Recent Rulemakings Reviewed is a new monthly quantitative snapshot of federal regulatory activity, drawn from FRTracker—a platform that ingests Federal Register documents and decomposes binding rules into structured “obligations.”

The purpose of the FRTracker project is to make federal regulatory activity quantitatively trackable—rather than counting documents, FRTracker counts and analyzes the regulated duties inside them. An “obligation” in this dataset is a single regulated duty extracted from a rule’s text, comprised of: an actor (e.g., operator, employer, importer), a deontic modal (must, shall, may not), and an action. The methodology, and a corpus-wide finding that only about a third of proposed regulatory obligations survive to the final rule, are detailed in a prior Notice & Comment piece.

Each issue of Recent Rulemakings Reviewed will present the preceding month’s key numbers, some developments worth watching, and links for readers who want to dig deeper.

The numbers

• Documents published (excluding presidential documents): 2,143
  • vs March 2026: 2,156
  • vs April 2025: 1,870
• Final rules: 253
  • vs March 2026: 201
  • vs April 2025: 139
• Proposed rules: 169
  • vs March 2026: 144
  • vs April 2025: 103
• Rules flagged significant in Federal Register metadata: 33
  • vs March 2026: 28
  • vs April 2025: 6
• Proposed→final pairs detected: 7; net obligation change +155 (176 added, 21 removed)
• Comment periods closed last month: 543
• Compliance obligations extracted from last month’s publications: 2,265

Three developments worth watching

1. EPA reconsiders methane standards for the oil and gas sector

EPA finalized a reconsideration of the New Source Performance Standards and Emissions Guidelines for the oil and natural gas sector—the methane regulation promulgated under the Biden administration. The reconsidered rule covers new, reconstructed, modified, and existing sources. FRTracker extracted 319 obligations from the final text. Effective June 8.

Primary source: Federal Register (2026-06808) · FRTracker analysis

2. DOL proposes a single joint-employer standard across three labor statutes

The Wage and Hour Division proposed a unified joint-employer standard governing FLSA wage-and-hour liability, FMLA leave coverage, and MSPA agricultural worker protections—pulling three statutory regimes under one definition. The third major DOL joint-employer NPRM since 2015 (after the 2019 Trump-I proposed rule, FR doc 2019-06500, finalized in January 2020, and the 2021 Biden-era rescission rule, FR doc 2021-15316). NLRB maintains a separate joint-employer track under the NLRA. Comments close June 22.

Primary source: Federal Register (2026-07959) · FRTracker analysis 

3. DOT rewrites how it makes rules across multiple modal administrations

A cross-cutting DOT-wide final rule, jointly issued by the Office of the Secretary, PHMSA, FMCSA, NHTSA, and FTA, establishing new departmental procedures for rulemaking, guidance documents, and enforcement. FRTracker extracted 96 obligations from the final text, including provisions governing how DOT components issue, withdraw, and revise guidance. Effective May 27—the procedural floor for every transportation rule going forward.

Primary source: Federal Register (2026-08144) · FRTracker analysis 

Further reading

Most active agencies last month (number = Federal Register documents published): 

• Transportation Department(273 docs)
• Commerce Department (256 docs) 
• Health And Human Services Department (223 docs) 
• Securities And Exchange Commission (212 docs) 
• Energy Department (143 docs)

Significant rules published. OIRA flagged these rules as significant under E.O. 12866 §3(f). We show the five with the largest extracted obligation count; ordering is ours, designation is theirs.

• Reconsideration of Standards of Performance for New, Reconstructed, and Modified Sources and Emissions Guidelines for Existing Sources: Oil and Natural Gas Sector Climate Review — Environmental Protection Agency (319 obligations)
• National Environmental Policy Act — Agriculture Department (154 obligations)
• Administrative Rulemaking, Guidance, and Enforcement Procedures — Transportation Department (96 obligations)
• Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) Program: Standards for 2026 and 2027, Partial Waiver of 2025 Cellulosic Biofuel Volume Requirement, and Other Changes— Environmental Protection Agency (85 obligations)
• Medicare and Medicaid Programs; Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; Interoperability Standards and Prior Authorization for Drugs for Medicare Advantage Organizations— Health And Human Services Department (74 obligations)

Rules that took effect. OIRA-significant rules (E.O. 12866 §3(f) designation) are listed first, then ordered by extracted obligation count.

• Risk-Informed, Technology-Inclusive Regulatory Framework for Advanced Reactors — Nuclear Regulatory Commission (402 obligations) · significant
• Atlantic Highly Migratory Species; Spatial Fisheries Management; Amendment 15 to the 2006 Consolidated Atlantic Highly Migratory Species Fishery Management Plan — Commerce Department (156 obligations) · significant
• National Environmental Policy Act — Agriculture Department (154 obligations) · significant
• Rescission of the Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding and Motor Vehicle Greenhouse Gas Emission Standards Under the Clean Air Act — Environmental Protection Agency (89 obligations) · significant
• National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants: Coal- and Oil-Fired Electric Utility Steam Generating Units: Final Repeal — Environmental Protection Agency (41 obligations) · significant
• Visas: Enhancing Vetting and Combatting Fraud in the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program — State Department (9 obligations) · significant
• Retirement Security Rule: Definition of an Investment Advice Fiduciary: Notice of Court Vacatur — Labor Department (4 obligations) · significant
• National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants: Coal- and Oil-Fired Electric Utility Steam Generating Units: Final Repeal; Correction — Environmental Protection Agency (2 obligations) · significant

For readers who want the underlying dataset: the full monthly snapshot is at frtracker.app/monthly/2026-04, with methodology at frtracker.app/methodology.

Andrew Leahey is an Assistant Teaching Professor of Law at Drexel Kline School of Law.