Talk:List of federal agencies in the United States/Archive 1

Archive 1

Definition of a Federal Agency

From the wiki page on the Administrative Procedure Act:

The APA in section 551(1) defines an "agency" as "each authority of the Government of the United States, whether or not it is within or subject to review by another agency," with the exception of several enumerated authorities, including the U.S. Congress, U.S. courts, and governments of territories or possessions of the United States. Courts have also held that the U.S. President is not an agency under the APA. Franklin v. Mass., 505 U.S. 788 (1992).

Should this go anywhere on the page? Pigkeeper 01:07, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Are Departments Agencies?

In the United States, a Department of the Executive Branch is not consider an agency; it directs some agencies and performs tasks for its arena of responsibility. Departments should be deleted from the list; the list should also be organized into departmental agencies (those agencies administered by a certaint Department), independent agencies (those agencies independent from any department), and defunct agencies. Links to departmental descriptions can be continued on this page as part of the categorization; however they are not agencies. Any objections to this change?--Xinoph 17:24, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

Well, it's clear that within the Federal government's own navel-gazing, Departments have been considered agencies. The Administrative Procedure Act article describes a pivital 1941 report which examing the existing federal agencies:

The Final Report defined a federal agency as a governmental unit with "the power to determine . . . private rights and obligations" by rulemaking or adjudication. (Ibid at 7.) The Final Report applied that definition to the largest units of the federal government, and identified "nineteen executive departments and eighteen independent agencies." (Ibid.) If various subdivisions of the larger units were considered, the total number of federal agencies at that time increased to 51. In reviewing the history of U.S. government agencies, the Final Report noted that almost all agencies had undergone changes in name and political function.

This sort of fits with the fact that, for example, under the guidelines for the Information Quality Act, Departments and underlying agencies all have to come up with information quality guidelines. Pigkeeper 00:57, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh, see the other quote I quoted above from the APA which actually defines federal agencies. Departments are included. Pigkeeper 01:07, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Where's the full list

I don't think this is the full list. For example, DISA, (defense information systems agency), is missing. I'll add it, but it would be great if someone could find an up-to-date publication which authoritatively lists all agencies.

I'll work on it. There's a full list at a government website, and I'll compare the two. Cool Blue^{talk to me} 13:40, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Missing Departments

There is no Department of Agriculture, Department of Education, or Department of State according to this listing. I'm not sure how many independent agencies failed to make it on the list, either.

Hey, that's a weird omission. Okay... wait for it... there! I've added USDA, Ed, & State, to the headings, but the rest will need filling in. --Mark Adler 00:52, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I added federal Board of Tea Appeals under defunct agencies! If anyone wants to reference it, it cnmmhbgan be referenced to "Federal Administrative Law by Gary Lawson, pg. 7; ISBN #: 0-314-15088-9" Seanjd 01:38, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

DOA

I went through and added all of the DOA ones, I was suprised by almost all of the articles were stubs, I also went through and found missing agencies in others.

Maybe we need to start a US Government Wiki Project, there are many interesting agencies within the government, yet most of the articles are lacking. Any interest on this? Over the holiday break I am going to start tackling the DOA pages, making sure each one has the logo, and such CuBiXcRaYfIsH 06:09, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

US Gov. project

Sure, I think such a project's a good idea. I'm already up to my eyeballs in Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Congress, but I'd help out. --Mark Adler (Markles) 07:25, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Depth of this list

I am starting to delve into this list, I have corrected and added to Department of Agriculte and Department of Defense. I am have been using the Agency's Webpages, along with [1] , if you look at that link, you will see how extensive, this page could get, we need to decide what to include and what not to inclue. I don't want this list to be too long to be useful, but I also want to be able to remove the "incomplete" from the intro CuBiXcRaYfIsH 06:07, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Fantastic. However, I don't know how this article could be "too long to be useful". --Mark Adler (Markles) 11:48, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I mean, how in depth, and also not every agency seems to use an acronym, so some aren't going to get them, why make up an acronym if they aren't getting used. Working on list really makes me agree that government is too big ;) CuBiXcRaYfIsH 14:30, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh I see what you mean. I suppose we should set some guideline. Such as:

• "If and when there's a wiki Article, then put it on this list."
• Or "One level (or two levels) deep, and then only add further levels if wiki Articles exist."
• Or something else.

We definitely shouldn't bother making up acronyms. As for the size of government, it may be big- but I don't necessarily agree that it's too big. --15:26, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Also, for instance, the LSU list doesn't match the Agency's websites, as to what in what jurisdtction, such as is the Office of Elementary and Primary Education control Office of Indian Schools, because the Agency Websites are confusing. Also, look at for instance the Department of Defense and how huge it is, we need to decide how much of that to include. Mainly I've been working on the easier agencies CuBiXcRaYfIsH 18:55, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

DOD

I saw that you went through and added much to the DOD, but I went through and compared that to the LSU list Atleast a few things missing for instance

• National Guard
• Defense Libraries

and there were more, I could understand not including the libraries, but the National Guard seems important CuBiXcRaYfIsH 22:41, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Re-direct Question

Question sort of new to Wikipedia.

