DOT regulation watch
Once a month I read the parts of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations that a small service company in the basin actually lives under, and the DOT testing procedures that sit underneath them, and write down what moved. When nothing moved, that is what this page says. A month with no change is worth knowing too, and it takes about ten seconds to read.
Each entry names the section, the Federal Register document that amended it, and whether there is anything for you to do. The citations come out of a copy of Title 49 that sits on my own machine, not out of a summary of one, and every entry says which copy it was written from and how current that copy was. If a month's answer rests on something the copy cannot show me, the entry says that instead of guessing.
Every section number on this page is written out in full, as 49 CFR 396.3, so you can search the page for the one you care about.
What this watch covers
49 CFR Part 40, Part 382, Part 385, Part 387, and Parts 390 through 396. Those are some of the rules a Bakken service company may be measured against on a roadside inspection, in a compliance review, and in a prequalification packet, depending on what it hauls, where, and whether its drivers need a commercial license. They are not all of them.
Parts 40, 385 and 387 joined this watch in September 2026. Their starting point was frozen on September 17, 2026, from the copy current through September 1, 2026, and the first entry that reports on them is the September 2026 entry, which is not published yet. The August 2026 entry below was written about the other eight parts and says nothing about these three.
Part 40
How a DOT drug or alcohol test has to be carried out and handled: specimen collection, the laboratory, the medical review officer, alcohol testing, confidentiality and release of information, and the substance abuse professional and return-to-duty process, among other things. 49 CFR 382.105 is what makes an employer under Part 382 follow it, and Part 40 also concerns the employees who are tested and the service agents who run tests for you. Joined September 2026.
Part 382
Controlled substances and alcohol testing, and the Clearinghouse.
Part 385
Safety fitness: how FMCSA determines a carrier's safety fitness, assigns a safety rating and directs remedial action, what an unsatisfactory rating stops a carrier doing, the safety audit a new entrant goes through, and the hazardous materials safety permit for the materials and quantities listed in 49 CFR 385.403, among other programs. Joined September 2026.
Part 387
Minimum levels of financial responsibility: the insurance, surety bond or other security required of the motor carriers, property brokers and freight forwarders it reaches, how much, and how it has to be shown. It does not reach every carrier. A carrier whose work is all intrastate commerce is inside it only in narrow cases, such as hauling hazardous materials in bulk, and some carriers that cross a state line every day are not. Staying inside North Dakota is not the same thing as intrastate commerce: under the definition in 49 CFR 390.5T, a haul that never leaves the state is interstate when the load began or ends its journey outside the state. Joined September 2026.
Part 390
The general part: who the safety regulations reach, the definitions everything else runs on, marking, and registration.
Part 391
Driver qualification: the qualification file, the physical examination, the road test.
Part 392
Driving rules: what a driver may and may not do while operating.
Part 393
Parts and accessories: what has to be on the vehicle and working.
Part 394
Reserved. There is no Part 394 to watch, and it is listed here so that is an answer rather than a gap.
Part 395
Hours of service, records of duty status, and electronic logging devices.
Part 396
Inspection, repair and maintenance, including the periodic inspection and the driver vehicle inspection report.
Who these rules reach, and it is not one answer
This matters before anything else on the page does. Several different tests are at work in the eleven parts above and they do not line up with each other, so the sections that draw them are quoted rather than summarized, except for Part 387, whose sections are not quoted yet. Do not stop at the first one that seems to fit you.
49 CFR 390.3T, the general reach
"The rules in this subchapter are applicable to all employers, employees, and commercial motor vehicles that transport property or passengers in interstate commerce."
Ten of the eleven parts above are inside that subchapter, and one of the ten, Part 394, is reserved. Part 40 is not in it. Part 382 is, but it draws its own line in 49 CFR 382.103, covered further down. Part 385 takes most of its reach from this subchapter, and Part 387 draws its own lines. Both are in the block on the three parts that joined in September 2026.
That sentence is paragraph (a)(1), and paragraph (a)(2) reaches further than motor carriers. The rules in 49 CFR 386.12(c) and 49 CFR 390.6 that forbid coercing a driver into violating a safety regulation reach motor carriers, shippers, receivers and transportation intermediaries alike, and 49 CFR 390.6 is in a part this watch covers. If you tender loads rather than haul them, that is the paragraph that reaches you.
49 CFR 390.5T, and the weight the word carries
Interstate is only half the test. A commercial motor vehicle is defined with four limbs, and the first is a weight floor: "Has a gross vehicle weight rating or gross combination weight rating, or gross vehicle weight or gross combination weight, of 4,536 kg (10,001 pounds) or more, whichever is greater;"
The second limb is "Is designed or used to transport more than 8 passengers (including the driver) for compensation". The third is "Is designed or used to transport more than 15 passengers, including the driver, and is not used to transport passengers for compensation". The fourth is any vehicle carrying hazardous material in a quantity that requires placarding.
