Administrative Procedure Act (APA)

The Administrative Procedure Act is a federal act, first passed in 1946, that defines and regulates the decision-making procedures to be used by all federal agencies. Before the passage of this act, procedures varied greatly from agency to agency, and many people charged that particular agencies were not protecting individual rights or the public interest. According to Gifis (1991, 12), the APA "brought coherence and judicial character to formerly haphazard procedures." The act provides guidelines for the rulemaking process (whereby an agency issues rules that define how it operates and carries out its statutory obligations). The APA also designates procedures for administrative hearings, judicial review, and public participation in federal agency decision-making processes.

Although the APA was a considerable improvement over previous administrative policies, in the 1960s and beyond these policies came under attack for being too rigid and especially for discouraging adequate public involvement in administrative processes. One result, among others, was the passage of the 1990 Negotiated Rule-making Act and the 1990 Administrative Dispute Resolution Act, both of which relaxed APA procedures sufficiently to allow for—and even encourage—the use of negotiated rulemaking and other forms of alternative dispute resolution by administrative agencies in all their activities that affect the public.