The Investigative Journal’s daily reading of what the executive branch is publishing — the rules, proposed rules, notices, and presidential documents that quietly move American policy. Wednesday’s Federal Register carries a new executive order on psychedelic therapies, a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau final rule rewriting the reach of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, an EPA reopening of oil-and-gas air-toxics standards, and a proposal to loosen the rules for converting federally insured credit unions into banks.
1. Executive Order 14401: Accelerating psychedelic and ibogaine therapies for serious mental illness
President Trump signed Executive Order 14401 on April 18, and it appears in Wednesday’s Federal Register under the heading “Accelerating Medical Treatments for Serious Mental Illness.” The order directs the Food and Drug Administration, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Attorney General to fast-track development, research, and patient access for psychedelic drugs — explicitly including ibogaine compounds — that have received FDA Breakthrough Therapy designation.
The order’s findings cite that roughly 14 million American adults have a serious mental illness, that suicide rates rose 37 percent between 2000 and 2018, and that veterans continue to die by suicide at more than twice the rate of non-veteran adults. Section 2 directs the FDA Commissioner to issue National Priority Vouchers for qualifying psychedelic candidates and tells the FDA and DEA to build a Right to Try pathway — including “necessary Schedule I handling authorizations” for treating physicians under 21 U.S.C. 823. Section 3 instructs the Secretary of Health and Human Services, through the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), to allocate at least $50 million from existing funds to partner with states that have enacted or are developing psychedelic-therapy programs.
Section 5 is the provision worth watching. It instructs the Attorney General, in consultation with HHS, to initiate and complete review of any product containing a Schedule I substance that has successfully completed Phase 3 trials for a serious mental health disorder, “so that rescheduling, if appropriate under 21 U.S.C. 811, may proceed as quickly as practicable.” Records suggest this is the most aggressive federal posture toward rescheduling psychedelics yet captured in a published executive order. The order takes effect on publication and does not create private rights of action.
2. CFPB finalizes Regulation B rewrite: no disparate-impact liability under ECOA
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s final rule amending Regulation B (RIN 3170-AB54; Docket No. CFPB-2025-0039) is one of the most consequential fair-lending actions in a decade. The Bureau finalizes — as proposed in November 2025 — a rule providing that the Equal Credit Opportunity Act “does not authorize disparate-impact liability,” further defines when a creditor may be deemed to be “discouraging” an applicant or prospective applicant, and adds new prohibitions and conditions on special purpose credit programs (SPCPs).
According to the rule text, the Bureau is formally rejecting the “effects test” theory that has underpinned federal fair-lending enforcement since the 1970s — the theory that a facially neutral lending policy can violate ECOA if it produces statistically disparate outcomes by a protected characteristic, even absent discriminatory intent. The Bureau instead treats ECOA as an intent-based anti-discrimination statute. Filings indicate the rule will take effect 90 days after publication. Industry compliance teams will want to watch for litigation from state attorneys general and civil-rights plaintiffs, several of whom have signaled in earlier comment letters that they view the shift as reviewable under the Administrative Procedure Act and potentially in tension with prior U.S. Supreme Court interpretations of adjacent civil-rights statutes.
The rule also tightens SPCPs — the voluntary programs that lenders use to extend credit to economically disadvantaged groups. The CFPB has added prohibitions and conditions that records suggest will narrow permissible designs and require clearer written plans. Fair-lending counsel should read Section IV of the preamble carefully before advising clients to maintain existing SPCP structures.
3. EPA reopens Oil and Gas NESHAP technology review
The Environmental Protection Agency has published a proposed rule (RIN 2060-AS13; Docket No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-1348) revisiting the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) for crude oil and natural gas production facilities and for natural gas transmission and storage facilities. Based on the Agency’s Clean Air Act Section 112 technology review, EPA is not proposing any revision to the current NESHAP standards themselves.
The significant move is the Agency’s proposal of two alternative approaches to previously unregulated emission points. Under Approach 1, EPA proposes that it has no obligation to regulate previously unregulated emission points during a 112(d)(6) technology review and may defer action on that basis — a major legal reading that, if finalized, would meaningfully narrow the scope of future NESHAP reviews across industries. Under Approach 2, EPA would add new standards for acid-gas removal units, transport vessel loading operations, storage vessels without flash emissions, and natural-gas-driven process controllers and pumps. EPA is also proposing to redefine “associated equipment” for major-source purposes — a definitional change that industry commenters have requested for years.
Comments are due 60 days after Federal Register publication. EPA will hold a virtual public hearing only if requested by April 27, 2026. Given the scale of the underlying source category — tens of thousands of well sites and compressor stations nationwide — the comment docket will be heavily contested.
4. NCUA proposes loosening credit-union-to-bank conversion rules
The National Credit Union Administration has proposed amendments to 12 CFR part 708a, subpart C, “Merger of Insured Credit Unions Into Banks” (RIN 3133-AG02). The NCUA Board proposes to eliminate what it calls “prescriptive procedural, disclosure, and communication requirements” governing mergers in which federally insured credit unions are absorbed into banks — a form of transaction that structurally converts member-owned cooperatives into shareholder-owned institutions.
The agency frames the proposal as a burden-reduction and modernization measure that will give credit-union boards “greater flexibility to exercise their business judgment.” Consumer advocates are likely to read the changes differently. Credit-union-to-bank conversions have historically been controversial because the member vote, merger-value appraisal, and disclosure regime at subpart C are the principal protections members have when the economic value of their cooperative shares is being transferred to a banking acquirer.
