How to File a Public Comment on a Federal Rule That Agencies Must Weigh

In 2017, the Federal Communications Commission asked the public what it thought about repealing the net neutrality rules, which barred internet providers from blocking or slowing lawful websites. The public, apparently, had a great deal to say: the docket filled with more than twenty million comments. Then people started reading them. Some of the commenters turned out to be dead. Others were real people who had never written anything and were surprised to find their names attached to opinions about broadband regulation. Identical paragraphs appeared hundreds of thousands of times, sometimes arriving in bursts that only software could produce. In December 2017, the commission voted three to two to repeal the rules. Years later, in 2021, the New York attorney general's office published the results of an investigation that found nearly eighteen million of the comments were fake, many generated by lead-generation firms in a campaign funded by the broadband industry, and millions more on the other side submitted by a single college student using made-up identities. The most visible public comment fight in American history turned out to be mostly noise. The lesson is not that comments do not matter. It is that the comments that matter look nothing like those.

In short: Before most federal rules become final, the agency must publish a proposal, take comments from the public, and consider the relevant ones; significant comments must be answered in the final rule. Comments are not votes, so a single specific, well-supported comment can matter more than thousands of copies. Find the docket on Regulations.gov or the agency's own system, read the proposal, and write a comment that answers its questions with facts and experience.

How federal rules get made

Congress writes laws, but many laws leave details to federal agencies: the Environmental Protection Agency sets pollution limits, the Department of Labor writes overtime rules, the Department of Education sets student loan terms. The process agencies follow is governed by the Administrative Procedure Act, passed in 1946. For most rules, the act requires what is called notice-and-comment rulemaking:

1. Notice. The agency publishes a proposed rule in the Federal Register, the government's daily journal, explaining what it intends to do, why, and under what legal authority.
2. Comment. The public has a set period, often thirty to sixty days and sometimes longer, to submit written comments.
3. Consideration. The agency must consider the relevant matter presented in the comments.
4. Final rule. The agency publishes a final rule, along with a preamble that responds to the significant comments it received and explains its choices.

That fourth step is where your comment does its work. If someone raises a significant issue, such as a factual error, an overlooked cost, a legal problem or an affected group the agency did not consider, the agency generally must respond to it. If the agency ignores a significant comment, a court reviewing the rule may find the agency acted arbitrarily, and send the rule back.

Why comments are not a poll

This is the single most important fact about public comment, and it is often misunderstood, sometimes by advocacy groups that should know better. An agency does not count comments and side with the majority. It weighs the substance. A thousand identical comments saying "I oppose this rule" tell the agency that many people care, which is worth something, but they contain one argument, which the agency can answer once.

A single comment from a small-town water utility explaining that a proposed testing requirement would cost more than its annual budget, with numbers, has to be answered on its merits. So does a comment from a nurse describing exactly how a proposed change to a hospital reporting form would work on a night shift. So does a comment from a researcher pointing out that the agency relied on an outdated study.

That is why I suspect the fake comments in the FCC docket, for all the scandal, changed little about the outcome. Agencies, the FCC among them, have long said they weigh arguments rather than tallies. The real damage was different: the flood made it far harder for genuine commenters to be heard, and it damaged public trust in a process that depends on it.

Step one: find a rule worth commenting on

There are two main places to look.

• Regulations.gov is the government-wide portal where most agencies post proposed rules and accept comments. Each rulemaking has a docket, a folder with a number, containing the proposal, supporting documents and the comments received.
• Agency systems. A few agencies run their own. The FCC, for example, uses its own Electronic Comment Filing System, which is where the 2017 net neutrality comments landed.

You can search by keyword, agency or docket number. The comment page on this site lists federal rules open for public comment right now, closing soonest first, grouped by issue, which saves you from searching through hundreds of notices.

When you find a proposal, write down the docket number and the comment deadline. Deadlines are usually 11:59 p.m. Eastern time on the closing date, and late comments may not be considered.

Step two: read the proposal, at least the parts that matter

Proposed rules can run to hundreds of pages. You do not need to read all of it. Focus on:

1. The summary at the top, which explains in a paragraph what the rule would do.
2. The section-by-section discussion, to find the part that affects you or your community.
3. The agency's questions. Agencies often ask specific questions, such as "We seek comment on whether small businesses should be exempt" or "We request data on the cost of compliance." Answering those questions directly is one of the best ways to make your comment useful.
4. The economic analysis, if the rule has one, to see what costs and benefits the agency counted, and which it missed.

If the issue is complex, look for a summary from a reputable advocacy group, trade association, university or news outlet. But read the agency's own words for the section you plan to comment on, so your comment responds to what the proposal actually says.

Step three: write a comment that counts

A strong comment usually has these parts.

1. Who you are. One or two sentences: "I am a public school teacher in [state] with twelve years in special education," or "I am a family farmer who grows [crop] on [number] acres." Your experience is evidence.
2. What you are commenting on. The docket number and the specific section or question.
3. Your position. Support, oppose, or support with changes. Be clear.
4. Your reasons, with evidence. Facts from your own experience, data you can document, and studies you can name. Explain how the rule would actually work for people like you.
5. What you want the agency to do. "Withdraw the proposal," "Adopt the rule as proposed," "Extend the compliance deadline to [period]," "Exempt facilities under [size]," "Add a requirement that [specific thing]."