Why does National Oceanic Service re-direct to the NOAA page, and how do I change that CuBiXcRaYfIsH 22:49, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

It doesn't redirect, but it ought to. I'll set up the redirect. It's properly called National Ocean Service, and it's a subdivision of NOAA. See http://www.noaa.gov/ocean.html.

Initials / Abbreviations

Moving them

How about we move Initials / Abbreviations to the end of the item instead of the beginning. After all, they're alphabetized by name, not abbreviation.

E.g., old:

• FSA - Farm Service Agency
• FNS - Food and Nutrition Service
• FSIS - Food Safety and Inspection Service
• FAS - Foreign Agricultural Service
• FS - Forest Service

new:

• Farm Service Agency (FSA)
• Food and Nutrition Service (FNS)
• Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS)
• Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS)
• Forest Service (FS)

-Mark Adler (Markles) 01:22, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I totally agree, acronyms are nice, but most agencies don't use them. I will start working on that tonight

CuBiXcRaYfIsH 05:27, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Removing them

Or maybe just reduce/eliminate Initials / Abbreviations altogether unless they are really important (FBI, CIA, ATF, etc.). -Mark Adler (Markles) 01:22, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I say keep the initals, a lot of times, acronyms will pop up, having them doesn;t really add to the length of the document, we are trying to make this comprehensive, let's say, I see a news report, and they says USFS agents searched a home today, I might go to Wikipedia and search for USFS or FS, or along those lines, and then there is the issue of deciding what acronyms are applicable

CuBiXcRaYfIsH 05:34, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I like putting the acronym afters, it cleaned up the DOC section alot, made it look neater

CuBiXcRaYfIsH 05:44, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Clean-up Neccessary

I made a few minor changes in light of the new organization of the page, namely moving GAO to Legislative branch (it's a Congressional agency) and eliminated the CBO from Independent (since it was double listed under that and Legislative branch). I'm now concerned that the fact that all the independent agencies are lumped together after Legislative and Judcial obscures the fact that most are part of the executive branch. Ideally I think we should have the list broken down by branch, and then by type, so there would be the Executive Branch section, with departmental and independent executive agencies under that. It would also probably be best to seperate out independent regulatory and other agencies not under direct Presidential control (like the Fed) from mainline independent agencies like the CIA. Since my last changes were reverted however, I don't want to make any changes without a discussion. Oh, and of course we need to reach a consenus on usage and placement of acronyms and apply it uniformly through the list (they are very messy at present). Ddye 20:45, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Sections 5 and below need so major work the spelling is terrible and there are so random things included. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.179.178.47 (talk) 00:17, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Some more

I went through and added or cleaned up Department of Health, Labor Department, and DOJ. I know with DOJ there are a few that don't need to be listed, like office of attorney general or such, but it's 2:30 AM and I'm thinking straight, it will have to wait till later today. CuBiXcRaYfIsH 07:22, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Also, what does the standardize the template thing mean, I went to the link, but I don't get what the problem is CuBiXcRaYfIsH 07:22, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I've now fixed that. -Mark Adler (Markles) 12:41, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Sources

Look to wikipedia articles on the departments themselves. They often have the operating units listed with links already established. Simply cut and paste them into this article. Then add links for unlinked articles. For example, United_States_Department_of_Justice#Operating_units. Be careful, however, because some info is out-of-date on those articles' pages. --Mark Adler (Markles) 12:49, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Yep, that's where DOJ came from when I updated it, but I went to the DOJ website to double checkCuBiXcRaYfIsH 20:51, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

I run across the article U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. According to the article it is a US government agency, so it probably belongs on this list. Could someone who knows more about this subject put a link in the correct section - or if it doesn't belong on this list, on the correct list? Thanks!--Hippalus 14:54, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

• Done—Markles 02:32, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Anti-semitism

I have removed from the list "US Department of Global Anti-semitism". I first thought it was strange when it said "US", and then "semitism" wasn't capitalized. After further research, I have found that there is a report on global anti-semitism released by the Department of State, but there is no such thing as the "US Department of Global Anti-semitism". The report is released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, within the Department of State. Please correct me if I've overlooked something. Cool Blue^{talk to me} 13:37, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC)

"Commidity Community Corporation" was listed as an agency under the Dept. of Agriculture. I am not an Ag expert, but I removed it for three reasons. 1. It was listed at the top of the list, above all the A's and should have been with the C's. 2. I don't believe it is the correct title (I believe he/she meant the Commodity Credit Corporation) 3. I am not sure that it is part of the Dept of Ag--could someone with some Ag expertise help out?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.164.236.198 (talk) 02:54, 21 July 2009 (UTC)