The Investigative Journal’s weekly survey of federal rulemaking, drawn from the Federal Register, Reginfo.gov and agency regulatory dockets. All comment deadlines are as published by the issuing agency.
The week of September 14 produced one of the largest single deregulatory actions in the Environmental Protection Agency’s history, a proposed rewrite of three more parts of the federal procurement rulebook, and a quiet but consequential expansion of the exam relief available to community banks. Below are ten items from the week’s docket, with comment deadlines and, where agencies have published them, cost figures.
1. EPA repeals most of the 2024 power plant carbon standards — and proposes to rescind the rest
The EPA published its Partial Repeal of the Carbon Pollution Standards for Fossil Fuel-Fired Electric Generating Units in the Federal Register on September 17 (document 2026-19071). The final rule strikes most of the greenhouse gas standards promulgated in the 2024 Carbon Pollution Standards for fossil fuel-fired power plants. Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the action on September 14 at the G20 Energy Abundance Ministerial in Houston.
According to the agency’s news release, EPA projects the repeal will save $310 billion. The agency’s stated legal rationale is that the 2024 rule exceeded EPA’s authority under the Clean Air Act by requiring control technologies the agency now says were not adequately demonstrated, and that it failed to account for the Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia v. EPA. EPA also states that coal production for power sector use is expected to increase by more than ten times — a projection that rests on the agency’s own modeling and has not been independently verified at the time of publication.
Filed concurrently is a supplemental proposal, Rescission of the Greenhouse Gas Findings for Fossil Fuel-Fired Power Plants and Repeal of Regulations for Power Plant Greenhouse Gas Emissions Under Clean Air Act Section 111 (document 2026-19072), which would eliminate every remaining greenhouse gas requirement for the power sector. EPA estimates that proposal would save an additional $370 million in direct compliance costs. The agency has set a 45-day comment period running from the September 17 publication date and will hold a virtual public hearing 15 days after publication. Comments go to Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-0124 on Regulations.gov. Given the scale of the action and the litigation history of its predecessors, filings indicate this docket is the one to watch through the fall.
2. FAR Council proposes to rewrite contract types, special methods and R&D contracting
The Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council — OFPP, the Defense Department, GSA and NASA — published Federal Acquisition Regulation: Revolutionary Federal Acquisition Regulation Overhaul Parts 16, 17, and 35 on September 18. The proposal implements Executive Order 14275, Restoring Common Sense to Federal Procurement, and rewrites FAR Part 16 (Types of Contracts), Part 17 (Special Contracting Methods), Part 35 (Research and Development Contracting) and associated Part 52 clauses.
The rule is one of twelve proposed rules the Council says will collectively streamline the FAR in its entirety. Per the preamble, the overhaul proceeded in two phases under OMB Memorandum M-25-26: model class deviations replacing each FAR part in fiscal 2025, followed by formal notice-and-comment rulemaking now. The Council’s stated design principle is to retain only provisions required by statute or essential to sound procurement, with the remainder moved into non-regulatory guidance.
Comments are due on or before October 19, 2026, citing FAR Case 2026-006, Docket FAR-2026-0006. Contractors with R&D or task-order-heavy portfolios have a narrow window: the R&D contracting provisions in Part 35 and the incentive and indefinite-delivery structures in Part 16 are where the discretionary latitude of contracting officers would shift most. The FAR Council is separately accepting small-entity comments under 5 U.S.C. 610 on the existing subparts affected.
3. Banking agencies double the asset threshold for the 18-month exam cycle
The OCC, the Federal Reserve Board and the FDIC jointly published an interim final rule on September 14, Expanded Examination Cycle for Certain Small Insured Depository Institutions and U.S. Branches and Agencies of Foreign Banks (document 2026-18766). The rule raises the total-asset threshold from $3 billion to $6 billion for qualifying institutions to move from a 12-month to an 18-month on-site examination cycle, and makes parallel changes for U.S. branches and agencies of foreign banks under the International Banking Act of 1978.
The change implements section 903 of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act. Per the agencies’ joint announcement, institutions must still be well capitalized and well managed to qualify, and the agencies will continue offsite monitoring between scheduled examinations. The rule took effect immediately on publication, with a 30-day comment period closing on or about October 14, 2026.
The practical effect is a meaningful reduction in supervisory burden for mid-sized community institutions, which have argued for years that the $3 billion line drawn in 2018 no longer reflects the asset growth of banks with unchanged risk profiles. The agencies did not publish a quantified compliance-cost savings estimate in the materials reviewed for this report.
4. DOE declares its manufactured housing energy standards have no legal effect
The Department of Energy published Energy Conservation Program: Energy Conservation Standards for Manufactured Housing on September 18. The notification states that DOE’s May 31, 2022 final rule setting energy conservation standards for manufactured homes has no legal effect following enactment of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act (Pub. L. 119-101) on July 11, 2026, and that DOE will not enforce it.
Section 301(d)(2)(B) of the Act provides that no federal energy efficiency standard for manufactured homes has legal effect unless adopted by the Department of Housing and Urban Development through the consensus standards process. Section 301(d)(2)(C) directs HUD to adopt minimum energy efficiency standards for manufactured homes within one year of enactment and to update them every three years. The notification was effective September 18, 2026.
This is a statutory displacement rather than a discretionary rollback, and it moves the substantive fight to HUD’s consensus committee on a one-year clock. Manufactured housing is the largest source of unsubsidized affordable housing stock in the country, and the cost of the DOE standards was a central objection raised by producers during the 2022 rulemaking.
