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The Biden Administration released the Fall 2021 edition of the Semi-Annual:
Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions (“Agenda”)
Federal agencies twice a year produce in combination a comprehensive report describing regulations currently under development or recently completed.
In particular, the Agenda identifies each regulatory action that the federal agency (in this case the United States Environmental Protection Agency [“EPA”]) expects to work on within the next 12 months.
Agenda entries are typically associated with one of five rulemaking stages which include:
- Pre-rule stage
- Proposed rule stage
- Final rule stage
- Long-term actions
- Completed actions
Each Agenda item entry typically provides a variety of information for Congress, interest groups, regulated entities, environmental organizations and the general public. They rely on the Agenda to understand which rules EPA plans to issue in the upcoming year. Nevertheless, the Agenda does not create a legal obligation to adhere to schedules in the publication or limit the regulatory activities to those items that are encompassed by it.
The key statutes referenced in the Agenda include:
- Clean Air Act
- Clean Water Act
- Superfund
- Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act
- Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act
- Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
- Safe Drinking Water Act
- Toxic Substances Control Act
A copy of the Federal Register notice can be downloaded here.
