public-comment
Every record this desk has filed under public-comment, 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 underfederal-registerinstrumentstransparency
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-actwetlandswotusfederal-register
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-rulewildfirefederal-register
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 underfederal-registernhtsarecallsgeneral-motorsfcce-ratedebarmentfrauddated-terms
A record appears here because it carries public-comment 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.