federal-register
Every record this desk has filed under federal-register, newest first, each with the number of sources it can still show you.
This desk has been printing federal deadlines for eleven days without telling anyone where to write. The Register publishes the address itself, and nobody here was reading it.
The forward board at /federal has listed dated federal commitments since September 8 — comment periods still open, rules not yet in force. As of today that is 406 commitments across 84 agencies, 185 of them comment periods a reader could still answer. Every one of those rows was a dead end: the board could say a comment period closes on a date and could not say where to write. The Federal Register resolves the regulations.gov submission form itself and publishes it as a field on every document, and this desk had never read that field. It does now. The board leads with the 16 open comment periods on rules the Register itself marked significant, each with its deadline, its agency, the number of comments already filed, and a link straight to the form. The first version of that count would have been a lie: it printed a reading the Register had last refreshed fourteen days earlier beside one refreshed this morning. Counts now carry the date they were taken.
Also filed underpublic-commentinstrumentstransparency
The annual determination naming the world's drug-producing countries carries its statutory evidence on four pages that were scanned as pictures, so the only part of the document a computer can read is the part with no facts in it.
Presidential Determination 2026-23, signed September 11 and published September 18, names 23 major drug transit or drug producing countries and designates four of them — Afghanistan, Bolivia, Burma and Colombia — as having failed demonstrably to meet their counternarcotics obligations. Three of the four get a national-interest waiver keeping their U.S. assistance; Afghanistan does not. Venezuela, decertified last year, is not decertified this year. The determination's own text contains no cultivation figures, no seizure volumes and no overdose numbers. Every number in the document sits in the four memoranda of justification that section 706 requires, and those four pages were published as scanned images: the Federal Register's text version prints them as 'GRAPHIC, TIFF OMITTED' and the PDF has no text layer for them. Afghanistan's justification, the one country denied a waiver, contains no figure of any kind.
Also filed underpresidential-determinationdrug-policyforeign-assistancetransparency
From October 19, ten kinds of airline delay stop counting as the airline's fault in federal statistics, including unscheduled maintenance and medical emergencies. DOT's own rule says passengers will be offered fewer meals, hotels and credits as a result.
A Transportation Department rule published September 3 takes effect October 19. It creates a new 'Section 511(b)' category in the monthly delay and cancellation reports airlines file, and moves ten causes out of the 'Air Carrier' category into it: among them unscheduled maintenance, a passenger medical emergency, removing an unruly passenger, cleaning after a passenger's death, cyberattacks and some government system failures. Congress required the change in the 2024 FAA reauthorization. The rule says that because airlines promise meals, hotels and sometimes compensation only for delays they control, 'the number of delays and cancellations for which air carriers provide amenities and compensation to consumers is expected to be reduced', and calls it 'a transfer of value from consumers back to air carriers'. It does not say how many flights are affected, and it says nothing about cash refunds for cancelled flights.
Also filed underdotairlinesair-travelconsumer-protectionflight-delays
EPA and the Army Corps are weighing a Clean Water Act test that would cover only water flowing every day of the year. Their own notice says most intermittent streams and most wetlands now protected would fall outside it. Comments close October 9.
On September 9 the EPA and the Army Corps published a supplemental proposal to their pending rewrite of which 'waters of the United States' the Clean Water Act covers. The new option would define 'relatively permanent' as perennial, water standing or flowing every day of the year in ordinary conditions, allowing only one dry spell of up to 30 days a year. Wetlands would be covered only where perennial surface water makes them hard to tell apart from a covered water. The agencies write that most intermittent streams would not qualify and that 'the majority of wetlands' jurisdictional under current rules would not either, with 'a significant reduction in federally jurisdictional waters' in the arid West. They give no acreage or mileage estimates. Public comments are due October 9, 2026, in docket EPA-HQ-OW-2025-0322.
Also filed underepaarmy-corpsclean-water-actwetlandswotuspublic-comment
The Forest Service has proposed repealing the 2001 Roadless Rule, which protects 58.5 million acres of national forest from most road building and logging. Public comments close October 6, and more than 219,000 have already been filed.
The Agriculture Department proposed on August 20 to rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which bars most road construction and timber cutting on 58.5 million acres of inventoried roadless areas in the national forests. On September 11 it extended the comment deadline 15 days, to October 6, 2026. The stated reasons are wildfire risk, insect and disease outbreaks, and returning decisions to local forest officials. The agency's own analysis says permanent roads would become possible on about 18.2 million acres where forest plans allow them, that sawtimber harvest could rise 5 to 10 percent if every eligible area were cut (which it calls unlikely), and that its effects could exceed $100 million. It says the repeal 'does not mandate timber cutting or road construction.' Idaho's and Colorado's state roadless rules would stay in place. Most tribal governments consulted oppose it.
