Federal Register Tech Issue Caused by Oversized Document

Close watchers of federal agencies’ activities rely heavily on the Federal Register, a website used to publish daily updates on agency regulatory actions, such as proposed rule changes and questionnaires and public feedback forms. But on Thursday, the site appeared to have no new updates to share.

A notice at the top of FederalRegister.gov said, “Due to a technical issue, today’s issue is not online. A team is working on the issue.” The notice offered users a direct link to find the public inspection list for April 30 while the problem was resolved.

Miriam Vincent, acting director of the Legal Affairs and Policy Division in the Office of the Federal Register, told Nextgov that Thursday’s issue was caused by a single entry that was far too large for the system to handle.

“Unfortunately, one of the documents scheduled for publication today was extremely long with a higher than usual number of tables and photographed material,” Vincent said in an email. “That combination of factors is preventing technical production of the full Federal Register. Government Publishing Office and Office of the Federal Register staff are working to resolve this unexpected error.”

The site is administered jointly by the Office of the Federal Register—part of the National Archives and Records Administration—and the Government Publishing Office.

The main Federal Register site was not affected by the issue, with all archived notices still available Thursday.