5. OPM proposes a comprehensive rewrite of excepted service rules
The Office of Personnel Management published Employment in the Excepted Service on September 18 (RIN 3206-AO92). The proposal would amend 5 CFR parts 213, 302, 317, 359, 362, 432, 550, 731, 920 and 930 to conform OPM’s regulations to the excepted-service schedules now in force — including Schedule Policy/Career, Schedule E and Schedule G — and would authorize and clarify conversions from the Pathways Programs into Schedule Policy/Career.
OPM states the rule preserves veterans’ preference, compensable-injury restoration rights and other priority placement rights while modernizing part 302 procedures. Comments are due November 17, 2026. In scope and downstream effect on the federal workforce, this is arguably the most consequential civil service item published during the week.
Separately, OPM reopened the comment period on its July 2 Promoting Employee Accountability proposed rule (September 15, document 2026-18943) to allow public response to newly released agency data on separations and terminations under 5 CFR part 432 and part 752 covering FY2019 through FY2025 and part of FY2026. That reopened window closes September 29, 2026 — the nearest deadline on this list.
6. Labor makes state unemployment data disclosure to federal auditors mandatory
The Employment and Training Administration published a final rule, Federal-State Unemployment Compensation (UC) Program; Data Availability, on September 16. The rule converts what had been a permissive disclosure into a mandatory one: state UC agencies must disclose confidential unemployment compensation information to federal officials, including the DOL Office of Inspector General, for program oversight and audit purposes. DOL amends § 603.8 to make such disclosures chargeable against a state’s UC administrative grant.
The rule is effective November 16, 2026, with a state-law conformity and compliance date of September 16, 2027. Notably, the final rule drops the national UC claims database concept floated around the August 2025 proposal — a scaling back that addresses a principal objection raised during comment.
On economic impact, DOL’s own regulatory analysis quantifies only a one-time rule-familiarization cost of $15,780 in year one, calculated as one hour across 53 entities at a combined loaded hourly wage of $297.73. The Department states expressly that it cannot quantify state IT costs, state-law-change costs or data-request fulfillment costs, and certifies no significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. Given the documented scale of pandemic-era UC fraud, the oversight case for the rule is strong; the unquantified state implementation burden is the open question.
7. CFTC finalizes whistleblower award determination rules
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission published a final rule, Whistleblower Award Determination, on September 16. The rule amends part 165 of the Commission’s regulations implementing Commodity Exchange Act section 23, with the stated aim of making award determinations more efficient, transparent and predictable. Reporting on the release indicates the central addition is a presumption provision modeled on an analogous SEC rule, along with conforming changes reflecting the Whistleblower Office’s 2025 move into the Office of the General Counsel.
The rule is effective October 16, 2026, and was issued without a comment period. The release includes Commission data on tips, award applications and orders granting awards from FY2012 through the first quarter of FY2026 — a useful public record for anyone tracking the program’s throughput.
8. FCC sets FY2026 regulatory fees
The Commission published Review of the Commission’s Assessment and Collection of Regulatory Fees for Fiscal Year 2026 on September 14, adopting the fee schedule the FCC must collect by the end of September to cover its annual salaries and expenses appropriation. Fee-paying entities across broadcast, wireless, satellite and wireline services should confirm their assessed category against the adopted schedule before the collection deadline.
9. FDA exempts several radiology AI device categories from premarket notification
The FDA published a document on September 17 (2026-19074) addressing Medical Devices; Exemption From Premarket Notification: Radiology Computer-Aided Detection and/or Diagnosis Devices and Computer-Aided Triage and Notification Devices, under Docket FDA-2025-P-5560. Records indicate the agency grants, in whole or part, a petition to exempt several radiology AI and computer-aided detection device types from 510(k) premarket notification, subject to conditions — covering computer-assisted diagnostic software for lesions suspicious of cancer, medical image analyzers, and computer-aided triage and notification software.
For clinical-AI developers, removing the 510(k) step for these categories materially shortens time to market. The action follows a December 2025 Federal Register document on the same subject. TIJ was unable to independently confirm the full conditions of exemption at the time of publication and will update as the docket develops.
10. Open comment periods worth calendaring
Two earlier dockets remain open and carry national significance. The SEC’s Regulation Crypto Assets proposal (published August 21, Release 33-11434, File S7-2026-27) would establish a framework for certain investment contracts involving crypto assets; comments are due October 20, 2026. And DHS’s Public Charge Ground of Inadmissibility final rule, published July 20, took effect September 18, 2026, rescinding the 2022 public charge regulations.
Relevant to TIJ beats
Energy and accountability: The EPA repeal and the DOE manufactured housing notification are the week’s two clearest examples of statutory and judicial developments — the ROAD Act, West Virginia v. EPA, Loper Bright — being used to unwind rules rather than agency discretion alone. That distinction matters for how durable the actions prove to be.
Procurement: The FAR overhaul is the story with the longest tail for defense and federal contractors. Twelve proposed rules moving on parallel tracks means the comment burden falls disproportionately on firms without dedicated regulatory counsel, and October 19 is not far off.
Oversight: The DOL unemployment data rule and the CFTC whistleblower rule both expand the machinery available to investigators — the first by guaranteeing OIG access to state UC records, the second by clarifying the economics of coming forward. Both are worth tracking for what they surface over the next year.
Corrections and right of reply: TIJ contacted no private parties for this report, which is drawn entirely from published federal records. Agencies and affected parties may request corrections through our editorial desk. Where an agency’s cost or benefit estimate is cited, it is identified as the agency’s own and has not been independently verified.
Featured image: The Laramie River Station coal-fired power plant near Wheatland, Wyoming. Photo by Tony Webster, licensed CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.