The Investigative Journal’s daily survey of the day’s rules, notices, and presidential documents — what is moving in Washington’s regulatory machinery, what stops the clock for comment, and what records suggest is worth watching.
The Office of the Federal Register’s Wednesday, May 13, 2026 edition is dominated by a single trade-policy mechanic: the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security has filed the procedures by which pharmaceutical manufacturers can apply for company-specific onshoring agreements that buy down the 100 percent Section 232 tariff President Trump imposed on patented drugs and ingredients in April. The White House also extended a seven-year-old national emergency over information-and-communications-technology supply chains for another year, and renewed a Section 1245 determination that keeps the sanctions screws on Iranian crude. Below, eight items records show as the day’s most consequential entries.
1. Commerce opens the Section 232 pharmaceutical onshoring window
Agency: Bureau of Industry and Security, Department of Commerce. Document type: Notice. FR document: 2026-09489. Window: Applications requested within 30 days of publication.
The notice operationalizes Proclamation 11020, issued April 2, 2026 (91 FR 18183), which imposed a 100 percent ad valorem tariff on imports of patented pharmaceuticals and associated pharmaceutical ingredients for companies not named in the proclamation’s Annex III. The duties are scheduled to take effect September 29, 2026. Today’s notice describes how a drugmaker can negotiate a company-specific onshoring agreement with Commerce that, if approved, drops the duty rate to 20 percent; companies that also conclude a Most Favored Nation arrangement with the Department of Health and Human Services receive a zero rate through January 20, 2029.
Applications are submitted electronically to pharma232@bis.doc.gov, and the Bureau of Industry and Security’s Office of Strategic Industries and Economic Security will administer monitoring and enforcement. Filings indicate that approved companies must submit periodic reports demonstrating progress against onshoring milestones and may be required to fund external audits. The 30-day clock is unusually tight for a Section 232 implementation document, and records suggest that branded manufacturers without existing U.S. plants will face the steepest documentation burden. TIJ will track which firms file and which jurisdictions the resulting capacity lands in.
2. Treasury, Labor, and HHS propose a new “excepted benefit” category for fertility coverage
Agencies: IRS, Employee Benefits Security Administration, and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Document type: Proposed rule. FR document: 2026-09479. Comment window: 60 days from publication.
The three departments are jointly proposing to create a new category of limited “excepted benefits” under ERISA, the Internal Revenue Code, and the Public Health Service Act for certain fertility benefits. Excepted benefits are generally exempt from the Affordable Care Act and HIPAA market requirements that otherwise govern group health plans and individual coverage. The proposal would allow employers and insurers to offer stand-alone fertility coverage outside the integrated health-plan framework, with consumer-protection guardrails that the agencies are now soliciting comment on.
The rulemaking is a Fund I-friendly companion to a broader administration push to expand IVF access through tax and benefit design rather than insurance mandates. Comments are due to the file code 1210-AC40 docket no later than 60 days after publication. The accountability questions worth tracking are how the rule defines “fertility benefits,” whether it imposes meaningful nondiscrimination requirements, and whether stand-alone fertility plans will be subject to mental-health and surprise-billing protections that records show are already required of integrated coverage.
3. EPA proposes to redefine “begin actual construction” under New Source Review
Agency: Environmental Protection Agency. Document type: Proposed rule. FR document: 2026-09524. Docket: EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-0618. Comment window: 45 days from publication.
The agency is proposing to amend 40 CFR parts 49, 51, and 52 to distinguish between construction of a stationary source and construction of “non-emitting components or structures.” Under the proposal, the latter could begin before an owner or operator obtains a New Source Review preconstruction permit for a new major stationary source or a major modification of an existing one. The rule would update the definition of “begin actual construction,” add a new definition of “pollutant-emitting activities,” and harmonize the Federal minor NSR regulations applicable in Indian country with the Prevention of Significant Deterioration and Nonattainment NSR frameworks.
The change is technical, but its practical effect is to let developers pour foundations, run trenching, and erect ancillary structures while an air permit is still in process — work that environmental groups argue creates economic momentum that effectively locks in approval. EPA is offering a virtual public hearing if anyone requests it by May 18, 2026, and the agency must hold the hearing within 15 days of publication. Comments are due 45 days after publication.
4. FCC adopts a new spectrum-sharing regime for GSO/NGSO satellite broadband
Agency: Federal Communications Commission. Document type: Final rule. FR document: 2026-09565. Effective: 60 days after publication (with limited delayed provisions).
The Commission is replacing the late-1990s Equivalent Power Flux Density limits that have governed how non-geostationary-orbit satellite systems share spectrum with geostationary incumbents. In SB Docket No. 25-157, the FCC concluded that the legacy EPFD framework forces NGSO operators to over-protect GSO systems and thereby caps the broadband speeds American households and businesses in rural and remote areas can receive. The Order swaps EPFD for performance-based GSO protection criteria, extends the Commission’s good-faith coordination framework, and adds technical backstops where private coordination fails.
The shift is one of the most consequential satellite-broadband rulings since the Commission authorized SpaceX’s Starlink fleet, and records indicate it removes a structural advantage long held by legacy GSO operators in Ku- and Ka-band. Two amendatory instructions are indefinitely delayed pending a separate Federal Register notice setting their effective date.
5. DEA places synthetic cannabinoid CUMYL-PEGACLONE in Schedule I
Agency: Drug Enforcement Administration, Department of Justice. Document type: Final rule. FR document: 2026-09566. Effective: Date of publication.
