“A question we get asked pretty often is “When is this document I read/heard about going to publish?” And the answer seems a bit secretive. According to 1 CFR 17.1: “…Upon receipt, each document shall be held for confidential processing until it is filed for public inspection.” So until the document is made available to the public via Public Inspection, the Office of the Federal Register is not permitted to discuss anything about it to the public. The issuing agency has its own communications timeline. Often an agency will notify the public that it has created a document and sent it for publication in the Federal Register. However, until it is officially posted on Public Inspection, our office cannot discuss it. With a typical publication timeline of 3 business days, usually we know about a document publishing about two days before the public does, but it’s not our document, so we can’t discuss it. In fact, a submitting agency can request that the document be pulled from publication. The reasons for such a request vary greatly. Some of the reasons are:

• The document needs last minute revisions.
• The document does not need to be published any longer.
• The agency wants more time to consider public comments.
• If you want the most up-to-date information on what is available to the public, check out the online Public Inspection Desk. You can receive notifications via email by subscribing at www.federalregister.gov.”