Four or five years ago, I tried to fit the time into my schedule to write an article on the possibility of negotiating regulations. I figured that no one would ever take it seriously, and that I would then move on to the practice of law. Today, I am still trying to escape and move on to the practice of law: People did take the idea seriously; many seminars have been held to discuss the concept, and several agencies have used the process. I think it has been established as a viable alternative to traditional notice-and-comment or hybrid rulemaking.

I came to the concept of negotiated rulemaking through the confluence of two backgrounds. One was looking at technical regulation, largely on behalf of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). There were a tremendous number of highly complicated, voluntary technical standards out there, developed in the private sector, that were well beyond OSHA's competence to develop and keep current. It did not have the staff or the resources. It had to find a way of harnessing some of that expertise that existed in the private sector.