Daily Federal Register Sports a Lean Look Lately

This may be an oversimplification, but it seems that the folks at the Office of Federal Register who in the past would put in a normal day’s work when compiling each day’s Federal Register under past presidential administrations may be able to clock out before lunch under the Trump administration. As the saying goes, there’s not as much there there.

Case in point — we at Thompson Grants go through each day’s Federal Register to compile a list each month of final rules, proposed rule and federal agency notices affecting grant programs. We post these online on the Thompson Grants Compliance Expert site in the news section under “Federal Agency Issuances.” During the last full month of the Biden administration (December 2024), we reported 35 issuances across the federal government. This number was pretty consistent from other months during his administration.

However, for the first full month of the second Trump administration (February 2024), we reported only six issuances that pertained to grant programs. Moreover, two of these issuances did not address anything new; they were notices that discussed the postponement of the effective date of previously issued final rules.

This reduction in issuances shows how the Trump administration is shrinking the federal footprint, along with the administrative pause to review federal regulations, including all currently proposed rules and final rules that had not reached their effective date. However, to compare, the March 5 Federal Register ends on page 11357. In comparison, the Federal Register in 2024 reached 11347 pages on Valentine’s Day.

One key factor we’ll be especially watching is how agencies attempt to propose and issue final regulations under Executive Order 14192, which requires that whenever an agency promulgates a new rule, regulation or guidance, it must identify at least 10 existing rules, regulations or guidance documents to be repealed. So far, we have seen agencies divert this requirement by issuing “orders,” “Dear Colleague letters,” and “policy statements,” which do not have full regulatory power. We will continue to assess how agencies provide notice in the Federal Register going forward; even those to efforts to subvert public notice.

Join us for our following Thompson Grants event:
2025 Thompson Grants Workshop: Indirect Costs | March 25, 2025 | Virtual Event