The Red Tape Roundup — October 18, 2026

A Note from the Editor

It’s a cold, windy day outside and the clouds are breaking up to let some sunshine through. As I reflect on this past week, I am reminded of just how tumultuous things are these days.

On any given day, it’s easy for me to get lost in reading reports and FOIA requests. I wake up, let the dog out, make some coffee, and then start checking the latest headlines and emails I’ve received. At some point, the kids will wake up and demand attention, which my heart is obliged to give them. But at some point, the day winds up and it’s full steam ahead until late in the evening.

It’s hard to balance life sometimes, especially when I feel mission-driven to find and report the truth, about anything, and I spend a lot of time staring at walls of words on screens. Sure, it’s not the same as the deployments of my former life, where I was separated from my wife and kids for twelve or more months; but mentally it is similar.

The headlines don’t stop. The reports are ever dropping, and I feel compelled to report on them. Not out of some sense of journalistic superiority…I am just a poet, after all, with an MFA in creative writing. Also, there are people far more talented than us covering vastly more important stories than the ones we write.

No, I am driven to uncover the information presented by the government, not to expose it. There is a nuanced difference between uncovering something and exposing something. If something is intentionally hidden with the intention of keeping the public from finding it, that, to me, reads exposure. But when something is released to the public, and yet it remains hard to search or access, like the files in the FBI Vault, then that requires uncovering, not exposing.

Again, these are nuances to me, and there will be those who disagree. But that matters very little in the grand scheme of things.

The most fundamental reason we publish the details of all federal reports that we can is simply so that information will be available, searchable, and discoverable.

You see, I watch a lot of history documentaries (I love the History and Discovery channels!), and I frequently witness archeologists and researchers connect the dots of whatever mystery they’re trying to solve because some ship captain from hundreds of years ago kept a journal, or some nameless person wrote about something in a newspaper somewhere in Europe. Then, decades or centuries later, these forgotten and unknown pieces of published history shed light on something that we’re researching today.

So, it may seem pointless right now, and at times I wonder why we spend so much time going through all of the reports that we read. Or, I wonder if we should even submit the media inquiries or FOIA requests to ask about information that we need to better understand any given situation. And in those moments of doubt, I think about all the forgotten writers and journalists who wrote about seemingly unimportant things — things that would only become important lifetimes later. And when I think about them, I take heart knowing that maybe we’re doing something good here.

By chronicling what the government says about itself, we’re contributing in some small way to the bigger picture of something beyond our current understanding. History happens every day, and it seems to happen so much faster today than at any previous time. So as long as Bureaucracy Times remains, it will publish the most current information available; once we are no longer around, then the website and its articles will be archived somewhere in cyberspace, hopefully to be searchable and discoverable.

Until that time, I will sit in my chair, drink my coffee, and watch the wind blow through the trees. The same wind that was on the other side of the globe yesterday, which is now heading back to where it may have started.

Thanks for reading.

This Week’s Most-Read

The numbers are in. Here’s what you were reading this week:

Coming Up This Week

A look at what’s heading your way this week:

What the Hell Do You Do With Nuclear Waste?

Part one of a two-day series on America’s spent nuclear fuel problem — the waste that keeps accumulating while the country still hasn’t agreed on where to put it.

The Minimum Required by Law Was Longer Than the Memo

A Voice of America shutdown memo that didn’t meet the legal minimum. An inspector general report that did the math.

The Denial Was Final. The Removal Had No Owner.

A USCIS employee lost a security clearance and suitability determination — and the paperwork trail for who actually made the call went cold.

Four Grants, Seven Hundred Million Dollars, and a Sandbox That No Longer Exists

FEMA’s grant management system was supposed to be the fix. The auditors found it before it was finished.

The Four-Year Pause Was Three Years and a Mailing

CMS said it paused duplicate enrollment matching for four years. The OIG read the same records and counted differently.

FOIA Watch

The Arctic Commission Found Our Tracking Number. The Records Are Another Matter.

On October 14, we contacted the U.S. Arctic Research Commission seeking a status update on our September 6 FOIA request. The request is part of our continuing investigation into the Commission’s expenditures, administrative arrangements, contractor relationships and statutory reporting obligations.

