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Are you interested in learning more about regulations.gov? The two biggest reasons to use regulations are to search for things like proposed regulations or previously granted exemptions. If you need help with filing a petition for exemption, I heavily focus on doing this for exotic operations such as beyond line of sight drone spraying operations, 55 pound and heavier aerial data collection, 55 pound and heavier exemptions for dealers to demo fly and also teach, etc. If you need help with this, contact me.
Table of Contents of Article
What is Regulations.gov?
There are multiple things on regulations.gov for MANY different federal agencies. There are many entries here that will apply to unmanned aircraft, such as entries from the Federal Aviation Administration, the Department of Transportation, the State Department, the Federal Communications Commission, and the Bureau of Industry and Security.
For the purpose of this article, I’m talking about things regarding the Federal Aviation Administration.
Regulations.gov is a place drone pilots can go to:
- File a petition for exemption,
- Comment on proposed exemptions,
- Search previously granted or denied exemptions,
- Search for proposed regulations from the FAA,
- Make comments on proposed FAA regulations,
- Read final FAA regulations.
You will NOT find on regulations.gov:
- Federal public laws
- State, local, tribal, and local statutes and regulations.
- Up-to-date final regulations. You can find in dockets the final result of that rulemaking. If you want to read up-to-date regulations. go to www.ecfr.gov If you want to be slick, you can save a screenshot or PDF of the page, and it shows the date at the top.
Terminology
Everything gets a docket number, and from it, you can figure out a lot of things. For example, docket FAA-2025-0135 means it is associated with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), it was filed in 2025, and it was the 135th filing of that year.
The first filing will be 0001 and the second 0002 and so on. This is the first filing on the docket. FAA-2025-0135-0001
With petitions for exemption and proposed regulations, there are comments. Comments can be filed by anyone to the agency. These comments are public and are associated with the docket.
Searching for FAA’s Proposed Regulations and Rulemakings
Conveniently, you can search for FAA rulemakings by searching here.
A lot of the rulemakings have to do with airspace.
There are also a BUNCH of regulations created for airworthiness directives (ADs). These are mandatory regulations for a particular make and model of aircraft. The FAA issues TONS of these.
There is a filter on the left side. If you can select what you specifically want to search into.
Once you find a rulemaking, click on it. Let’s use the remote ID rulemaking as an example. You’ll then be taken to a page that has a bunch of info on it.
If you want to be kept up to date on the docket, click the subscribe at the top right. Type in your email. Go to your email and click the confirmation button.
This docket is currently closed for comments. If you could comment, it would say you could comment. There are 70 documents in this docket. If you want to read them, just click it and go through the entries.
There are 53,000+ comments! If you click the comments section, you can go through and read the comments. There is also a search feature so you can see who said what. If you want to see what was submitted by a trade group or organization, you can search by name and see what they said.
Making a Comment on a Rulemaking
You can comment on some of the rulemaking. Some are closed because they are past the comment close date, or the rulemaking was just issued without any comment because it was an emergency (they don’t have time to read the comments) or it was a clerical switch (change of phone numbers).
If you want to make a comment and it’s open, click the “Open for Comments” button.
It will then open up another section. It will say when the comment close date is. Make sure you get your comments in by that deadline. Click the comment button on the far right.
This is what the comment page looks like.
Remember that what you say IS public! Do not put anything confidential or sensitive in here.
Comment Section -You can free type your comment here. If you are doing just a quick comment, do this. If you are making a more substantive comment, my suggestion is to type it out in a document and then upload it as an attachment. Just say “My comment is attached.”
What is your comment about? – You might want to be making a comment on the proposed rule or other associated things. For example, you want to make a comment on the comment made by a drone association on a proposed rulemaking. Yes, organizations pay attention to what each other say in comments and will trade comments at each out pointing out things.
If you want to receive a receipt that you filed, put your email in and click the box to opt in for a confirmation.
You can file anonymously, as an individual or an organization.
By submitting, you agree to the terms of participation and privacy notice.
Hit submit.
Searching for Exemptions
If you go to the main page, you’ll see a white box where you can search for things.
In the white search box, you can search by:
- Typing in a docket ID
- Typing in a tracing ID (if you hired me to file your petition, I sent this to you).
- You can search by text. Type in the name of whoever you are searching for. Note that the text searching feature is generally good but I have found that it can miss things at times.
You can also search dockets by clicking the “Dockets” button. Then filter for only FAA. That will show exemptions, rulemakings, etc. by date of activity. When someone posts something to the docket, that then causes the docket to go to the top. Here is the link. https://www.regulations.gov/search/docket?agencyIds=FAA&sortBy=lastModifiedDate&sortDirection=desc
Once you find the docket, make sure you read the different filings in the docket. Most people are searching the docket because they want to get intel on a competitor.
If you do NOT see an approval on regulations.gov, that most likely, and I mean most likely, means they do not have an approval. There are situations where I have had a client obtain approval, but the government worker failed to post it to regulations.gov. It can happen but it’s less than 1% of the time.
Monitoring Activity on a Docket
If you are wanting to pay attention to what is going on with an exemption or a rulemaking:
- Go to the docket.
- Click the subscribe button at the top right.
- Go to your email and click confirm.
Filing an Exemption
The FAA accepts petitions for exemption at a specific docket. Here is the docket. https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/FAA-2007-0001-0001
You submit your petition just like you would a comment.
If you are attaching confidential information, I HIGHLY suggest you put into the comment section at the top something like this….”CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION ATTACHED.” You should also label the confidential documents with something like “Confidential-operations manual.pdf” This will help clue the government worker in redacting which files from the record. It’s best to segregate what can be disclosed and what cannot be and make that clear so the employee does not make a mistake.
At the end, you’ll be given a tracking ID.
Wait a day or so, and then go to the search box. Type in the tracking ID and hit search.
You can find your docket. Make sure everything was properly redacted.