The words designed or used are doing work in the middle two. A crew bus designed to carry 20 including the driver is inside the third limb on a day it carries three. A pickup and trailer under 10,001 pounds combined, carrying nothing placarded and carrying nobody for hire, is on none of the four.
49 CFR 390.5T, on what interstate means
Crossing a state line is one way in and it is not the only one. Interstate commerce reaches trade, traffic or transportation "Between two places in a State as part of trade, traffic, or transportation originating or terminating outside the State or the United States."
So a truck that never leaves North Dakota is in interstate commerce whenever the load it is carrying began or ends its journey somewhere else. Crude that runs lease to terminal and then down a pipeline to another state is the everyday example in this basin.
49 CFR 390.3T, on the seven carve-outs
Paragraph (f) takes seven classes out of the subchapter, and it does so "Unless otherwise specifically provided", which is the clause that matters. The seven are school bus operations, transportation by a government or a political subdivision, occasional moves of personal property not for compensation, transportation of human corpses or the sick and injured, fire trucks and rescue vehicles in emergency operations, some vehicles built or used for 9 to 15 passengers not for direct compensation, and, in an emergency, some propane and pipeline work. Three of the seven do not do what their names suggest, and those three are set out below.
School bus operations is a defined term and it is narrower than the words look. It means "the use of a school bus to transport only school children and/or school personnel from home to school and from school to home". The words are home to school and school to home, so an activity run, an athletic trip or a charter is not inside it. And the exit is not clean: five paragraphs survive it, in "All school bus operations as defined in § 390.5T, except for §§ 391.15(e) and (f), 392.15, 392.80, and 392.82 of this chapter".
The 9-to-15-passenger carve-out carries a proviso that decides most of its cases. It reaches such a vehicle only "provided the vehicle does not otherwise meet the definition of a commercial motor vehicle". A 14-passenger crew bus rated over 10,001 pounds is a commercial motor vehicle on the weight limb already, so this carve-out never reaches it. Where it does reach, eight paragraphs survive it: "except that motor carriers and drivers operating such vehicles are required to comply with §§ 390.15, 390.19T, 390.21T(a) and (b)(2), 391.15(e) and (f), 392.80 and 392.82 of this chapter."
The propane and pipeline carve-out is the one most likely to be misread in this basin, so it is quoted whole: "Either a driver of a commercial motor vehicle used primarily in the transportation of propane winter heating fuel or a driver of a motor vehicle used to respond to a pipeline emergency, if such regulations would prevent the driver from responding to an emergency condition requiring immediate response as defined in § 390.5T." Two things in that sentence do all the work. The vehicle has to be used primarily for propane winter heating fuel, not occasionally. And the carve-out only operates where the rule would stand between the driver and an emergency condition requiring immediate response, which is itself a defined term, and the definition says it "does not include requests to refill empty gas tanks". This is relief for the call-out. It is not relief for the delivery route.
None of the seven reaches Part 382. A driver who is outside the safety regulations by one of these exits is still inside the drug and alcohol testing rules, unless 49 CFR 382.103(d) separately lets him out, and 49 CFR 382.103(c) says so in as many words. Read paragraph (f) and 49 CFR 382.103 together before you rely on any of this.
49 CFR 390.3T, on intrastate hazardous materials
"The rules in the following provisions of this subchapter apply to motor carriers that transport hazardous materials in intrastate commerce and to the motor vehicles that transport hazardous materials in intrastate commerce:"
That is federal text reaching an intrastate carrier directly, and two of the provisions it names are in a part this watch covers: the identification report in 49 CFR 390.19T and the marking rule in 49 CFR 390.21T, for carriers subject to 49 CFR 385.403. An intrastate crude or methanol hauler is not outside the federal rules.
The list carries one relief and it is narrow: "Intrastate motor carriers operating prior to January 1, 2005, are excepted from § 390.19T(a)(1)." That is one paragraph of the identification report and nothing else on the list.
49 CFR 390.3T(h), and it reaches somebody who runs no trucks
Paragraph (h) applies five bodies of rules to intermodal equipment providers, and three of them are parts this watch covers: this part, "except § 390.15(b) concerning accident registers"; Part 393, parts and accessories; and Part 396, inspection, repair and maintenance.
An intermodal equipment provider is not a motor carrier. It can own no power units and employ no drivers. If you tender chassis or trailers to a motor carrier, the interstate commercial motor vehicle test in 49 CFR 390.3T(a)(1) is not your test, and those three parts are yours anyway.
49 CFR 382.103, which draws the line somewhere else again
"This part applies to service agents and to every person and to all employers of such persons who operate a commercial motor vehicle in commerce in any State and are subject to:" the commercial driver's license requirements of Part 383, or the Mexican or Canadian equivalents.
