Jerry Brito, he of Stimulus Watch, has pulled back the curtain on OpenRegs.com. The new site is meant to be a well-lit portal onto the federal regulatory process where much of government happens, and which -- by design -- is supposed to benefit from citizen feedback. From the site: "The goal of OpenRegs.com is to make the proposed and final regulations published in the Federal Register easy to find and discuss, so that citizens can become better informed and more involved in the regulatory process...OpenRegs.com should serve as the launching pad, research portal, and discussion community for your regulatory adventures." It's refreshingly clean, it's eminently navigable, and it's intuitive for lay folk. Compare the polished results for a search on pending food regs on OpenRegs.com with the nightmare that you get from the same search on Regulations.gov.

Brito notes that that the team behind the official regulations site run by the U.S. government are watching and learning from this project. "They recently contacted me and asked if they could use the language from the 'Learn About Regulations' section of OpenRegs.com on the new Regulations.gov."