13. Environmental Protection Agency · Minor
Strictly enforce the 2019 Office of Water Policy for Draft Documents memo
Printed page 428 13. Environmental Protection Agency
“The August 6, 2019, “Office of Water Policy for Draft Documents” memorandum should be strictly enforced to ensure transparency as well as good governance by not letting guidance linger in draft form and by also ensuring that guidance documents are clearly just that: guidance.”
What has happened
- Not started
Nothing in the record enforces the 2019 draft documents memorandum. EPA relaunched its guidance portal in August 2025, which lists active guidance, but no Office of Water policy statement in this window requires draft documents to be finalized or withdrawn rather than left in draft, or restates that guidance documents bind nobody.
No action found yet. This entry is the starting point, not a finding.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
- Negative search (2026-08-27): no EPA notice, memorandum or guidance in the window reaffirms or enforces the August 6, 2019 “Office of Water Policy for Draft Documents” memorandum; the Office of Water documents among the federal records we keep and search are rulemakings and information collections.
- The agency’s general guidance transparency work went elsewhere — the guidance portal relaunch at #1051, which indexes active guidance rather than clearing draft documents out of the pipeline.
- Action
- reinstate
- Object
- August 6, 2019 “Office of Water Policy for Draft Documents” memorandum
- ID
- 1105