To understand how the Bush administration uses the regulatory process to achieve its goals, four Washington Post reporters examined three facets of its rulemaking: an agency, a policy and a rule.
The reporters interviewed current and former government officials, members of interest groups, congressional representatives, and academic experts. The reporters also gathered documents detailing the rulemaking process -- drafts of proposed rules, regulatory dockets, internal memos and correspondence from lobbyists.
 
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In addition, The Post performed the first comprehensive analysis of a new database containing 38,000 items that have been published since 1983 as part of the twice-yearly Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions.
The database, obtained from the Office of Management and Budget, lists the status of the regulations contemplated by agencies. It provides a timeline of the formal actions taken so far and those anticipated in the coming year. An action can either create a new regulation or remove or modify an existing one. The database includes items from early in the rulemaking process that have not been formally proposed or finalized.
The Post's analysis excluded two agencies -- the Internal Revenue Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration -- whose routine annual actions made up nearly 12 percent of items listed in the agenda.
