Web Standard: Public Notices

Definitions:

Public Notices are official notifications by EPA informing the public of Agency actions such as the issuance of a draft permit or scheduling of a hearing. EPA is required to ensure proper public notice, including publication in newspapers and broadcast over radio and television stations.

The WebCMS has a specific content type for public notices. Authors must use this content type when creating public notices. Public notices may be created within any web area. The content type ensures the notice will be listed in the Public Notices dynamic listing, regardless of the hosting web area. 

Content Requirements:

• Public notices must include a title, summary of proposed action, proposed action, locations of proposed actions, and primary metadata.
• Write public notice descriptions using Federal Plain Language Guidelines; avoid using EPA or industry jargon and spell out acronyms.
• In the WebCMS, public notices that have a Comment due date set will be silently (no notifications sent) un-published five days after their comment due date. Those that do not have a comment due date set will go through a normal 90-day review cycle with notification.

• After your public notice expires, or when you receive a review-and-republish notice from the WebCMS, you must take one of the actions below to prevent it from being automatically unpublished by the WebCMS (and then showing up on your expired pages report!).

1. Republish

Republish your public notice if the comment period extends beyond 90 days (the default review schedule), or if it needs to remain online beyond the end of the comment period.

2. Unpublish

Unpublish your public notice and leave it in the WebCMS only if you need to keep a draft version available for future use. Public notices can be unpublished manually.

3. Delete

Delete your public notice from the WebCMS.

• When you delete the public notice, any PDFs attached to it will NOT be removed from the WebCMS, people will still be able to find them on Google, etc.

• Before permanently removing PDFs from the WebCMS:
  • Verify whether your PDF is still published in the WebCMS.
  • Check to see if the PDF is used on another page. 
    • Navigate to the Files tab and search for the desired PDF.
    • The Usage column will show the number of pages the PDF is on.
    • Determine if the PDF is still needed before deleting it.

Note that your public notice web page may be considered a federal record.  For suggested best practices, see Is My Public Notice Web Page a Record?.

About this Standard

All EPA public web content must adhere to the EPA Web Standards, the U.S. Web Design System guidelines, and the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act.

Original effective date:  04/10/2024
Last approved on:  04/10/2024
Web Council review by: 04/10/2027  (or earlier if deemed necessary by the Web Council)