DEA is permanently placing 5-pentyl-2-(2-phenylpropan-2-yl)pyrido[4,3-b]indol-1-one — commonly known as CUMYL-PEGACLONE or SGT-151 — and its salts, isomers, and salts of isomers, into Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. The rule is partly to fulfill U.S. obligations under the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances after the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs scheduled the compound internationally.
The substance is a synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonist that filings indicate has been detected in seizures of so-called “spice” products in Europe and, increasingly, in U.S. medical-examiner toxicology reports. Schedule I placement imposes the full set of manufacturing, distribution, import-export, research, and possession controls under the CSA, plus the corresponding administrative, civil, and criminal sanctions.
6. White House continues the ICTS supply-chain national emergency for another year
Document type: Presidential notice. FR document: 2026-09671.
President Trump on May 11 transmitted to Congress a notice continuing the national emergency originally declared in Executive Order 13873 on May 15, 2019 — the IEEPA-based authority used to police information-and-communications-technology-and-services transactions involving “foreign adversary” jurisdictions, primarily the People’s Republic of China. The continuation keeps in force for one additional year the regulatory apparatus that the Commerce Department uses to review and block ICTS transactions deemed to pose undue risk to U.S. national security, foreign policy, or economic interests.
The notice is procedural — the National Emergencies Act requires affirmative renewal each year — but records show the underlying authority is the legal scaffolding for ongoing rulemakings on connected vehicles, drone components, and cloud-infrastructure provider Know-Your-Customer obligations. TIJ has tracked the ICTS regime since its inception; the renewal preserves Commerce’s running docket of transaction reviews.
7. Presidential determination on Iran petroleum sanctions reissued
Document type: Presidential determination. FR document: 2026-09624. Determination No.: 2026-13.
The President determined on May 7, 2026, pursuant to Section 1245(d)(4)(B) and (C) of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (Pub. L. 112-81), that there is a sufficient supply of petroleum and petroleum products from countries other than Iran to permit a significant reduction in the volume of petroleum and petroleum products purchased from Iran by or through foreign financial institutions. The determination cites the Energy Information Administration’s April 2026 report and a review of global supply and strategic-reserve availability.
The finding is the legal predicate that keeps the secondary-sanctions threat under Section 1245 operational against foreign banks that facilitate Iranian crude purchases. The State Department is directed to publish the determination in the Federal Register.
8. CBP extends import restrictions on Türkiye archaeological and ethnological material
Agency: U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Department of Homeland Security. Document type: Final rule. FR document: 2026-09575. Effective: Date of publication.
CBP is extending the bilateral cultural-property import restrictions on archaeological and ethnological material of the Republic of Türkiye through March 24, 2031. The original restrictions were imposed by CBP Decision 21-09 and implement the U.S.-Türkiye agreement under the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act. Under the CPIA, the State Department’s Cultural Heritage Center must find that the conditions justifying the original agreement still pertain and that no cause for suspension exists; today’s rule reflects that determination.
The extension matters because records show that Türkiye’s antiquities supply chain runs through transit jurisdictions — Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, and Hong Kong — that have featured in prior TIJ reporting on cultural-property trafficking. The extension keeps in force the CBP designated-list seizure authority that customs officers use at ports of entry.
Items relevant to TIJ’s investigative beats
Three additional filings warrant a flag for accountability reporters. First, the Postal Regulatory Commission’s final rule revising service-performance reporting requirements for Market Dominant products (2026-09554, Order No. 9566) updates the annual reporting framework under the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act; data shows on-time delivery has been a persistent point of congressional oversight for the U.S. Postal Service, and the revised metrics will shape what the public sees about service quality going forward.
Second, two parallel FDA Requests for Information on butylated hydroxytoluene (2026-09507) and azodicarbonamide (2026-09508) open 60-day comment windows on whether these long-standing food additives remain “generally recognized as safe.” Both substances are already restricted in the European Union, and the RFIs are an early procedural step in HHS’s broader food-chemical post-market assessment program.
Third, the Rural Utilities Service’s Community Connect Grant Program FY 2026 funding notice (2026-09555) is — per the notice itself — the last time the program will be advertised in the Federal Register; future cycles will be announced only on USDA’s website and grants.gov. Reporters covering rural broadband and federal grant transparency should add the agency website to their monitoring lists.
The Department of Education separately opened the FY 2026 Comprehensive Centers competition (2026-09557) with proposals due via grants.gov by 11:59 p.m. Eastern on June 30, 2026; the competition includes a “Returning Education to the States” competitive-preference priority that aligns with the administration’s broader devolution agenda. The Federal Maritime Commission’s notice of proposed rulemaking revising its own rulemaking procedures (2026-09450, RIN 3072-AD06) carries a 30-day comment window and would, among other changes, integrate FMC rulemakings into the Executive Order 12866 centralized regulatory-review process as directed by Executive Order 14215 — a structural change worth watching for how it affects shipping-rate oversight.
Today’s edition of the Federal Register contained 126 documents on Public Inspection from 44 agencies, including five rules, seven proposed rules, and two presidential documents. Comment-period clocks for the EPA NSR and Excepted Fertility Benefits rules begin the day each is officially published; readers planning to file comments should confirm the published-date stamp at federalregister.gov. The Investigative Journal will continue to monitor each docket and report material developments.