Also filed underusdaforest-servicepublic-landsroadless-rulewildfirepublic-comment
Social Security's rules for qualifying for disability with a heart condition change on October 30, for new claims and for claims already pending. Three conditions get their own listing for the first time, and SSA expects the change to raise benefit payments by $540 million over ten years.
The Social Security Administration published revised criteria for evaluating cardiovascular disorders on July 2, 2026, the first full revision since 2006, and they take effect October 30, 2026. They apply to new applications, to claims still pending on that date, and to continuing disability reviews. The rule adds listings for aortic valve disease, cardiomyopathy and cardiac allograft vasculopathy, updates heart failure to current medical terms and thresholds, adds a new invasive measure for ischemic heart disease, and removes the separate listing for children's rheumatic heart disease. SSA estimates net increases of $446 million in Social Security disability benefits and $94 million in SSI over fiscal years 2026 to 2035. A September 16 correction fixed a heading number and changed nothing else. Not meeting a listing does not end a claim: SSA says it does 'not deny any claim solely' on that basis.
Also filed undersocial-securitydisabilityssiheart-diseasebenefits
From November 16, states must hand confidential unemployment records to federal officials on request for oversight and audits. Labor declined commenters' requests to bar immigration-enforcement use, to notify claimants, or to list which data is covered.
A Labor Department final rule published September 16 and effective November 16, 2026 turns an optional disclosure into a required one: every state unemployment agency must give 'confidential UC information' to a federal official who asks for it for unemployment program oversight and audits. The Labor Department, its inspector general and GAO can ask without explanation; other federal officials must ask in writing, state the use and cite their authority. The department says it is fighting fraud, citing $45.6 billion in potentially fraudulent benefits identified by its inspector general. It did not list which data elements are covered, did not define 'Federal official', declined a proposed ban on immigration-enforcement use, and adds no notice to claimants. It says the rule creates no new uses and no national claims database, and that it does not reach eligibility decisions. States that must change their own laws have until September 16, 2027.
Also filed underlabor-departmentunemployment-insuranceprivacydata-sharing
The Energy Department says its 2022 energy-efficiency standards for manufactured homes now have 'no legal effect' and will not be enforced. A July housing law moved that job to HUD, which has one year to set standards and has not yet.
In a one-page notice published September 18, the Department of Energy said its May 31, 2022 final rule setting energy conservation standards for manufactured homes 'has no legal effect' and that it 'will not enforce' them. The reason is the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, signed July 11, 2026, which says no federal energy-efficiency standard for manufactured homes has legal effect until the Department of Housing and Urban Development adopts it through its own consensus process. The law gives HUD one year, to July 2027, to adopt minimum standards and requires updates every three years. HUD has adopted none yet. DOE says it will write a rule to conform its regulations. The notice gives no estimate of the effect on home prices or energy bills and has no comment period.
Also filed underenergy-departmenthudmanufactured-housingenergy-efficiencyaffordable-housing
An executive order signed September 8 gives the Pentagon 30 days to start handing veterans' records to the VA the day they leave service, and 180 days to build AI tools for benefit claims. It carries no money, no staffing and no way to tell whether the deadlines were met.
Executive Order 14426, signed September 8 and published September 11, sets three deadlines. Within 30 days, military personnel files, health records and service treatment records must go to the VA immediately when a service member is discharged. Within 120 days, IT contracts must be reviewed and future ones must require interoperability between the two departments' records systems. Within 180 days, the departments must build permanent record-sharing systems and deploy 'new digital tools using artificial intelligence and other emerging capabilities' for benefit applications, and the Transition Assistance Program must connect every departing service member either to an open job or to training. The order contains no dollar figure, no staffing number, no claims-backlog figure, no metric and no report to anyone. It is expressly contingent on 'the availability of appropriations' and creates no enforceable right.
Also filed underveteransexecutive-ordervadefenseai
A drafting error in August's layoff rule deleted the two paragraphs that say when a federal worker counts as 'displaced'. For 13 days the definition that governs their priority for other jobs had no criteria under it. OPM restored the text on September 15.
