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A comment deadline moved three weeks, and the rule still shows the old date

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Original editorial artwork from the Hugin archive; symbolic illustration, not a depiction of the subject.

The Census Bureau's proposed residence criteria say comments are due October 13. On October 2 the Bureau filed a notice moving that to November 2. Checked on October 3, the Federal Register's own record for the rule still returned October 13, with an empty corrections list, on a docket that had already drawn 33,382 comments. A Federal Reserve docket printed to close this Monday will now close November 4, the Board says, with nothing in the Register saying so at all.

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In this note6 sections

The Census Bureau's proposed rule on who gets counted where in the next decennial census says comments are due October 13. That is not the deadline. On October 2 the Bureau filed a notice extending it to November 2.

Look the rule up, though, and October 13 is what you get. Its record in the Federal Register's own database, read on October 3, still returned a comment close date of October 13 — and an empty list of corrections.

The rule, and the notice nobody has to find

The proposed rule was published September 10 at 91 FR 57524. Its dates section is one sentence: "To ensure consideration during the decision-making process, comments must be received by October 13, 2026."

The extension is a separate document, FR Doc. 2026-20328, filed for public inspection on October 2 and scheduled to publish on October 5 as a single page at 91 FR 63207. Its summary says the comment period "which would have ended on October 13, 2026, is extended until November 2, 2026."

Both documents are public. Both are free. But the pointing runs one way. The extension names the rule it changes by title, by publication date and by citation. The rule's record carries no reference to the extension at all — not in its dates, not in its comment-close date, not in its corrections. The two are tied together in the Register's data only by two numbers both documents print at their head: the docket number, 260903-0005, and the RIN 0607-AA75 — the identifier one regulatory action keeps across every document it generates. Search the Register on either and both documents come back, as they did on October 3. Read the rule itself and it goes on saying October 13.

It is not a quiet docket. The Register's record for the rule reported 33,382 comments filed — a count it had last refreshed from the comment system at five to eight Eastern that evening — and 31,204 page views, counted twenty minutes later.

And one that closes Monday

The second case is sharper, because the printed date falls first.

The Federal Reserve Board's proposed changes to Regulation O — the rule on credit a bank extends to its own executives, directors and large shareholders — were published on August 4, at 91 FR 49526. Its dates section: "Comments must be submitted on or before October 5, 2026."

October 5 is Monday. At 4:00 p.m. Eastern on Friday the Board announced it would extend the period until November 4, "to allow interested parties more time to analyze the issues and prepare their comments."

That announcement is a press release on the Board's website. As of October 3 no Federal Register document carried the new date, and the searches that would have found one came back without it. The Register's own search on the proposal's docket number, R-1896, returns a single document: the proposal. The search on its RIN returns the same one. The extension is not among the Board's 17 documents carrying a publication date of September 25 or later, and the current public-inspection list — 108 documents scheduled for coming issues — carries exactly one Board document, a notice about acquisitions of bank shares. The rule's own record still returned October 5, corrections empty.

So over this weekend, a person who does the responsible thing — find the official document, read its dates section, check the government's own database — will conclude the window shuts on Monday. The Board has said otherwise, somewhere else.

Why the record does not change

The Federal Register does have a slot for a document that was wrong. Every record carries a list of corrections to it, and a field for the document it is itself a correction of. On both rules here, both fields are empty — as they also were on three September proposed rules whose own titles end in "Correction".

An extension is not a correction. Nothing was misprinted. On the day it was published, the Census rule's October 13 was exactly right, and the Board's October 5 was exactly right. What happened afterwards was a new decision, and a new decision arrives as a new document — which, in the Register's structure, sits beside the old one rather than on top of it.

That structure is defensible. A published issue of the Federal Register is a dated record of what was filed that day, and quietly rewriting a September page in October would destroy the thing that makes it citable at all.

The cost lands somewhere else: on the reader, for whom the document in front of them is complete, correct, and out of date, and says nothing to suggest a second search is needed.

How often this happens

Rarely, which is the trap.

Of the 142 proposed rules published in the Federal Register during September 2026, exactly one carried "Extension of Comment Period" in its title, by this entry's own count. No other title in that set used "extension", "extended" or "reopening" either — though a count of titles cannot see an extension folded into a document called something else. Almost every printed deadline is the real deadline. That is precisely why nobody thinks to check — and why two of them moving inside the same week is worth saying out loud.

How to find the real date

Before relying on a comment deadline:

  • Search the Register on the docket number or the RIN the document prints, not on the document. Both numbers sit at the top of the first page. On the census rule, a search on either returned the rule and its extension together. It is not a guarantee: the same search on Regulation O's docket returns only the proposal, because the extension is not a Federal Register document yet.
  • Check the public-inspection list. Documents scheduled for coming issues are posted there before they print, free and without an account. The census extension was readable there on October 2, three days before its publication date.
  • Check the agency's own newsroom. No Federal Register document carried the Regulation O extension as of October 3. A press release is not the Federal Register, and it is not a substitute for one, but it is where that decision was announced.
  • The earlier date is inside both windows. A census comment filed by October 13 is within the original window and within the extension's "on or before November 2". A Regulation O comment filed by October 5 is within the printed window and within the November 4 the Board announced. Both of these extensions add days to the end of a window rather than moving it.

None of this needs a lawyer. It needs knowing that the date printed on a rule is a fact about the day it was printed, not a promise about today.

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