rulemaking
Every record this desk has filed under rulemaking, newest first, each with the number of sources it can still show you.
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-forcefederal-register
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 undermethodfederal-registercomment-deadlinecivic
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-actfederal-registercomment-deadlinepower-plants
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-1bfederal-registercomment-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 underfederalaccountabilityfederal-registerinstrumentsprimary-sourceevidence-posturemethod
A record appears here because it carries rulemaking 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.