to the 2019 article by Nicholas R. Parrillo “Federal Agency Guidance and the Power to Bind: An Empirical Study of Agencies and Industries” which I just find fascinating.
Guidances are an interesting part of our job. As a best practice, they show one way to get to the desired end result, but there can be other ways but the presence of guidance can obscure those possibilities. Often times if an agency goes to the level of detail to show you what good looks like you’d be foolish not to try to meet them there. Other times guidance can be a real head scratcher.
Good article, and of interest to the non-lawyers like myself who have to live within the boundaries.
Investigations of a Dog 