The Investigative Journal’s daily review of the Federal Register — the U.S. government’s official journal of rules, proposed rules, and notices. All items below are sourced directly to documents filed for publication in the Friday, August 28, 2026 edition.
The Federal Register’s Friday edition carries 111 documents from roughly 40 agencies, according to the Office of the Federal Register’s public inspection docket: 19 final rules, 5 proposed rules, 86 notices, and one presidential document. The headline item for regulated industry is a Maritime Administration interim final rule rewriting the federal government’s vessel and shipyard loan-guarantee program — effective immediately upon publication. Also notable: the State Department moves to open online passport renewal to Americans overseas, the EEOC proposes the most significant overhaul of federal-sector discrimination complaint procedures in years, and a ten-notice stack of foreign arms sales filings lands at the Defense Department.
MARAD rewrites Title XI shipyard financing rules, effective today
The Maritime Administration’s interim final rule on Vessel and Shipyard Financing overhauls the regulations implementing the Title XI Federal Ship Financing Program, under which the federal government guarantees private financing for U.S.-flag vessel construction and shipyard modernization. According to the rule text, MARAD is implementing statutory changes, updating financing requirements imposed on Title XI borrowers, aligning the program “with modern Federal credit best practices,” and correcting outdated citations.
The deregulatory footprint is substantial: the rule states that it removes 14 of the 34 sections of the existing Title XI regulations. Because MARAD issued the measure as an interim final rule, it takes effect on publication — today — while the agency accepts public comments for 60 days, through October 27, 2026. For shipyards, lenders, and operators weighing Title XI applications, the revised eligibility and financial terms apply now, and the comment file will determine whether they hold. The action arrives amid sustained bipartisan attention in Washington to rebuilding U.S. commercial shipbuilding capacity, a policy area where the Title XI guarantee program is one of the few direct federal financing levers.
State Department proposes online passport renewal from overseas
The State Department published a proposed rule that would expand online passport application availability to qualified applicants located in foreign countries, consolidating the regulatory requirements for mail and online applicants at home and abroad. Filings indicate the Department would also drop the current requirement that an applicant’s most recent passport have a year or less of remaining validity to qualify for online renewal — a technical limitation that has kept many otherwise-eligible holders out of the online system.
For the millions of U.S. citizens residing abroad, the change would replace embassy mail-in or in-person renewal with the same online process rolled out domestically in recent years. The proposal is open for public comment for 60 days from publication, through October 27, 2026, via regulations.gov.
EEOC proposes overhaul of federal-sector discrimination complaint process
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued a proposed rule revising how discrimination complaints by federal employees are processed. According to the notice, the EEOC would end mandatory pre-complaint counseling, remove the option to request an administrative-judge hearing before a final agency decision (making such proceedings available only on appeal, and only when the Commission deems them necessary or efficient), and bar administrative adjudication of class complaints while preserving class assertions for exhaustion purposes. The rule would also permit joint processing of related individual complaints and update pleading standards, mixed-case procedures, and attorney-fee provisions, and it implements provisions of the Elijah E. Cummings Federal Employee Antidiscrimination Act.
The proposal would concentrate more initial decision-making in the employing agencies themselves — a structural shift that federal-employee representatives and agency counsel will read very differently. The comment window is short for a rule of this scope: 30 days from publication, closing in late September 2026.
Defense trade: ITAR revisions and $4 billion-plus in arms sales paperwork
Defense-trade lawyers get a full docket. The State Department is publishing a final rule amending the International Traffic in Arms Regulations to remove from the U.S. Munitions List certain civil aircraft modified to incorporate aircraft survivability equipment, and to exclude certain reexport and temporary-import activities involving that equipment from ITAR jurisdiction. The rule takes effect 45 days after publication (mid-October), with comments accepted for 30 days. A separate State rule extends a temporary modification of Category XI(b) of the Munitions List, effective August 30. And the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security filed a correction to its August 14 “Streamlining Export Controls for Drone Exports” rule (91 FR 52501) — a typographical fix, but one exporters relying on the amended Commerce Control List entry will want in their files.
