Pt. 11, App. 1

14 CFR Ch. I (1-1-19 Edition)
each contact or group of related contacts in
the rulemaking docket when it is opened.

APPENDIX 1 TO PART 11 - ORAL COMMUNICATIONS WITH THE PUBLIC DURING
RULEMAKING

5. Does DOT policy permit ex parte contacts
during the comment period?

1. What is an ex parte contact?

No, during the comment period, the public
docket is available for written comments
from any member of the public. These comments can be examined and responded to by
any interested person. Because this public
forum is available, DOT policy discourages
ex parte contacts during the comment period. They are not necessary to collect the
information the agency needs to make its decision.

 - Ex parte -  is a Latin term that means
 - one sided, -  and indicates that not all parties to an issue were present when it was discussed. An ex parte contact involving rulemaking is any communication between FAA
and someone outside the government regarding a specific rulemaking proceeding, before
that proceeding closes. A rulemaking proceeding does not close until we publish the
final rule or withdraw the NPRM. Because
an ex parte contact excludes other interested
persons, including the rest of the public,
from the communication, it may give an unfair advantage to one party, or appear to do
so.

6. What if the FAA believes it needs to meet with
members of the public to discuss the proposal?
If the FAA determines that it would be
helpful to invite members of the public to
make oral presentations to it regarding the
proposal, we will announce a public meeting
in the FEDERAL REGISTER.

2. Are written comments to the docket ex parte
contacts?
Written comments submitted to the docket
are not ex parte contacts because they are
available for inspection by all members of
the public.

7. Are any oral contacts concerning the proposal
permitted during the comment period?
If you contact the agency with questions
regarding the proposal during the comment
period, we can only provide you with information that has already been made available
to the general public. If you contact the
agency to discuss the proposal, you will be
told that the proper avenue of communication during the comment period is a written
communication to the docket.

3. What is DOT policy on ex parte contacts?
It is DOT policy to provide for open development of rules and to encourage full public
participation in rulemaking actions. In addition to providing opportunity to respond in
writing to an NPRM and to appear and be
heard at a hearing, DOT policy encourages
agencies to contact the public directly when
we need factual information to resolve questions of substance. It also encourages DOT
agencies to be receptive to appropriate contacts from persons affected by or interested
in a proposed action. But under some circumstances an ex parte contact could affect
the basic openness and fairness of the rulemaking process. Even the appearance of impropriety can affect public confidence in the
process. For this reason, DOT policy sets
careful guidelines for these contacts. The
kind of ex parte contacts permitted and the
procedures we follow depend on when the
contact occurs in the rulemaking process.

8. If a substantive ex parte contact does occur
during the comment period, what does FAA do?
While FAA tries to ensure that FAA personnel and the public are aware of DOT policy, substantive ex parte contacts do occasionally occur, for example, at meetings not
intended for that purpose. In such a case, we
place a summary of the contact and a copy
of any materials provided at the meeting in
the rulemaking docket. We encourage participants in such a meeting to file written
comments in the docket.
9. Does DOT policy permit ex parte contacts the
comment period has closed?

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4. What kinds of ex parte contacts does DOT
policy permit before we issue an ANPRM,
NPRM, Supplemental NPRM, or immediately
adopted final rule?

DOT policy strongly discourages ex parte
contacts initiated by commenters to discuss
their position on the proposal once the comment period has closed. Such a contact at
this time would be improper, since other interested persons would not have an opportunity to respond. If we need further information regarding a comment in the docket,
we may request this from a commenter. A
record of this contact and the information
provided is placed in the docket. If we need
to make other contacts to update factual information, such as economic data, we will
disclose this information in the final rule

The DOT policy authorizes ex parte contacts that we need to obtain technical and
economic information. We need this information to decide whether to issue a regulation
and what it should say. Each contact that influences our development of the regulation is
noted in the preamble. For multiple contacts
that are similar, we may provide only a general discussion. For contacts not discussed in
the preamble, we place a report discussing

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