On October 15, USARC’s John Farrell confirmed that the request had been assigned USARC-260906, explaining that the number appeared in the subject line of his original September 7 acknowledgment. Fair enough. We had overlooked it.

The correspondence also introduced an unexpected complication: a reference to a telephone conversation that never occurred. We have asked that future communications remain in writing to preserve an accurate record.

The substantive question remains unanswered. We still have no production schedule, estimated completion date or records from the Commission itself. Related requests involving the National Science Foundation, General Services Administration and Department of the Interior remain active.

We have successfully established that our request has a number. Now we’d like it to have some documents.

HHS and CMS Received a Coordinated Records Offensive

On October 14, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced that federal enrollment reviews had identified approximately 189,000 people receiving subsidized Marketplace coverage who also had other qualifying government coverage or were listed as deceased. The agencies projected approximately $1.5 billion in savings over the following year and claimed that nearly $6 billion had already been saved through related enforcement efforts.

Those figures prompted a substantial new investigation, including separate media inquiries and FOIA requests.

At 2:50 p.m. Eastern, we submitted a 13-question inquiry to CMS. The agency acknowledged it as FY26-44865. Nine minutes later, we submitted a narrower, three-question follow-up, acknowledged as FY26-44866. The questions concern the underlying enrollment counts, matching procedures, financial calculations, notices, appeals and distinctions between projected savings and amounts actually recovered or prevented from being spent.

We also filed two records requests. The CMS FOIA, submitted at 2:55 p.m., seeks records concerning enrollment matching, agency determinations, savings calculations and related enforcement procedures. The HHS Office of the Secretary request followed at 3:14 p.m., seeking drafts, revisions, communications and briefing materials associated with the October 14 announcements. HHS acknowledged that request the same day as 2027-HHS-FOIA-000160.

The distinction matters. One request examines the underlying program records. The other examines how the government assembled and presented its public claims. The agencies have been given until October 21 at 5 p.m. Eastern to respond substantively to the media inquiries.

The Congressional Budget Office Has Ten Questions About Climate and Medicare

On October 15 at 1:26 p.m., we submitted a detailed media inquiry concerning CBO Publication 62555, The Effects of Changing Temperatures on the Medicare Population. The inquiry addresses the study’s reliance on Medicare claims data ending in 2019, its treatment of adaptation costs, the extrapolation of fee-for-service findings to Medicare Advantage beneficiaries, and the sensitivity of its projections to assumptions about future climate conditions and population behavior.

One particularly interesting question concerns the report’s estimated $55 billion reduction in emergency-department spending under certain warming scenarios. We want to understand what the estimate includes, what it excludes, and whether omitted adaptation costs materially change the interpretation.

This is a media inquiry rather than a FOIA request. For now, we’re giving the agency an opportunity to explain its methodology before deciding whether underlying records are necessary. CBO has until October 22 to respond.

Texas Acknowledged Our Questions About $78 Million in Rural Healthcare Funding

On October 15, we contacted the Texas Health and Human Services Commission concerning the state’s announcement of $78 million in Rural Health Transformation Program funding for 216 rural healthcare providers. The questions address recipient-level allocations, program objectives, selection procedures, implementation and accountability.

At 4:19 p.m., Press Officer Jennifer Ruffcorn acknowledged the inquiry and advised that it would be processed. We replied at 4:20 p.m., thanking her for the response and offering clarification if needed. The inquiry is now awaiting a substantive answer.

The Energy Department and Its Intermediary Have Separate Questions to Answer

Also on October 15, we submitted two inquiries concerning DOE’s nearly $11.1 million Partnerships for Academic-Industry Career Training initiative.

The first, sent to DOE at 3:59 p.m., contains 14 questions about project allocations, selection procedures, workforce targets, funding obligations and the intermediary arrangement used to administer the initiative.

A separate 17-question inquiry went to TechWerx, with RTI International copied, concerning the partnership structure, administrative compensation, subcontracting arrangements and project oversight.

The inquiries are deliberately separate. DOE should be able to explain what taxpayers are financing. The intermediary should be able to explain its role in administering those funds. DOE’s response deadline is October 21.

The Press Offices Were Busy Elsewhere, Too

Two inquiries went out October 15 concerning the Postal Service Inspector General’s latest examination of mail theft and security practices in Seattle. Our reporting reconstructed findings from earlier city audits to determine whether the problems were isolated or recurring.