OPM's reduction-in-force rule, effective September 2, carried an amendatory instruction that told the code to replace all of paragraph (1) of the definition of 'displaced' but supplied only its opening line. The effect was to delete the two subparagraphs that say who qualifies: an employee who got a RIF separation notice, or one facing removal for refusing a directed move out of their commuting area. That definition governs who gets priority consideration for other federal jobs under the career transition program. A correcting amendment published September 15 restored the text, effective immediately, and says it makes no substantive change. It does not say how the error was found, whether any case was decided under the truncated definition during the 13 days, or what happens if one was. Two other OPM rules landed the same week: shared hiring certificates, effective October 15 with comments to November 16, and a proposal on excepted-service employment, comments to November 17.
Also filed underopmfederal-workforcereduction-in-forcerulemaking
Two executive orders on beef: one tells USDA to expand investigations of meatpackers and report back in 60 days, the other opens the door to mandatory country-of-origin labeling and to delisting the gray wolf. Neither carries a dollar.
Executive Orders 14424 and 14425, both signed September 4 and published September 10, address cattle. The first directs the Agriculture Secretary to prioritize and expand Packers and Stockyards Act investigations of meatpackers, increase staffing in three USDA offices, coordinate with the Justice Department under a 2025 memorandum, and report to the President within 60 days; it also promises a guaranteed loan program for small and regional beef processors, with no amount and no date. The second orders a 90-day review that may lead to mandatory country-of-origin labeling for beef, directs Interior to decide whether the gray wolf and Mexican wolf have met recovery criteria for delisting, and tells every agency to make sure the measures reach consumers 'in the form of lower prices'. It states that the national cattle herd is at a 75-year low while beef demand has risen almost 10 percent in a decade, without sourcing either figure. Neither order creates an enforceable right.
Also filed underexecutive-orderagriculturebeefranchersantitrustendangered-species
An executive order gives the Interior Secretary the Defense Production Act's energy powers alongside Energy and Commerce, sends their disputes to the National Energy Dominance Council, and quietly drops a limit that had reserved one finding to the Energy Secretary.
Executive Order 14427, signed September 8 and published September 11, amends the 2012 order that delegates the President's Defense Production Act authorities. It adds the Secretary of the Interior alongside the Secretary of Energy for 'all forms of energy under their purview', each able to act independently, and alongside Commerce and Energy for the authority to prioritize and allocate materials to maximize domestic energy supplies. Disagreements between two secretaries over energy now go first to the National Energy Dominance Council, or to that council and the National Security Council together when national defense infrastructure or military operations are involved. In rewriting one section, the order also removes a limit that had reserved findings about 'critical and essential' materials to the Energy Secretary; it does not mention doing so. The order gives no reason for any of the changes, sets no deadline, touches none of the act's purchase or loan authorities, and creates no enforceable right.
Also filed underexecutive-orderdefense-production-actenergyinterior
There are 191 federal comment windows open right now. Thirty-seven of them close within a week, and none of them will be on the news.
This desk keeps a standing sweep of dated federal commitments. Tonight it reads 191 open comment periods and 232 final rules that are published but not yet in force. Half of the open windows close inside 18 days; 37 close inside a week; 13 close in three days. Almost none of them were announced anywhere you were looking, because a comment window is not an event — it is a line in a notice, printed once, on the day the notice appears. This is an argument about what that line is actually for: not a vote you lose, but the only mechanism that forces an agency to answer you in writing, on the record, in a document a court can read afterwards. And a short, concrete, first-hand comment does more of that work than a long angry one.
Also filed undermethodcomment-deadlinerulemakingcivic
EPA finished repealing most of the 2024 power plant carbon rules and, the same day and in the same docket, proposed erasing the rest. One of those is closed to you. The other closes November 2.
The Federal Register issue dated September 17 carries two EPA documents with one docket number between them. The first is a final rule: it repeals most of the 2024 Carbon Pollution Standards for power plants, takes effect November 16, and the agency says it is not reopening it. The second is a supplemental proposal arguing that the Clean Air Act does not authorize EPA to regulate power plant emissions for climate reasons at all — which would rescind the 2015 findings and repeal every remaining greenhouse gas standard for the source category. Comments on the second close November 2; a virtual hearing is October 1; the last day to register to speak is September 29, and each speaker gets four minutes. EPA puts the compliance cost savings of the finished repeal at $160 billion present value at a 3% discount rate and $95 billion at 7%, and states in the same table that it has not monetized the health and welfare impacts of the emission changes.
Also filed underepaclean-air-actrulemakingcomment-deadlinepower-plants
Every public record has three dates, and the one printed at the top is usually the least useful.
