The Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions: An Overview

The Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions: An Overview

Updated June 25, 2024
The Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory
Actions: An Overview
Congress frequently delegates rulemaking authority to
regulatory planning.” The executive order states that an
federal agencies in legislation. Having an early sense of the
agency may combine the information in this agenda with
rules agencies are planning to issue and when they are
the information required under Title 5, Section 602, of the
planning to issue them can help Congress track and conduct
U.S. Code. The executive order also requires that each
oversight over the use of this delegated legislative
agency prepare a “regulatory plan” of the most important
authority.
significant regulatory actions that it reasonably expects to
issue in proposed or final form during the upcoming fiscal
One tool that Congress and the public can use to identify
year. The regulatory plan is to be published annually in the
ongoing rulemaking activities is the Unified Agenda of
fall edition of the Unified Agenda.
Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions. The Unified
Agenda is a government-wide, semiannual publication that
Neither the RFA nor E.O. 12866 contains a penalty for
lists proposed and final rules that agencies plan to issue in
issuing a proposed or final rule without having first
the next six to 12 months. It also lists rules that agencies
provided notice of the rule in the Unified Agenda, and some
plan to issue in the long term. Members of Congress,
prospective regulatory actions listed in the Unified Agenda
congressional committees, and staff may find the Unified
are never finalized.
Agenda to be a valuable source of information on upcoming
rules, including rules issued by agencies within a
All agencies, including independent regulatory agencies,
committee’s jurisdiction or within federal programs of
participate in the Unified Agenda. Independent regulatory
interest.
agencies are exempted from some rulemaking
requirements, including much of E.O. 12866. However, the
The Unified Agenda is published in the spring and fall each
section of E.O. 12866 requiring publication of the Unified
year by the Regulatory Information Service Center, a
Agenda does apply to the independent regulatory agencies,
component of the General Services Administration, for the
as does the RFA.
Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the entity
within the Office of Management and Budget that has
The Unified Agenda is published in two places: on the
primary oversight responsibilities over most agencies’
website Reginfo.gov and in the Federal Register. The
rulemaking activities.
Reginfo.gov version contains more information for each
entry, whereas the Federal Register version limits the
Overview of the Unified Agenda
amount of information provided for each rule listed. The
Publication of the Unified Agenda helps agencies fulfill two
Federal Register version may be viewed in hard copy or on
transparency requirements.
federalregister.gov.
First, Section 602 of the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA, 5
Contents of the Unified Agenda
U.S.C. §602) requires that each agency publish a
The Unified Agenda lists upcoming activities, by agency, in
“regulatory flexibility agenda” each April and October in
the following categories:
the Federal Register. In the regulatory flexibility agenda,
each agency is to describe regulatory actions it is
• “active” actions, including rules in the pre-rule stage
developing that may have significant economic impacts on
(e.g., advance notices of proposed rulemaking or other
a substantial number of small entities. Small entity is
preliminary regulatory actions that are expected to be
defined in the RFA to include small businesses, small
taken in the next 12 months); proposed rule stage (i.e.,
organizations such as certain nonprofits, and municipalities.
notices of proposed rulemaking that are expected to be
The RFA also requires that agencies “endeavor to provide
issued in the next 12 months or for which the closing
notice” of the regulatory agendas to small entities and
date of the comment period is the next step); and final
“invite comments upon each subject area on the agenda.”
rule stage (i.e., final rules or other final actions that are
expected to be taken in the next 12 months);
In addition, Section 4 of Executive Order (E.O.) 12866 on
“Regulatory Planning and Review” requires that each
• “completed” actions (e.g., final rules that have been
agency, including independent regulatory agencies,
promulgated or rules that have been withdrawn since
“prepare an agenda of all regulations under development or
having previously been posted in the Unified Agenda);
review.” The agenda and other planning requirements in the
and
order are intended to “maximize consultation and the
resolution of potential conflicts at an early stage” and to
“involve the public and its State, local, and tribal officials in
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• “long-term” actions (i.e., items under development that

agencies do not expect to take action on in the next 12
Table 1. Dates of Federal Register Publication of the
months).
Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and
Deregulatory Actions (2009-2023)
All entries in the first bullet listed above have uniform data
elements that are searchable in a database on Reginfo.gov,
Year
Spring Edition
Fall Edition
including the department and/or agency issuing the rule, the
2009
May 11
December 7
title of the rule, the Regulation Identifier Number, and an
abstract of the action being taken. Each entry also contains
2010
April 26
December 20
a timetable of past actions and a projected date (typically
the projected month and year) for the next regulatory action
2011
July 7
February 13, 2012
(e.g., a proposed or final rule). Each entry also indicates the
2012
Not published
January 8, 2013
priority of the regulation (e.g., whether it is considered
“significant” under E.O. 12866 or a “major” rule under the
2013
July 23
January 7, 2014
Congressional Review Act) and other characteristics of the
2014
June 13
December 22
regulation. Some of the data elements have varied across
Administrations. For example, the Trump Administration’s
2015
June 18
December 15
Unified Agenda included a searchable element for
2016
June 9
December 23
deregulatory actions that were subject to the
Administration’s regulatory “one-in, two-out” program
2017
August 24
January 12, 2018
under E.O. 13771. President Joe Biden revoked that
executive order, and it is no longer an included element in
2018
June 11
November 16
the Unified Agenda.
2019
June 24
December 26
The Unified Agenda also contains a separate category of
2020
August 26
March 31, 2021
“inactive” rules. In April 2015, the Administrative
2021
July 30
January 31, 2022
Conference of the United States (ACUS) shed light on a
practice that had developed under the Obama
2022
August 8
February 22, 2023
Administration in which the Unified Agenda contained a
category of regulations (called “pending”) that was not
2023
July 27
February 9, 2024
visible to the public. According to the ACUS report, that
Source: Dates obtained from the U.S. Government Publishing Office
category appeared to have been created in 2011. In 2017,
at https://www.govinfo.gov/col ection/unified-agenda (1993-2010); and
the Trump Administration made the list of “pending” rules
the Federal Register at https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/
public and announced it would no longer have a list of rules
search#advanced (2011-2021).
as part of the Unified Agenda that was inaccessible to the
public. Since 2017, a list of “pending” rules, which are now
Note: The Unified Agenda is published in the Federal Register and
referred to as “inactive,” is posted on Reginfo.gov along
online on the website Reginfo.gov. The dates provided in this table
with the rest of the Unified Agenda. Reginfo.gov states that
are the dates of publication in the Federal Register. Reginfo.gov
“agencies designate actions as ‘inactive’ when they choose
typical y has the online, searchable version of the Agenda available a
to take additional time to review a regulatory or
few days or, in some cases, weeks earlier than the Federal Register
deregulatory action but wish to preserve the regulatory
version.
identification number (RIN) and title for possible future
use.”
Maeve P. Carey, Specialist in Government Organization
Timing of the Unified Agenda
and Management
Section 602 of the RFA requires agencies to publish their
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regulatory flexibility agendas in April and October of each
year. E.O. 12866 does not specify when the Unified Agenda
shall be published, but it does state that the Unified Agenda
can be published in conjunction with the RFA’s regulatory
flexibility agenda. Despite the requirement for publication
in April and October, the actual date of publication has
varied and tends to be later than April and October,
especially in recent years.
Table 1 lists the date of publication for each edition issued
in the past 15 years.

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The Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions: An Overview

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