Last month, we reported on the newly released Unified Regulatory Agenda, which provides a general roadmap to the regulatory priorities of various federal government agencies. One aspect of this year's publication that deserves a little more attention, however, has little to do with any specific FMCSA or DOT rulemaking. Traditionally, the unified agenda has been published biannually, once in the spring and again in the fall. This release is simply labeled the "2026 Regulatory Agenda." Whether that reflects a permanent shift away from semiannual agendas remains unclear, but if agencies move toward fewer agenda updates, stakeholders may have fewer opportunities to understand, monitor, and plan for changes in regulatory priorities, timelines, and agency thinking over the course of a year.
That observation is particularly interesting considering Executive Order 14192, Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation. The Order is best known for establishing the Administration's regulatory budget and the "10-for-1" policy, which requires agencies to identify multiple deregulatory actions when issuing new regulations or guidance. The Order also generally contemplates that agencies will identify planned regulatory actions on the Unified Agenda and limits the ability to move forward with rules that were not included in the most recent Agenda without additional approval. On its face, that approach should make the Agenda a more valuable forecasting tool than in prior Administrations.
Perhaps the biggest unanswered question is the extent to which OMB's exemptions and significance determinations narrow EO 14192's practical reach. The text of the Executive Order is framed as applying broadly to new regulations, but OIRA's public accounting is focused on a much smaller universe of “significant” regulatory actions and “significant” guidance documents. That leaves stakeholders with limited visibility into which actions are being counted against an agency's regulatory budget, and which are proceeding outside that framework
The Executive Order also preserves substantial flexibility for an Administration seeking to advance its policy priorities. Several categories of actions are excluded from the Order altogether, meaning they do not count against an agency's regulatory budget and are not subject to the 10-for-1 requirements. These include actions involving military functions, national security, homeland security, foreign affairs, immigration-related functions, and internal agency management or personnel matters.
Those exemptions are not merely theoretical. They encompass some of the most visible priorities of the current Administration, including border security, immigration enforcement, and certain national security initiatives. FMCSA has already relied on one of these exclusions. In the agency's rule restricting eligibility for non-domiciled CDLs, FMCSA expressly stated that EO 14192 did not apply because the rule’s focus was an immigration-related function of the United States. As a result, the rule was treated as outside the Order's regulatory budgeting framework altogether.
The Order also gives OMB considerable discretion beyond the categorical exemptions. OMB may exempt individual regulations or entire categories of regulations, including actions that impose only minimal costs or burdens on the private sector. Regulations required by statute or court order may also proceed regardless of the Administration's broader deregulatory objectives. What remains less clear is how often OMB is exercising that authority. Unlike the Unified Agenda, OMB exemption decisions are generally not published in a centralized public database, making it difficult for stakeholders to determine which actions have been excused from the 10-for-1 requirements.
The result is a framework that is simultaneously restrictive and flexible. For routine regulatory activity, agencies are expected to operate within a regulatory budget and offset new requirements through deregulatory actions. For issues the Administration views as higher priorities, however, there are multiple pathways that allow actions to move forward without consuming regulatory budget or requiring deregulatory offsets. Immigration-related actions provide perhaps the clearest example, but they are not the only ones.
For stakeholders, that creates a bit of a paradox. Executive Order 14192 appears to place greater emphasis on planning, budgeting, and transparency through the Unified Agenda process. At the same time, broad exemptions, OMB waiver authority, and the apparent move away from separate Spring and Fall agendas may make the Agenda a less complete forecasting tool than many assume. It remains an important indicator of where DOT expects to focus its regulatory efforts, but perhaps not a complete inventory of the actions that could ultimately appear in the Federal Register.
