The Federal Register published no issue Monday, with federal offices closed for Labor Day. This edition of Federal Register Watch covers Friday’s issue — Vol. 91, No. 171, September 4, 2026 — which carried 83 documents, several of them consequential for markets, taxpayers, and the regulated public. Comment clocks on the proposed rules below are already running.
DOJ asks for public comment on $250 million KKR premerger settlement
The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division published notice of a proposed final judgment in United States v. KKR & Co. Inc., et al., opening the settlement to public comment under the Antitrust Procedures and Penalties Act, the Tunney Act process that requires court review of negotiated antitrust resolutions.
According to the notice, the government’s January 14, 2025 complaint in the Southern District of New York (Civil Action No. 1:25-cv-343-LTS) alleged that KKR & Co. Inc. and related entities failed to make complete and accurate premerger filings at least sixteen separate times, in violation of Section 7A of the Clayton Act — the Hart-Scott-Rodino premerger notification requirement. The proposed final judgment, filed August 26, 2026, would require KKR & Co. GP LLC to pay a civil penalty of $250,000,000 within thirty days of entry.
Two cautions for readers: the complaint’s claims are allegations, and no court has made findings on them; entry of the judgment remains subject to the court’s Tunney Act review. Public comments are invited within 60 days of the September 4 notice and will be posted on the Antitrust Division’s website and filed with the court. For scale, HSR-related penalties have historically run in the millions, not hundreds of millions — records suggest a $250 million figure would rank among the largest premerger-enforcement penalties on the books, a point comment-period filings will likely address.
SEC proposes first broad overhaul of transfer agent rules
The Securities and Exchange Commission issued a sweeping proposed rule to modernize the regulation of registered transfer agents — the back-office firms that keep shareholder records, process securities transfers, and distribute dividends. The proposal (Release No. 34-106246; File No. S7-2026-30) would adopt new rules, amend existing ones, revise registration Form TA-1 and annual reporting Form TA-2, and rescind one existing rule.
The release runs more than a hundred Federal Register pages and is the only document in Friday’s issue designated a “significant” regulatory action, a marker of expected economic impact. The core transfer agent framework dates largely to the 1970s, and the Commission has for years signaled that it predates modern clearance, settlement, and recordkeeping technology.
Comment deadline: November 3, 2026, via the SEC’s comment portal, referencing File No. S7-2026-30.
FinCEN renews southwest border order on money services businesses
Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued a Geographic Targeting Order requiring certain money services businesses along the southwest border to report and retain records of currency transactions of $1,000 or more but not more than $10,000, and to verify the identity of the persons presenting them.
The order, effective September 3, continues a Bank Secrecy Act campaign FinCEN began with a GTO published March 10, 2026 (91 FR 11456). The reporting floor is notable: standard currency transaction reports are triggered at $10,000, so the order reaches transactions well below that threshold in the covered areas. Businesses newly covered by this order have a compliance date of October 3, 2026, the filing states.
IRS moves to codify tax-exemption bar on racially discriminatory private schools
The Internal Revenue Service published proposed regulations (REG-119986-25) providing that a private school is not a tax-exempt organization if it discriminates on the basis of race, color, or national or ethnic origin in its educational, admissions, scholarship, athletic, or other policies.
The proposal rests on the “fundamental public policy” doctrine the Supreme Court endorsed in its 1983 Bob Jones University decision, which upheld denial of exemption to racially discriminatory schools — long-standing IRS practice that the current regulations do not fully reflect. The rules would apply to taxable years beginning after May 31, 2027, which the IRS says falls after the expected publication of final regulations.
Comment deadline: November 3, 2026. Written comments and requests for a public hearing go through regulations.gov, docket REG-119986-25.
EPA gives refiners an extra month on 2025 renewable fuel compliance
The Environmental Protection Agency issued a final rule extending the Renewable Fuel Standard compliance reporting deadline for the 2025 compliance year from September 1, 2026 to October 1, 2026, effective on publication.
The extension gives obligated parties — refiners and fuel importers that must demonstrate blending compliance through renewable identification numbers — an additional month to square their books. A short procedural rule, but one with real cash-flow and credit-market implications for the fuels sector, where compliance credit positions are actively traded.
EPA proposes to exclude ocean-going vessel discharges from Clean Water Act permitting
In a proposed rule, EPA would revise the regulatory definition of “discharge of a pollutant” under the Clean Water Act so that pollutants added by vessels and other floating craft not secured to the seabed, in the contiguous zone or the ocean, would not require National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits.
EPA frames the change as faithfully implementing a statutory exclusion Congress already wrote into the Act, with conforming changes to the existing vessel exclusion. The practical effect, per the proposal, is that such vessel additions of pollutants in those waters would fall outside NPDES permitting altogether — a boundary-drawing exercise likely to draw comment from both maritime operators and environmental groups. Comment deadline: October 19, 2026.
EPA opens comment on 1,2-dichloropropane risk evaluation
EPA also released for comment a draft risk evaluation for 1,2-dichloropropane, an industrial chemical, under the Toxic Substances Control Act. TSCA risk evaluations determine whether a chemical presents an unreasonable risk to health or the environment under its conditions of use — including risks to susceptible subpopulations — without consideration of costs.
If the final evaluation finds unreasonable risk, EPA must proceed to risk-management rulemaking to address it, making this comment period the front end of a process that can reshape how a chemical is made, used, and handled. Comment deadline: November 3, 2026.
FAA would ease medical certification for pilots with non-insulin-dependent diabetes
The Federal Aviation Administration proposes to let applicants with non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus receive airman medical certification at the time of their medical examination, rather than routing every case through the agency’s Special Issuance review.
The FAA says modern medical advances have made certain forms of diabetes significantly more manageable, and that the change would cut the burden of the special-issuance process for both pilots and the agency. Comment deadline: October 5, 2026.
On our beats
Three more items from Friday’s issue merit watching. The Transportation Security Administration is soliciting industry representatives for technical roundtables on securing drone operations beyond visual line of sight. The sessions will be closed to the public and participants must be cleared for Sensitive Security Information — a defensible security posture, but one that puts the shape of future drone security mandates behind closed doors. Who gets a seat will matter.
The Bureau of Land Management, jointly with the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, published a notice of intent to prepare a programmatic environmental impact statement for oil and gas development of the Mancos Shale across roughly 108,000 acres of the Southern Ute Reservation in Colorado. Scoping comments are due October 5, 2026 — early input that often shapes the alternatives agencies actually study.
And the Department of Housing and Urban Development posted its Housing Trust Fund allocation notice for fiscal year 2026, setting formula grants for all fifty states, the District of Columbia, and the territories. Where those dollars land — and how grantees account for them — is the kind of paper trail this publication follows.
Methodology and sourcing: All items are drawn from the Federal Register, Vol. 91, No. 171 (September 4, 2026); each entry links to the primary document at federalregister.gov. Comment submissions go through regulations.gov or the agency channels specified in each document. This digest summarizes public filings and makes no allegations beyond those contained in government records; parties named in enforcement matters may submit responses to The Investigative Journal for publication.
Photo: Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building, Washington, D.C. Credit: APK via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.