Meanwhile, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency published ten section 36(b) arms sales notifications covering cases involving Georgia, Qatar, Singapore, Kuwait, Greece, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, and Poland. The filings largely report enhancements or upgrades to previously notified cases: records show a Poland case for AGM-158B-2 JASSM extended-range missiles carried at an estimated $1.77 billion, a Saudi Arabia case revised to roughly $1.96 billion, a Kuwait case at $484 million, and a Georgia Javelin case in which 46 previously notified command launch units are replaced with 30 lightweight units, raising the case value to an estimated $37 million. These notices are transparency documents rather than new policy — but in the aggregate they map where U.S. security cooperation dollars are flowing.
Treasury publishes Iran-linked sanctions designations
The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control published a sanctions action formally listing persons added to the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List, along with vessels identified as blocked property. The Federal Register notice — which memorializes actions OFAC states were issued on August 24, 2026 — includes designations under authorities spanning counterterrorism (SDGT), nonproliferation (NPWMD), Iran-related Executive Order 13902 and the Iranian Financial Sanctions Regulations, malicious cyber activity, and Iran human-rights authorities. U.S. persons are generally prohibited from transacting with listed parties, and the publication starts the administrative clock for affected parties seeking delisting.
Health care: No Surprises Act arbitration fix and FDA animal-drug compounding guidance
The IRS, joined by its sister No Surprises Act regulators, published a correcting amendment to the June 4, 2026 Federal Independent Dispute Resolution Operations final rule, which governs the arbitration process for out-of-network billing disputes between insurers and providers. The document states it corrects typographical errors and omissions, with corrections applicable back to the rule’s August 3, 2026 effective date — worth close review by billing counsel, since IDR deadlines and fee provisions have been repeatedly litigated.
Separately, the FDA announced the availability of draft guidance #256B on compounding animal drugs from bulk drug substances under current good manufacturing practice at FDA-registered facilities — an enforcement-discretion framework for veterinary compounding. Comments are due 90 days from publication, in late November 2026.
NRC clears early construction step for Holtec’s Palisades small modular reactors
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued an exemption allowing Holtec International subsidiaries to construct permanent support-of-excavation walls for the planned Pioneer Units 1 and 2 small modular reactors at the Palisades site in Michigan before issuance of a limited work authorization. The exemption, issued August 28 in response to Holtec’s December 2025 request, is procedural — but it signals continued NRC willingness to sequence early site work flexibly as SMR projects move from paper to ground. The Commission separately published an order concerning Global Laser Enrichment’s proposed Paducah laser enrichment facility.
Presidential documents: flags at half-staff for Dolly Parton
The edition’s lone presidential document is Proclamation 11057, signed August 25, ordering the U.S. flag flown at half-staff at the White House, all public buildings, military posts, naval vessels, and U.S. facilities abroad until sunset on September 1, 2026, “as a mark of respect for the memory of Dolly Parton.”
Also on our beats
Items we are tracking for follow-up reporting: the FDIC extended the comment period on its June 30 “Disclosure of Information” proposed rule (91 FR 39726) to October 5, 2026 — a rulemaking that bears directly on public access to bank supervisory records. The International Trade Administration and International Trade Commission filed a cluster of antidumping and countervailing duty actions covering steel nails from Malaysia, Oman, and other countries, oil country tubular goods, hot-rolled steel, and hardwood plywood. The Federal Housing Finance Agency published three Privacy Act system-of-records notices, and the Postal Service noticed a change in rates for competitive products. As always, comment deadlines are enforceable filing windows: October 27 for the MARAD and passport rules, late September for the EEOC proposal, and October 5 for the FDIC extension.
All documents cited above are scheduled for publication in the August 28, 2026 Federal Register and were reviewed in their public inspection versions; page citations become final upon publication. Direct document links are provided inline and redirect to the published versions.