Companies that deal with the federal government routinely live under rules that took effect before they ever had a chance to comment on them — and a new watchdog report shows that is now the norm, not the exception. A Government Accountability Office report released September 4, 2026 found that agencies invoked "good cause" to skip advance public comment on about 71% of the major interim final rules they issued over a 12-year span, using a legal shortcut that lets a regulation take force first and face public scrutiny only afterward, if at all.
The report, GAO-26-108208, "Federal Rulemaking: Agencies Continue to Use Good Cause and Other Mechanisms to Forgo Public Comments," was prepared for the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee's Subcommittee on Border Management, Federal Workforce and Regulatory Affairs. GAO reviewed 116 major interim final rules and 12 direct final rules published between January 20, 2013, and January 20, 2025 — a window spanning three presidential administrations and covering rules as varied as Medicare payment adjustments, small-business loan programs, and wage rules for temporary work visas.
Why Agencies Say "Good Cause" Justifies Skipping Comment
Under the Administrative Procedure Act, agencies are generally supposed to publish a proposed rule, take public comments, and only then issue a final version. But the law carves out an exception when an agency finds "good cause" that notice-and-comment procedures would be impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest. That exception is supposed to be the rare case. GAO's review found it is not.
"Agencies cited good cause reasons for expedited rulemaking for about 71 percent of major interim final rules GAO reviewed and that agencies published between January 20, 2013, and January 20, 2025," the report states. That figure is close to what GAO found the last time it examined the practice: its 2012 report found that 77% of major rules issued without an advance notice of proposed rulemaking cited good cause. In other words, more than a decade of scrutiny and multiple changes in administration have not meaningfully changed how often agencies reach for the shortcut.
The report does note that the practice has a defensible basis in some cases. As GAO put it, "providing for public participation might not be appropriate in every situation before issuing a final rule and agencies may find good cause that notice-and-comment procedures are impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest." The question the report raises is not whether the exception should exist, but whether it has become the default tool rather than the emergency valve Congress intended.
COVID-19 Drove a Spike in Fast-Tracked Rules
The data show the pandemic as the clearest driver of expedited rulemaking in the period GAO studied. Agencies issued 55 rules in response to COVID-19 over the course of the public health emergency — the overwhelming majority of them in 2020 and 2021, with a final straggler in 2023 — and cited good cause for 41 of those 55. That stands in sharp contrast to non-pandemic years, when agencies typically issued only 2 to 10 major rules without going through advance notice and comment at all. That skew means the underlying non-emergency rate of good-cause use — while still substantial — is likely somewhat lower than the headline 71% figure suggests. GAO's report does not break out a separate non-pandemic percentage, but the raw rule counts show how much the 2020–2021 surge inflated the overall total.
Comments Are Coming — Just After the Rule Is Already Final
One notable shift since GAO's 2012 report is that agencies have gotten much better about asking for comments even when they skip the advance step. GAO found that agencies requested public comment on 99% of the interim final rules it reviewed and actually received comments on 94% of them. "Agencies requested public comments for 99 percent of the interim final rules that GAO reviewed and received comments on 94 percent of these rules," the report states. "This is an increase from GAO's 2012 report which found agencies requested comments for 63 percent of major rules issued without an NPRM."
The catch is timing: because these are interim final rules, the comment period opens only after the regulation is already in effect. A business, hospital, or manufacturer subject to the rule must comply on day one and can only argue for changes afterward — changes an agency may or may not make in a later final rule. GAO also found that 66% of the reviewed rules reported on their economic effects, meaning roughly a third skipped that analysis even as they took immediate effect.
What It Means for Contractors
Companies that do business with the government are more likely to run into this exact mechanism outside the Federal Acquisition Regulation than inside it. GAO's review deliberately excluded FAR rulemaking, since procurement regulations aren't governed by the Administrative Procedure Act at all and follow a separate statutory process. So the 71% good-cause figure doesn't describe the FAR and DFARS clauses that show up in solicitations; it describes the broader universe of major rules issued by agencies contractors also deal with.
Several of the rules GAO reviewed land squarely on companies that also hold federal contracts. The Small Business Administration issued more major interim final rules than any other agency in the sample — 31 of 116 — most implementing the Paycheck Protection Program that many small contractors used during the pandemic; 16 of those 30 PPP rules additionally cited good cause even though SBA already had separate statutory authority to skip notice-and-comment. Labor and Homeland Security jointly used an interim final rule to set wage methodology for the H-2B visa program, which some contractors rely on for seasonal labor, and DHS separately used the same path to adjust the passenger aviation security fee.
The practical lesson for companies watching agency rulemaking, procurement-related or not, is that a rule published as "interim final" is not a draft. Compliance obligations start on the effective date, not after the comment window closes, even though agencies now solicit comments far more often than in 2012. Businesses waiting for a traditional proposed rule before adjusting operations risk finding, as this report shows happens roughly seven times in ten for major interim final rules, that no such proposal was ever coming.
GAO's report includes no recommendations for reversing the trend; it is presented as an update to the 2012 baseline. But the consistency between the two reports — 77% in 2012, 71% now — suggests that whatever pressure exists on agencies to expand notice-and-comment rulemaking has not changed the underlying pattern, pandemic surge aside.
