The day’s most sweeping action came out of federal procurement policy, where four separate proposed rules published together would rewrite large stretches of the Federal Acquisition Regulation under an executive order aimed at loosening how the government buys goods and services.
- OFPP proposes a four-part rewrite of the Federal Acquisition Regulation. The Office of Federal Procurement Policy, joined by the Defense Department, the General Services Administration, and NASA, published four separate proposed rules that together touch parts 8, 9, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 27, 28, 35, 36, 38, 44, 47, 51, and 52 of the FAR, implementing Executive Order 14275, “Restoring Common Sense to Federal Procurement.” Splitting one rewrite into four dockets makes each filing easier to process, but it also means no single comment period covers the full scope of the change. That window closes October 19, just 31 days out, a tight timeline for contractors, watchdog groups, and other agencies to weigh in on a rewrite that reaches into commercial-item buying, indefinite-delivery contracts, construction, and dozens of other procurement mechanics. Read the lead proposal.
- Justice Department settles part of its RealPage rent-pricing case, while the core suit continues. DOJ and ten state attorneys general published a proposed final judgment resolving their claims against Pinnacle Property Management Services, one of several large landlords sued alongside software vendor RealPage over allegations that its pricing tools let competing landlords coordinate rents through shared, competitively sensitive data rather than competing on price. Pinnacle would have to stop licensing that kind of revenue-management software and put antitrust compliance training in place, but the case against RealPage itself, which the complaint says controls roughly 80 percent of the commercial revenue-management software market, is unaffected. Settlements like this one go through the Tunney Act, which gives the public 60 days to comment before a judge decides whether the deal serves the public interest, so renters and tenant groups still have a formal chance to object before it becomes final. Read the filing.
- FTC settles a rare interlocking-directorate case between two rival gunmakers. The FTC published a proposed consent order over Beretta’s right to appoint two directors to the board of competitor Sturm, Ruger & Co., which the agency says violated the Clayton Act’s ban on competitors sharing board members, a rule meant to stop rivals from trading sensitive business information through shared leadership. The order requires any Beretta-appointed director to be financially independent of Beretta, bars Beretta from seeking Ruger’s nonpublic information, and requires 15 days’ notice before any future board appointment. Cases enforcing that particular provision are uncommon, so one naming two of the country’s largest firearms makers stands out on its own. Comments are due October 19. Read the notice.
- State Department eases export controls on underwater drones without the usual advance comment period. State issued an interim final rule removing certain uncrewed underwater vehicles from Category XX(a) of the U.S. Munitions List, loosening export restrictions on a defense-relevant undersea drone technology. Interim final rules take legal effect, October 19 here, on their own schedule rather than waiting for the public input an ordinary proposed rule would collect first; State says it will still take comments on refining the change, but those comments won’t hold up the rule from becoming binding. Reaching for that faster track to loosen, rather than tighten, export controls on militarily relevant hardware is worth flagging on its own. Read the rule.
- A 2022 DOE energy rule was erased by Congress, not by DOE. The Energy Department published a notice stating that its 2022 final rule setting energy-conservation standards for manufactured housing “has no legal effect,” because a new law, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, overrode it. The notice took effect immediately with no comment period, because there was nothing left for DOE to decide: a rule that took years of standard rulemaking to finish was wiped out by lawmakers rather than through the notice-and-comment process agencies normally have to use to repeal their own regulations. Read the notice.
- OPM proposes rewriting who counts as an “excepted service” federal employee. OPM proposed changes to the rules governing the excepted service, the Pathways Programs for students and recent graduates, and how administrative law judges get appointed. Excepted-service positions are filled outside the competitive process that applies to most federal jobs and often carry fewer job protections, so redrawing which jobs fall into that category can shift both how much hiring flexibility agencies have and how much insulation from ordinary civil-service rules. Comments are due November 17. Read the proposal.
This edition draws on the Federal Register’s full docket of 114 documents published on September 18, 2026. Set aside as routine: antidumping and countervailing-duty determinations and orders, a batch of roughly 18 SEC self-regulatory-organization filings tied largely to exchanges’ move toward a 23-hour trading day, FERC combined notices and utility and pipeline filings, routine OMB/PRA information-collection notices and corrections, advisory-committee and agency meeting notices, and other standard administrative filings that didn’t trip an institutional-significance or anomaly signal.
Bureaucracy Times 