Keep it clear and organized, with short paragraphs or numbered points. A comment can be a page; it can be ten pages if you have the evidence. Length is not the measure. Substance is.

Things to avoid: personal attacks on officials, claims you cannot support, and pasting a form letter without adding anything. If you start from a template an advocacy group provides, rewrite it and add your own experience. It turns a copy into evidence.

Comments are public. Anything you submit, including your name and often your town, will be posted in the docket. Do not include private information you would not want published, such as your Social Security number, medical records or financial account details.

Step four: submit, and save a copy

On Regulations.gov, open the docket, click the comment button for the specific document, type or paste your comment, and attach files if needed. You will receive a tracking number. Save it, along with a copy of what you submitted. Some comments are posted within days; others take longer, as agencies screen for duplicates and inappropriate content.

If you are commenting on behalf of a group, say so, and name the organization. Group comments with real data are among the most influential.

The objection: aren't agencies going to do what they want anyway?

It is fair to ask whether commenting matters when an administration has already decided. Agencies under presidents of both parties have proposed rules with clear political goals and finalized them largely unchanged. Since 2025, as agencies have lost large numbers of staff and rewritten or withdrawn many rules, some commenters have wondered whether anyone reads their submissions at all.

The answer has two parts. First, rules change between proposal and final version more often than people think, especially on technical details: deadlines, exemptions, definitions, the scope of who is covered. Those details often determine how a rule works in practice. Second, the comment record matters in court. When rules are challenged, judges look at whether the agency considered the important issues raised. That scrutiny has, if anything, grown since the Supreme Court's 2024 decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo ended the doctrine under which courts deferred to agencies' reasonable interpretations of unclear statutes. Agencies now have to defend their reasoning more fully, and a well-documented comment can become the evidence that a rule was arbitrary. The net neutrality fight itself shows how long these battles run: the FCC restored the rules in 2024, and a federal appeals court struck them down in January 2025.

A note on the 2017 fake comments, and on artificial intelligence

The net neutrality scandal raised a question that has become sharper since: what happens to public comment when software can generate millions of plausible, distinct comments in an afternoon? Agencies have struggled with mass and fake comments for years, and the arrival of large language models makes the problem easier to create and harder to detect.

There is no complete answer yet. But the risk is a reason to write a real comment, not to give up. Agencies and courts are increasingly focused on the substance of comments rather than their number. A comment that includes specific, verifiable experience, like the details of your job, your town, or your business, is exactly the kind that a flood of generated text cannot replace.

Commenting as a group, and reading other people's comments

A comment does not have to come from one person. Some of the most influential comments in any docket come from organizations that pool what their members know: a statewide association of rural clinics describing how a reporting rule would work in twelve small hospitals, a union local documenting injuries on a production line, a tenants' federation collecting the experiences of families under a proposed housing rule. If you belong to a group, propose a group comment, gather specific examples from members, and have one person draft it with care.

There is also a step most people skip: reading the comments already filed. Dockets are public, and comments are usually posted as they are processed. Reading a few dozen tells you what the agency is hearing, who else cares, and where the arguments are thin. If an industry association claims a rule would cost far more than it would, and you have direct knowledge of the real costs, your comment can answer that claim specifically. If many commenters raised the same point, you can add new evidence rather than repeating it. Agencies notice when a comment engages with the record instead of shouting past it.

Reply periods, petitions and the other doors into an agency

Notice-and-comment is the best-known way to reach an agency, but it is not the only one.

• Reply comments. Some agencies, the FCC among them, take a second round of comments that respond to the first. If you missed the first deadline, a reply period may still be open.
• Extensions. Commenters can ask an agency to extend a deadline, especially for long or technical proposals. Agencies sometimes agree.
• Public hearings and listening sessions. Some rulemakings include hearings, in person or online, where members of the public can speak for a few minutes. What you say is added to the record.
• Petitions for rulemaking. The Administrative Procedure Act gives any interested person the right to petition an agency to issue, amend or repeal a rule. Advocacy groups use this to push agencies to act, and an agency's refusal can sometimes be challenged.
• Information quality and paperwork requests. Agencies must periodically ask for comment on the forms and data collections they use. These dull-sounding notices decide what information the government gathers, which shapes everything that follows.

None of these is glamorous, and all of them require patience. They are also, for most people, the most direct contact they will ever have with the officials who write the rules that govern clean air, safe workplaces, fair lending and the internet itself.

What you can do

• Pick one open rule. Browse the comment page for rules closing soonest on an issue you know firsthand, and note the docket number and deadline.
• Answer one of the agency's own questions. Search the proposal for "we seek comment" or "we request comment," choose the question you can answer from experience, and build your comment around it.
• Add one fact only you can supply. Your cost, your commute, your patients, your students. Then add the change you want.
• Turn a template into evidence. If a group sends you a sample comment, keep its structure, cut its slogans, and insert your own story.
• Follow what happens to the agencies themselves. Staff cuts and withdrawn rules are changing who reads these comments; the story of the shrinking federal workforce tracks it.