The Investigative Journal’s daily review of the Federal Register. Monday’s edition — Volume 91, Number 181 — ran 76 documents, led by a Securities and Exchange Commission proposal to rescind the rule that has governed shareholder proposals for more than half a century, two presidential actions signed September 16, and a fourth consecutive extension of a border emergency finding. Comment deadlines are flagged throughout.
1. SEC Proposes to Rescind Rule 14a-8 Entirely, Citing Limits on Its Own Authority
The single most consequential document in Monday’s issue is a 64-page release from the Securities and Exchange Commission, Release No. 34-106383, File No. S7-2026-32, proposing to rescind Rule 14a-8 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and “leave determinations about the role of shareholder proposals to State law and company governing documents.”
Rule 14a-8 is the mechanism by which a qualifying shareholder can require a public company to print the shareholder’s resolution in the company’s own proxy materials and put it to a vote. The Commission’s stated primary rationale is jurisdictional rather than policy-based: “We are proposing to rescind Rule 14a-8 because the rule exceeds the Commission’s statutory authority.” The release reasons that while Section 14(a) authorizes the Commission to regulate proxy solicitations, the antecedent question of whether shareholders have a right to present a matter for a vote is a question of state corporate law. The Commission adds that it also believes “there are independent policy reasons” for rescission.
The release’s economic analysis supplies the numbers that will anchor the comment record. Between 2022 and 2025, 3,205 proposals were submitted for annual and special meetings — roughly 801 per year. Of those, 74 percent were included and voted on, 14 percent were omitted following a staff no-action letter, and 12 percent were withdrawn by proponents before the meeting. Activity was concentrated: 77 percent of proposals went to S&P 500 companies. Companies submitted 1,073 no-action requests over the period, equal to 33 percent of all submissions, and the staff concurred with the company in 462 instances, or 43 percent of requests. Average shareholder support for voted proposals was 26 percent of votes cast, with a median of 21 percent; roughly 10 percent of proposals drew majority support.
Notably, the Commission’s own analysis records that individual proponents — not institutions — submitted 1,429 of the proposals and received higher average support, and that individuals submitted 75 percent of voted governance proposals while institutions submitted 70 percent of voted social and environmental proposals. The release also candidly identifies a cost of rescission: the loss of shareholder leverage in private negotiation, noting that the 382 withdrawn proposals reflect a “bargaining structure that Rule 14a-8 creates,” in which a proponent “can credibly threaten to place a proposal on the company’s proxy at near-zero marginal cost to the proponent but at a cost to the company.”
A companion amendment to Rule 14a-4 would expand a company’s discretionary voting authority over proposals presented at a meeting but not included in proxy materials, while giving individual shareholders a mechanism to withhold that authority as to their own shares. Comments are due November 20, 2026. Given that rescission would shift the question to Delaware and other state corporate law regimes, the comment file is likely to become the central record in any subsequent litigation over the Commission’s authority reading.
2. A Second SEC Proposal Would Strip Back Proxy Solicitation Requirements
Published alongside the rescission proposal, Proxy Solicitation Modernization runs 50 pages and proposes four principal changes: eliminating the requirement that registrants deliver an annual report to security holders; eliminating the delivery deadline for documents incorporated by reference into a proxy statement; eliminating the requirement to file soliciting material for certain exempt solicitations; and shortening the minimum broker search period for proxy solicitations.
The Commission frames these as housekeeping — updating rules “to account for developments since their adoption or last amendment” and simplifying compliance. The annual report delivery change is the item most likely to draw retail investor comment, since it removes a default paper touchpoint that predates electronic disclosure. The exempt solicitation filing change matters to a narrower constituency: proxy advisers and activist investors who use exempt solicitations to campaign without a full proxy statement, and whose filings currently create a public record of those campaigns. Comments are due November 20, 2026, the same date as the 14a-8 proposal.
3. White House Directs Removal of Canadian-Origin Items From Federal Civil Procurement
A Memorandum of September 16, 2026, titled “Restoring Reciprocity in Government Procurement,” is addressed to the Secretary of War, the United States Trade Representative, the Director of OMB, the Administrator for Federal Procurement Policy, the Administrator of General Services, and the NASA Administrator.
