The GOOD Act requires federal agencies to publish all active and rescinded guidance documents in a single, centralized, and publicly accessible online database.
Ron Johnson
Senator
WI
The Guidance Out Of Darkness (GOOD) Act increases government transparency by requiring federal agencies to publish all active guidance documents in a single, centralized, and publicly accessible online location. This legislation ensures that policies, memoranda, and other informal agency directives are easily searchable and clearly marked if rescinded. By streamlining access to these documents, the Act helps the public better understand the regulatory interpretations that affect them.
GOOD Act Mandates Centralized Online Database for All Federal Agency Guidance Documents Within 180 Days
Federal agencies often issue "guidance documents"—things like memos, blog posts, and news releases that explain how they interpret laws—but finding them can feel like a digital scavenger hunt. The Guidance Out Of Darkness (GOOD) Act aims to fix that by requiring every agency to publish these documents in one single, centralized location on the internet. Under Section 3, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget has 90 days to pick a website, and agencies must post all their current guidance there within 180 days. Moving forward, any new guidance must be posted to this central hub the very same day it’s released, ensuring the public doesn't have to guess which rules are currently in play.
Shedding Light on the Fine Print
Think of this like a master index for the government's "how-to" guides. If you’re a small business owner trying to figure out a new labor regulation or a contractor checking a safety directive, you currently might have to dig through buried PDF links on an agency’s obscure sub-page. The GOOD Act defines "guidance" broadly in Section 2 to include everything from formal directives to official speeches and even blog posts that set policy. By forcing these into one searchable spot, the bill cuts down on the "secret law" problem where agencies follow internal policies that the general public can’t easily find. For a coder or a construction foreman, this means less time spent on hold with a bureaucrat and more time seeing the actual policy in black and white.
Digital Housekeeping and Accountability
One of the most practical parts of this bill is how it handles the old stuff. According to Section 3, if an agency rescinds or cancels a piece of guidance, they can’t just delete the link and pretend it never existed. They have to keep the document on the central site but clearly mark it as "rescinded" with the specific date it was pulled. If a court is the reason the policy ended, the agency has to list the specific case number. This creates a clear paper trail, so if you’re looking at a policy from last year, you’ll know exactly if it’s still valid or if a judge struck it down. While the bill does protect sensitive info that’s already exempt under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the main goal is making sure the "rules of the road" are visible to everyone driving on them.