A document carries the date it was printed. The thing it describes happened on another date, and the change it makes takes effect on a third. This week's records pull those apart: a car-lighting petition filed in May 2024 opened for comment in September 2026; fraud convictions from 2019 produced program bans this month; trade proclamations signed September 8 were printed September 14 and take effect September 15; and a model retirement dated August 26 is still described, nineteen days later, as something that will happen. Readers who carry one date carry the wrong one. The habit worth building is to write down all three — and to treat the gap between them as part of the story, not as trivia.
Also filed undermethoddatesdated-termspublic-records
Two federal notices printed last week record things that happened years ago: a recall petition from 2024, and fraud convictions from 2019.
On September 11 the Federal Register published a General Motors petition asking to be excused from recalling about 10,241 model-year 2024 Cadillac XT4, Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon vehicles whose taillamps do not light with the parking lamps in one switch position. GM filed that petition on May 17, 2024; the public comment window it opens closes October 13, 2026. The same day's Register carried seven FCC notices barring people from the E-Rate school-internet subsidy for three years, for fraud convictions dated between 2019 and 2022. The FCC's letters point to new rules adopted on March 26, 2026. Neither document says why the gap was as long as it was.
Also filed undernhtsarecallsgeneral-motorsfcce-ratedebarmentfraudpublic-commentdated-terms
Five Canada trade proclamations reached the Federal Register today. Three turn a 50% duty into an import ban on September 29; two change what the duty covers from tomorrow.
Proclamations 11061, 11062 and 11063, signed September 8 and published in the Federal Register on September 14, exclude certain Canadian alcoholic beverages, dairy products and motor-vehicle products from import into the United States for goods imported on or after 12:01 a.m. Eastern on September 29, 2026. Those products already carry a 50% duty under three July 20 proclamations. Two further proclamations, 11064 and 11065, change which alcohol and vehicle products carry that duty from 12:01 a.m. Eastern on September 15 — adding some products and removing others. The lists that say which products are affected are printed only as images in the Federal Register's text edition, so this record cannot yet tell a reader whether a specific product is covered.
Also filed undertradetariffscanadaproclamationsimportsdated-terms
A judge gave the Education Department until September 11 to explain its new college admissions data collection. The explanation is published — including a 200-hour-per-school burden estimate.
In Massachusetts v. U.S. Department of Education, the federal court in Massachusetts granted the Department's motion to remand its Admissions and Consumer Transparency Supplement — a new component of the federal college data system, IPEDS — without vacating it, and ordered any supplemental explanation filed no later than September 11, 2026. The Department's revised explanation was published in the Federal Register on September 14. It defends collecting admissions data broken out by race-sex pair and by admissions test score quintile as central to the collection's purpose, and it estimates the work for each institution at 200 hours, against 6 to 9 hours for most other components of the same system. Whether the court accepts the explanation is not yet known.
Also filed undereducationipedsadmissionscourtsdata-collection
DHS proposes taking away the 60 days a laid-off H-1B worker has to find a new job. Comments close November 10.
The Department of Homeland Security published a proposed rule on September 11 that would remove the discretionary grace period of up to 60 days that workers in E-1, E-2, E-3, H-1B, H-1B1, L-1, O-1 and TN status currently get after their employment ends. Without it, the proposal would require a worker to depart the United States immediately upon failing to maintain the employment. DHS's own analysis says some workers may lose income and some may be issued Notices to Appear, and it offers a qualitative assessment rather than a count of the people affected. Nothing has changed yet: this is a proposal, the current rule still applies, and written comments are open until November 10, 2026.
Also filed underdhsuscisimmigrationh-1brulemakingcomment-period
August 27: 1,443 federal rules were proposed, took public comment, and then produced nothing. Nobody was counting.
A proposed rule names the day its comment period closes. The public writes in. Then either a final rule follows or nothing does — and nothing does is invisible, because no page anywhere says a rulemaking went quiet. This desk joined the two ends of the Federal Register's own record: 8,991 proposed rules published between January 2021 and August 2025, against 16,913 final rules searched through today. Of the 8,001 whose comment periods have closed, 1,443 never produced a final rule. The longest has been silent 4,220 days. Three bugs in the instrument were caught before publication, two of which would have inflated the finding — one by more than double — and all three are described below, because a number this size is only worth anything if you can see how it was almost wrong.
Also filed underfederalrulemakingaccountabilityinstrumentsprimary-sourceevidence-posturemethod
A record appears here because it carries federal-register in its own frontmatter. If a record you expected is missing, it was filed under a different subject — the full list is on the topics index.