Meanwhile, HHS OIG responded to our questions concerning a newly announced review of employee vetting at Rocky Mountain Laboratories. The office advised that it had no additional information beyond its public announcement.

The week’s most unusual exchange involved the federal judiciary. Following a cybersecurity incident affecting the Bankruptcy Noticing Center, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts declined to provide information beyond its published statement. Its response arrived October 15 at 12:49 p.m.

At 1:19 p.m., BAE Systems provided an attributable statement confirming that the incident was isolated to the Bankruptcy Noticing Center system and that the company was coordinating with the judiciary. Both responses have been incorporated into our reporting.

The bottom line: Two new healthcare FOIAs, four CMS acknowledgment and tracking events when the two press inquiries are counted, a newly confirmed Arctic Commission tracking number, and a substantial collection of written questions now awaiting answers from federal and state agencies.

This was a week of constructing the record rather than waiting for one to arrive.

The filing cabinets remain undefeated.

From the Investigative Desk

When the Government Says It Saved Billions, We Ask to See the Calculator

On October 14, HHS and CMS issued coordinated announcements concerning duplicate and deceased enrollment records in federally subsidized health coverage.

The official CMS announcement reported that the agency had identified approximately 189,000 people in 2026 who had subsidized Marketplace coverage while also having Medicare, Medicaid or Children’s Health Insurance Program coverage, or whose records indicated they were deceased.

CMS projected approximately $1.5 billion in savings over the following year from stopping the associated subsidies.

The announcement also reported that approximately 551,000 duplicate Marketplace enrollments had been addressed in 2025 and included a statement that nearly $6 billion had already been saved through related enforcement activity.

Those are substantial figures.

They also describe different things.

An identified enrollment discrepancy is not necessarily a fraudulent enrollment. A projected future saving is not the same as money already recovered. And an enrollment terminated after an administrative matching process does not automatically establish that the beneficiary intentionally did anything wrong.

These distinctions are particularly important because federal enrollment systems can produce discrepancies for legitimate reasons.

A person might transition between Medicaid and Marketplace coverage. Eligibility information may not update simultaneously across government databases. A beneficiary might be incorrectly matched to another record. Death records, like other administrative databases, can contain errors.

The government’s own announcement acknowledges the possibility of incorrect determinations. Under the described process, affected individuals receive notice and generally have 30 days to dispute a duplicate-coverage or death-record determination. Appeal mechanisms remain available afterward.

That raises an important question.

How many of the 189,000 identified cases represent confirmed improper subsidies, and how many represent records that required further verification?

We also want to know how the agency calculated its savings.

The $1.5 billion figure is prospective. It represents money CMS expects not to spend during the coming year. That is a legitimate form of financial projection, provided the assumptions are disclosed and the calculation is reproducible. But it is not the same thing as recovering $1.5 billion from people who received improper payments. Nor does the figure, by itself, establish that $1.5 billion would otherwise have been spent improperly.

So we started reconstructing the underlying categories.

The inquiry examines the enrollment population, the matching systems used to identify discrepancies, the number of notices issued, the number of successful disputes and appeals, and the methodology used to calculate projected savings.

We are also examining the government’s historical comparisons.

CMS’s October announcement attributes the accumulation of duplicate enrollments to a pause in certain periodic matching procedures during the previous administration. That assertion raises questions about exactly which matching activities were suspended, which continued, and what evidence establishes the relationship between those administrative decisions and the later enrollment counts.

There is a difference between demonstrating that a process stopped and demonstrating precisely how much money the interruption cost. We want to establish both, if the records permit it.

Then there is the press-release question.

Why did we submit a separate FOIA request to HHS for drafts and communications surrounding the announcement? Because the public presentation of a government finding is itself part of the accountability record. We want to understand how the figures were selected, whether the language changed during review, what qualifications accompanied the underlying estimates, and whether the final public statements accurately conveyed those limitations.

That does not mean we believe the numbers were manipulated.

What we’re trying to answer: How many of the identified enrollment discrepancies represent confirmed improper subsidies, how was the $1.5 billion savings figure calculated, and does the government’s own record-keeping support the claims made in its public announcement?

We have not established that CMS fabricated its findings, overstated its savings or improperly terminated anyone’s coverage.