Comments close 60 days after publication and must be submitted via regulations.gov under docket NCUA-2026-0982. The investigative angle for reporters covering community finance: compare the merger-value calculations and insider-compensation arrangements in past subpart C transactions with what the new, thinner disclosure regime would require. Those records will reveal whether the proposed rule would, as a practical matter, reduce member-protection visibility.
5. NOAA proposes marine-mammal takes for Francis Scott Key Bridge rebuild
The National Marine Fisheries Service has issued a proposed notice (RTID 0648-XF473) granting two consecutive incidental harassment authorizations under the Marine Mammal Protection Act to the Federal Highway Administration for the Francis Scott Key Bridge Rebuild project in Baltimore, Maryland. The original bridge collapsed after being struck by the container vessel Dali in March 2024; the FHWA now requires MMPA coverage for pile-driving and in-water construction noise that may incidentally harass marine mammals in the Patapsco River approaches to Baltimore harbor.
The notice asks for public comments within 30 days of Federal Register publication and flags the possibility of one-year renewals beyond the initial two-year authorization window. For TIJ readers tracking the cost, schedule, and contractor selection for the rebuild, this notice is a useful procedural marker: the project cannot lawfully commence in-water work requiring MMPA take coverage until the final IHAs issue. Documents of this kind also typically include detailed marine-mammal density estimates for the specified geographic area, which reporters can cross-reference against contractor-supplied noise-isopleth models to evaluate whether the mitigation commitments match the acoustic footprint.
6. FRA opens $2.04 billion CRISI rail safety and infrastructure competition
The Federal Railroad Administration has published a Notice of Funding Opportunity for the combined Fiscal Year 2025 and 2026 Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) program. Total funding available under the NOFO is up to $2,039,246,480, with applications due by 11:59 p.m. Eastern on June 22, 2026 (funding opportunity ID FR-CRS-26-001 on Grants.gov).
CRISI is the principal federal competitive grant program for freight and passenger rail projects outside the Northeast Corridor. Records indicate FRA has historically used CRISI to fund grade-crossing eliminations, short-line upgrades, positive-train-control enhancements, and bridge rehabilitation. The investigative angle: CRISI award data are an unusually clean window into which short-line railroads, class-one carriers, and state DOTs are actually building — and which congressional districts are getting the federal dollars. Last cycle’s award list is a useful baseline for the coming round.
7. FDA classifies Alzheimer’s pathology assessment test as Class II
The Food and Drug Administration has issued a final order (Docket No. FDA-2026-N-3930) classifying the “Alzheimer’s disease pathology assessment test” — a new category of in vitro diagnostic used to assess Alzheimer’s pathology — into Class II with special controls. The Agency also issued companion final orders the same day for a digital therapy device for amblyopia, an anesthesiology device for sleep-apnea testing based on mandibular movement, and a clinical-chemistry device related to setmelanotide eligibility gene variant detection.
Class II classification matters because it moves devices out of the default Class III “premarket approval” track into a lighter 510(k) substantial-equivalence pathway with device-specific special controls. The Alzheimer’s pathology test classification, in particular, sits in the commercial space that already includes several blood-based biomarker assays that have moved rapidly through FDA review over the past 18 months. Data shows this category is among the fastest-growing diagnostic segments.
8. FERC opens scoping on Kinder Morgan Texas Access pipeline
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has issued a scoping notice (Docket No. CP26-136-000) for the Texas Access Project proposed by Kinder Morgan Louisiana Pipeline LLC. The pipeline would run from Jefferson County, Texas, into Cameron and Calcasieu Parishes, Louisiana — a corridor at the heart of the U.S. Gulf Coast LNG export build-out. FERC staff will prepare a NEPA environmental document and are requesting public scoping comments by 5:00 p.m. Eastern on May 18, 2026.
The scoping-comment universe for Gulf Coast interstate pipelines has widened considerably over the past three years: landowners along the route, coastal-erosion and wetlands advocates, and LNG-export policy critics typically all file. Reporters covering the project should pull the existing Kinder Morgan filings in CP26-136-000, along with prior FERC orders on adjacent KMLP segments, to establish the route alternatives and capacity assumptions the Commission will ultimately evaluate.
Relevance to TIJ’s investigative beats
Four items on today’s list bear directly on reporting TIJ already follows. First, the CFPB Regulation B rewrite will drive a new wave of fair-lending litigation and reshape how large banks staff and model their compliance programs — a beat TIJ tracks through bank-holding-company disclosures and consent-order compliance filings. Second, the EO 14401 psychedelics initiative sets up parallel storylines in veteran mental-health care, FDA Breakthrough-Therapy politics, and state-federal preemption of controlled-substance policy. Third, the NCUA credit-union-to-bank conversion proposal is a classic member-protection story: the public-inspection docket and subsequent merger filings will identify which conversions were pending while the rulemaking was underway, and whether insider compensation or merger-value appraisals track the looser disclosure rules. Fourth, the FRA CRISI competition is where federal freight-rail dollars get allocated; the award list will be a key input for reporting on rail-safety and grade-crossing accountability.
We note also the continued volume of Securities and Exchange Commission self-regulatory organization filings from the Nasdaq and Cboe complexes, a Federal Reserve notice on bank-holding-company control acquisitions, and a Federal Aviation Administration airworthiness directive for Boeing airplanes on today’s list. Filings indicate nothing in the SEC SRO, Federal Reserve, or FAA batch rises to the level of the top eight items, but they remain useful markers for routine regulatory activity in finance and aviation.
— Eduardo Bacci, The Investigative Journal. Sources: U.S. Government Publishing Office, Federal Register public-inspection documents for April 22, 2026.