Trump's 2026 Unified Agenda

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Last Friday, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) released its 2026  Unified Agenda and annual Regulatory Plan. The Regulatory Flexibility Act requires agencies to publish semiannually in the Federal Register a “regulatory flexibility agenda,” but the administration does not call this “spring” Agenda, and appears to have opted for a single one for the year. The Plan highlights each agency's regulatory priorities for the coming year, and the Agenda lists “active” regulatory actions expected to be undertaken over the coming 12 months, as well as actions “completed” since the prior Agenda, and “long-term” actions, on which agencies may be working but are not expected to result in proposed or final actions during the year. According to the introduction to the Regulatory Plan, the administration will continue to build on its "deregulatory record" while advancing policies intended to "promote liberty, unleash American energy dominance, preserve products consumers love, and eradicate the ideology of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion." Together, these documents provide an early indication of the administration's policy priorities that agencies are expected to pursue over the coming year.

This Unified Agenda contains 3,954 agency actions including 2,518 active actions, 628 completed actions, and 808 long-term actions. Across all classes of actions, a total of 1,119 actions were published in the Unified Agenda for the first time. Of the active actions, 985 are in the final rule stage, 96 are in the prerule stage, and 1,437 are in the proposed rule stage. This is almost 400 more active actions underway compared to the Spring 2025 Unified Agenda. Figure 1 and Table 1, which report the trends over time by type of actions, shows these numbers are within the range of recent activity.

Table 1. Unified Agenda Actions over time (Spring 2021 - Present)

Table 2 reports the five agencies with the largest number of actions in each 2026 Unified Agenda action category. Although the agencies with the largest regulatory agendas differ by action type, several agencies appear consistently across categories. The Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has the largest active and long-term regulatory agendas, accounting for 128 active actions (5.08% of all active actions) and 125 long-term actions (15.47% of all long-term actions). The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) accounts for 117 active actions (4.65%) and 33 completed actions (5.25%), while the Internal Revenue Service appears among the largest agencies in all three categories. Notably, regulatory activity is substantially more concentrated within certain agencies for long-term actions, where the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the FWS together account for nearly 29% of all long-term actions, compared with the largest agencies in the active and completed categories, which each account for only about 5% of their respective totals.

Table 2. Regulatory Volume for the Top Five Agencies by Type of Action

Note: SBA refers to Small Business Administration; NHTSA refers to National Highway Transportation Safety Administration; NOAA refers to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; IRS refers to Internal Revenue Service; FWS refers to Fish and Wildlife Service; NRC refers to Nuclear Regulatory Commission; BIS refers to Bureau of Industry and Security; BLM refers to Bureau of Land Management; FCC refers to Federal Communications Commission; and VA refers to Department of Veterans Affairs.

The large number of rulemakings issued by the FWS and NOAA does not necessarily reflect a greater degree of regulation (or deregulation) of natural resources. Rather, it is largely a consequence of the way that these regulations tend to be administered. Many of NOAA's rulemakings implement fisheries management requirements under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, including species-specific catch limits, annual harvest specifications, gear restrictions, and other recurring components of fishery management plans. Similarly, 58 of FWS's 81 active proposed rules involve either critical habitat designations or species listings under the Endangered Species Act.1 Because each listing or habitat designation must be developed on a species-by-species basis with its own administrative record, these statutory requirements generate a large number of individual actions. As a result, agencies such as NOAA and FWS tend to report substantially higher numbers of regulatory actions than other agencies, even when the underlying policy changes are relatively narrow or routine.2

When rules are filtered to only include major rules (those likely to have impacts of $100 million or more per year, as defined in the Congressional Review Act), the picture of the largest rulemaking agencies changes significantly. As shown in Table 3, agencies responsible for large numbers of routine or program-specific rulemakings largely disappear from the rankings and are replaced by agencies with broader regulatory responsibilities. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services accounts for 21 active major rules (12.14% of all active major rules) and 13 completed major rules (22.03%), making it the leading agency in both categories. By contrast, the Small Business Administration dominates the long-term major rule agenda, accounting for 30 actions, or nearly 39% of all long-term major rules. Unlike the overall regulatory agenda, where agencies such as FWS and NOAA issue large numbers of relatively narrow, recurring actions, the major rule agenda is concentrated in agencies implementing policies with substantial economic effects.3

Table 3. Major Rule Regulatory Volume for the Top Five Agencies by Type of Action

Note: CMS refers to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services; OAR refers to EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation; FSA refers to the Department of Agriculture’s Farm Services Agency; WHD refers to the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division; and DOS refers to the Department of State; FDA refers to the Food and Drug Administration. 