The memorandum states that Canada has “unreasonably imposed new barriers” to U.S. companies seeking access to the Canadian government procurement market through preferences for Canadian products and content under a “Buy Canadian” policy, and that Canadian provinces have limited U.S. access to provincial procurement. It states that Canadian firms meanwhile retain preferential access to U.S. federal procurement, including everything the United States has agreed to cover federally under the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement — put at “over $280 billion annually.”
Section 2 directs the OMB Director and the Trade Representative, coordinating with the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council, to “identify and take all steps permitted by applicable law with respect to Canadian origin items in the Federal civil procurement system that can, where warranted, be removed or made non-available for purchase,” and to notify agencies of domestic alternatives. The Trade Representative is directed to monitor Canadian treatment of U.S.-origin goods and to advise the President of circumstances that might warrant restoring a Canadian item’s availability — explicitly contemplating reversal if Ottawa changes course. The memorandum creates no enforceable rights and is subject to the availability of appropriations. Because implementation runs through the FAR Council and GSA schedules rather than the memorandum itself, the measurable scope will not be visible until conforming acquisition actions appear.
4. Executive Order 14428 Revokes the 2009 Chesapeake Bay Order
Executive Order 14428 of September 16, 2026 revokes Executive Order 13508, the Chesapeake Bay Protection and Restoration order issued in May 2009, and substitutes a directive to redirect federal support toward “direct, on-the-ground projects.”
The findings state that as of 2025 the watershed jurisdictions — New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, the District of Columbia, Delaware, and West Virginia — had collectively met 100 percent of the sediment reduction goal, 90 percent of the phosphorus goal, and 57 percent of the nitrogen goal. The order cites 2026 reporting by scientists at the College of William & Mary, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, FlowWest, and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science projecting the Bay’s annual dead zone to be among the smallest since 1985, roughly 31 percent below the long-term average.
The order’s policy argument is that the 2009 order lacked implementation clarity and that jurisdictions “erroneously relied on” it to impose stormwater management fees — described in the text as “rain taxes.” Section 3 directs the Secretaries of War, the Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, and Homeland Security, and the EPA Administrator, to reassess agency support and prioritize funding toward projects that directly reduce nutrient and sediment runoff. The EPA is separately directed to coordinate with the six states and the District to assess the burden of stormwater fees, explore alternatives that do not raise resident costs, and “take measures to encourage the repeal or rescission” of those fees. The order states the federal government remains a signatory to the 2025 revised Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement. Because stormwater fees rest on state and local authority, EPA’s role is encouragement rather than preemption — a distinction worth tracking as implementation documents appear.
Two proclamations were published the same day: National POW/MIA Recognition Day, 2026 and Constitution Day, Citizenship Day, and Constitution Week, 2026.
5. DHS Extends “Mass Influx of Aliens” Finding for a Fourth Time
The Department of Homeland Security published a Finding of Mass Influx of Aliens extending, for another 180 days, a determination first issued January 23, 2025.
The document lays out the chain of record citations: the original finding took effect immediately and ran 60 days (90 FR 8399); it was extended March 21, 2025 for 180 days (90 FR 13,622); again on September 17, 2025 (90 FR 45,396); and again on March 21, 2026 (91 FR 14703). Monday’s notice states that “upon review of the current situation at the border, I am extending that finding for 180 days.”
The legal consequence is specific. Under 8 U.S.C. 1103(a), a mass influx finding permits the Secretary to authorize state or local law enforcement officers — with their superiors’ consent — to perform the duties of immigration officers. The implementing regulation at 28 CFR 65.83 allows the Secretary to request state or local assistance where circumstances “endanger the lives, property, safety, or welfare of the residents of a State or locality.” The notice includes a footnote explaining that although the regulations still reference the Attorney General, the Homeland Security Act of 2002 transferred that authority to the DHS Secretary.
