OntoCop: Constructing Ontologies for Public Comments

U.S. law defines a process known as Notice and Comment Rulemaking that requires regulatory agencies to seek comment from the public before establishing new regulations. Regulatory agencies are also expected to demonstrate that the final regulation addresses all substantive issues raised by the public. Most proposed regulations attract few comments from the public, but each year a few regulations attract tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of comments. When comment volume is high, most comments are form letters and modified form letters, which are not difficult to process [1], but there are still tens of thousands of unique comments that address a variety of issues. There may also be political or public pressure for the agency to issue regulations quickly. In these cases, regulatory agencies and other interested parties need tools that help them to quickly make sense of public comments.