Although major rules provide one measure of regulatory impact, a rule may qualify as major even if it generates net economic savings rather than net costs. In other words, the major rule designation reflects the magnitude of a rule's economic effects, not whether those effects are regulatory costs or regulatory savings.

For the Unified Agenda, agencies designate rules based on whether they are regulatory or deregulatory for purposes of EO 14192 (previously EO 13771),4 which classifies actions for the ten-for-one requirement. Under OIRA guidance and the text of order, a regulatory action is a finalized regulatory action that imposes positive costs, while a deregulatory action is one that produces net cost savings. Actions are designated as fully or partially exempt if they impose only minimal private sector costs, pertain to emergency regulations, are required by statute or legal rulings, or are related to national security. The Executive Order excludes some regulatory activities, including those related to “a military, national security, homeland security, foreign affairs, or immigration-related function of the United States,” “agency organization, management, or personnel,” as well as other administration priorities. OMB classifies actions that do not fit the preceding categories as “other”.

Table 4. Major Rules by EO 14192 Designation

Table 4 indicates that the administration's emphasis on deregulation extends to major rules, although the pattern varies by stage of the rulemaking process. Among active major rules, 74 of 173 actions (42.8%) are designated as deregulatory, compared with 45 (26.0%) classified as regulatory. Completed major rules show an even larger imbalance, with nearly twice as many deregulatory actions (20 of 59) as regulatory actions (11 of 59). In contrast, long-term major rules are dominated by actions classified as "other," which account for 45 of 77 actions (58.4%), while deregulatory and regulatory actions each comprise relatively small shares (13 and 11 actions, respectively).

The 2026 Unified Agenda suggests that the administration has maintained a regulatory agenda comparable in overall size to recent Unified Agendas that is composed of a mix of regulatory and deregulatory actions. Examining rule significance, agency composition, and EO 14192 designations together therefore provides a more complete picture of the administration's regulatory priorities. As agencies move through the rulemaking process over the coming year, the Unified Agenda will serve as an important benchmark against which to evaluate the progress of the administration’s regulatory goals. 
 

• 1In the Fall 2024 Unified Agenda under President Biden, FWS reported 114 active proposed rules. Of these, 87 were either critical habitat designations or species listings.
• 2Additionally, both NOAA and FWS issue incidental take permits through the notice-and-comment process, which are by design deregulatory in that they authorize activities that would otherwise be prohibited under the Endangered Species Act or Marine Mammal Protection Act, subject to specified mitigation and conservation measures. As a result, the high volume of actions issued by these agencies should not be interpreted as evidence of expanding regulatory requirements, as many actions instead provide regulatory authorizations or exemptions.
• 3It is worth noting that some of these, particularly CMS and SBA rules, are transfer rules. That is, they govern federal benefit and payment programs and primarily cause income or wealth transfers, rather than regulating private conduct through compliance requirements. 
• 4EO 13771, which, among other things, requires agencies to identify two regulatory actions to offset each new regulatory action. The implementation guidelines for EO 13771 classifies rules into one of five categories: deregulatory, regulatory; fully or partially exempt; not subject to the order; or other. Regulatory actions impose positive incremental regulatory costs, while deregulatory actions reduce regulatory costs. Exempt actions include rules that OIRA determines should not be subject to EO 13771's offset requirements, such as emergency actions, statutorily or judicially required actions, military or national security rules, and de minimis actions. Rules designated as not subject generally fall outside the scope of the Executive Order altogether, such as transfer rules or periodic updates to existing rules (e.g. Magnuson-Stevenson quotas/limits). The other category includes actions that cannot readily be classified into the preceding categories.