Records now show the finding continuously in effect for nearly 21 months across four extensions. The document does not publish the underlying border data supporting the current review, which is the point most likely to draw oversight interest.
6. Coast Guard Proposes 2027 Great Lakes Pilotage Rates, Adds the Straits of Mackinac
The Coast Guard issued a 44-page notice of proposed rulemaking on Great Lakes pilotage rates for the 2027 shipping season under the Great Lakes Pilotage Act of 1960. The Coast Guard estimates the proposal “would increase operating costs by approximately 10 percent compared to the 2026 season.”
Two elements make this more than a routine annual ratemaking. First, the Coast Guard is conducting a full ratemaking and requesting comment on the ratemaking methodology itself, including one proposed update — an invitation that opens the underlying cost model to challenge, not just the resulting numbers. Second, the notice proposes a pilotage rate for the Straits of Mackinac, “newly designated for pilotage requirements by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026.” A new compulsory pilotage district is a direct cost to vessel operators transiting that corridor. Comments are due October 21, 2026.
7. HHS Opens a Request for Information on Wireless and RF Radiation Exposure
The Department of Health and Human Services published a Request for Information on Electromagnetic Fields, Radiofrequency Radiation, and Wireless Radiation Exposure, framed as consistent with the Department’s “emphasis on evaluating environmental factors that may affect human health, particularly among children and other potentially vulnerable populations.”
The notice states that responses will help assess the current state of scientific evidence on RF/EMF exposure and health outcomes, compare domestic and international safety standards and regulatory approaches, identify research gaps, and inform recommendations for policymakers, schools, and families. HHS invites input from researchers, clinicians, public health professionals, industry, standards organizations, educators, and advocacy groups.
An RFI imposes no obligation and sets no standard. Its significance is institutional: RF exposure limits in the United States are set by the Federal Communications Commission, not HHS, and a health agency assembling an evidence record on the adequacy of those limits is a step that can precede interagency friction. Comments are due October 21, 2026.
8. DEA Places Diphenidine in Schedule I
The Drug Enforcement Administration issued a final rule placing diphenidine — 1-(1,2-diphenylethyl)piperidine — along with its salts, isomers, and salts of isomers, in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. DEA states the action is taken “in part, to enable the United States to meet its obligations under the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances.” The rule imposes the full range of regulatory controls and administrative, civil, and criminal sanctions applicable to Schedule I substances on anyone who handles or proposes to handle the compound, including for research or chemical analysis. Effective October 21, 2026.
Items on TIJ’s Beats
Trade enforcement. Commerce issued a preliminary affirmative determination that tin mill products from China are being sold at less than fair value, together with a preliminary affirmative determination of critical circumstances and an extension of provisional measures, applicable September 21. The period of investigation is October 1, 2025 through March 31, 2026. A critical circumstances finding permits retroactive suspension of liquidation, which matters to importers who accelerated shipments during the investigation. Also published: preliminary results on seamless refined copper pipe and tube from Mexico, final results on heavy walled rectangular welded carbon steel pipes and tubes from Korea, and a postponement on welded stainless line and pressure pipe from India and Türkiye.
Government transparency. The State Department issued a final rule revising its Public Access to Information regulations, effective October 21, 2026, reflecting organizational and procedural changes since the last revision, including the use of email to submit information requests. Separately, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission reopened the comment period on its proposal to exempt the CFTC-59 Insider Risk Program system of records from certain Privacy Act provisions; comments are now due October 1, 2026.
Cost of public records. The Social Security Administration published an updated schedule of standard administrative fees for non-program information requests, applicable to requests received on or after October 1, 2026. SSA states the fees are set to recover full costs for information provided for purposes not directly related to administering a program under the Social Security Act.
All characterizations above are drawn from the text of the Federal Register documents linked in each item. Proposed rules are proposals, not law; preliminary trade determinations are preliminary and subject to final determination. Agencies and parties named have a right of reply, and The Investigative Journal will publish responses received.
Featured image: U.S. Government Publishing Office building, Washington, D.C. Photo by Wikimedia Commons user Geraldshields11, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.