On January 20, 2009, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel issued a memorandum to all heads of executive agencies and departments instructing them to suspend all regulations not yet published. This suspension will allow President Obama’s new appointees to review the pending regulations.

Under Emanuel’s memorandum, no proposed or final regulation should be sent to the Office of the Federal Register (”OFR”) for publication unless and until it has been reviewed and approved by a department or agency head (or a delegate of the department or agency head) appointed or designated by the President.  In addition, all proposed or final regulations that have not been published in the Federal Register must be withdrawn from the OFR. Finally, department and executive agency heads should consider extending the effective date by 60 days for all regulations that have been published in the Federal Register but have not taken effect. If an extension is given, the agency or department head must immediately reopen the notice-and-comment period for 30 days for all interested parties to provide comments. 

These directives contain an exception permitted by the Office of Management and Budget Director for “emergency situations or other urgent circumstances relating to health, safety, environmental, financial, or national security matters.”  In addition, the directives do not apply to any regulations subject to statutory or judicial deadlines.

Among the regulations likely affected by the Emanuel memorandum are the OSHA crane and derrick proposed rule, for which the comment period ended on January 22, 2009, and a pending OSHA rule on confined spaces in construction.