What we have established is that the announcement combines identified enrollment discrepancies, enforcement actions, historical claims and future financial projections in a way that warrants careful separation. The records requests are intended to make those distinctions possible.

There is another reason this investigation matters.

Earlier this year, CMS announced enforcement action involving hundreds of agents and brokers accused of unauthorized Marketplace enrollment activity. Our separate investigation into that announcement produced a fairly basic unresolved question: which brokers were responsible for which enforcement findings? That inquiry remains outstanding, and our October 16 reporting explains what the agency has disclosed and what it has not.

The two investigations concern different enforcement problems, but they share an important requirement. The government must be able to connect its public numbers to identifiable administrative actions and supporting records.

For now, we have two newly filed FOIA requests, three October 14 media inquiries across CMS and HHS, and a growing set of questions about how enrollment data becomes a federal savings announcement.

We expect the next useful development to come from the agencies’ responses, not from another attempt to rearrange the numbers ourselves. There is only so much arithmetic a newsroom can responsibly perform without the underlying worksheet.

We have asked the government to provide it.

On Our Radar

A few things that haven’t become stories. Yet.

Congress is worried about who gets access to dangerous pathogens. We want to know what prompted the concern. On October 15, the HHS Office of Inspector General announced a new evaluation of employee vetting at Rocky Mountain Laboratories, the National Institutes of Health research facility in Montana. The work-plan entry, OEI-01-26-00560, states that members of Congress raised concerns about vetting personnel with access to high-risk pathogens.

That is a significant statement, but the announcement does not identify the lawmakers, the specific concerns or the events that prompted them. We began reconstructing the congressional record to determine where those concerns originated. We also contacted HHS OIG for clarification. The office replied October 15 that it had no additional information.

The review itself does not establish that an employee was improperly vetted or that dangerous material was mishandled. But when a federal watchdog launches an evaluation because Congress has raised concerns about personnel working with high-risk pathogens, the origin of those concerns is worth establishing.

The Energy Department has $11.1 million for workforce training. We’re interested in the machinery between the appropriation and the classroom. DOE’s October 15 announcement identified eight projects selected for negotiation under the Partnerships for Academic-Industry Career Training initiative. Six projects account for approximately $8.8 million through DOE’s Hydrocarbons and Geothermal Energy Office. Two Tribal college projects account for another $2.3 million through the Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs. The program is administered through TechWerx under a partnership intermediary arrangement.

That administrative structure is what caught our attention. We want to know how much of the announced funding will reach the educational institutions, what administrative compensation is associated with the intermediary arrangement, whether those costs are included in the headline figure, and what measurable workforce outcomes DOE expects.

None of this establishes that the arrangement is improper or unusually expensive. But federal workforce announcements frequently describe how much money is being invested without giving readers an equally clear picture of how the investment is administered. We have asked DOE and its intermediary to fill in that part of the diagram.

A contractor’s cybersecurity incident interrupted a nationwide federal court service. The unanswered questions are operational. On October 15, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts publicly confirmed a cybersecurity incident affecting the Bankruptcy Noticing Center, the contractor-operated system responsible for producing and transmitting notices for federal bankruptcy courts. The disruption began October 9 and affected the production and distribution of notices across the country.

The consequences are potentially significant because bankruptcy notices communicate information about proceedings, deadlines and creditor rights. Some courts have adopted temporary procedures, while others have indicated that deadlines may be adjusted when necessary.

Our October 15 inquiries produced two useful official responses. The judiciary declined to elaborate beyond its published statement. BAE Systems confirmed that the incident was isolated to the Bankruptcy Noticing Center system and said it was coordinating with the Administrative Office.

What remains unanswered is the extent of any data exposure, the number of notices delayed, the restoration timetable and how courts will account for interrupted service. A contractor-operated system can be technologically separate from the courts it serves while remaining operationally indispensable to them.

That distinction is now sitting near the top of our research list.

Three developing investigations, three different questions about federal accountability: What prompted the oversight? Where does the money go? And what happens when an essential government service depends on a contractor whose systems stop working?

We’ll keep following the records.

The government has already supplied plenty of reading material. The explanations are arriving somewhat more slowly.

Until next week —

hannotek, Editor @ Bureaucracy.News