Part 382 keys on whether the vehicle being operated requires a commercial license, not on what is in the driver's wallet and not on the state line. A yard whose trucks all sit under the license threshold is outside Part 382 even if every driver happens to hold a Class A.
Paragraph (c) is the one that catches people out, and it is short enough to quote: "The exceptions contained in § 390.3T(f) of this subchapter do not apply to this part." Every one of the seven carve-outs in 49 CFR 390.3T(f) buys nothing here.
Paragraph (d) then takes four classes out on its own terms. Drivers who owe only the Federal Transit Administration testing rules. Drivers a State must waive from Part 383, which the rule says includes active duty military, reserve and national guard personnel and active duty Coast Guard personnel. Drivers a State has exempted at its discretion, which can be certain firefighters and certain farm vehicle operators. And operators of covered farm vehicles.
The middle one is a relief with four conditions stacked on it, not one. A farm vehicle is only in it where it is controlled and operated by a farmer, is used to carry agricultural products, farm machinery or farm supplies to or from a farm, is not used in the operations of a for-hire motor carrier unless that carrier is an exempt motor carrier, and is "Used within 241 kilometers (150 miles) of the farmer's farm". Drop any one of the four and the exemption is gone. It is also discretionary, so it only exists where the State has actually granted it.
Parts 40, 385 and 387, which set their own reach
Each of the three parts that joined in September 2026 says for itself whom it reaches. Part 40 opens with 49 CFR 40.1: "This part tells all parties who conduct drug and alcohol tests required by Department of Transportation (DOT) agency regulations how to conduct these tests and what procedures to use." Paragraph (b) names whose activities the part concerns: "This part concerns the activities of transportation employers, safety-sensitive transportation employees (including self-employed individuals, contractors and volunteers as covered by DOT agency regulations), and service agents." For a motor carrier whose drivers need a commercial license, the regulation that requires the tests is Part 382, which draws that line in 49 CFR 382.103, and 49 CFR 382.105 is the section that sends you to Part 40.
Part 385 takes most of its reach from the subchapter, in 49 CFR 385.1(d): "The provisions of this part apply to all motor carriers subject to the requirements of this subchapter, except non-business private motor carriers of passengers." Two of its programs are drawn differently. The new entrant program in paragraph (b) is narrower: it is for a carrier "initially seeking to register with FMCSA to conduct interstate operations". The safety permit in paragraph (c) covers only the materials and quantities listed in 49 CFR 385.403, and it is not limited to interstate work, because that section opens: "A motor carrier may not transport in interstate or intrastate commerce any of the following hazardous materials, in the quantity indicated for each, unless the motor carrier holds a safety permit:" So a carrier that never leaves North Dakota still needs the permit to haul one of those loads, for example natural gas, compressed or as a refrigerated liquid, in bulk packaging of 3,500 gallons or more. Paragraph (e) separately brings intermodal equipment providers in, through a roadability review.
Part 387 does it subpart by subpart: 49 CFR 387.3 for carriers of property, 49 CFR 387.27 for carriers of passengers, two further subparts on the surety bonds and insurance policies of motor carriers, property brokers and freight forwarders, and an appendix on how the rules apply to carriers of passengers. None of Part 387's lines are quoted on this page yet. The only rules this block quotes are from 49 CFR 40.1, 49 CFR 385.1 and 49 CFR 385.403, so do not read anything here as settling whether Part 387 reaches you. The first entry that reports on these three parts quotes the sections that decide it.
So neither "do the trucks leave North Dakota" nor "do the drivers hold commercial licenses" is the question. If your work is intrastate in the full sense above, carries nothing placarded and needs no commercial license, then most of what is on this page reaches you through the state rather than straight out of this text, and this watch reads the federal text only. If any one of those three is not true of you, the federal text reaches you directly. And if you tender intermodal equipment to a motor carrier, 49 CFR 390.3T(h) reaches you whatever your answer to those three was.
Some rules that may reach you are deliberately not in it yet, or not in it at all, and I would rather name the big ones than let you assume they are covered. 29 CFR Part 1904 and Part 1910, the OSHA recordkeeping and general industry rules, join this watch in a later month. 49 CFR Part 383, the commercial driver's license rules, is not in it, and it matters here because 49 CFR 382.103 uses it to decide who Part 382 reaches. And the hazardous materials regulations themselves are not in it, which matters this month and is covered below.
Entry
August 2026
Nothing this month. No section and no appendix in 49 CFR Part 382 or Parts 390 through 396 carries a Federal Register date inside the month, and not one of them is carrying a pointer to an amendment that has been published and is waiting to land. Nothing moved and nothing is queued.
Read against the local copy of 49 CFR, from govinfo.gov bulk data, written to disk on September 3, 2026 and current through September 1, 2026. That copy covers the whole of the month this entry is about.
Where the watch starts
This is the first entry, so there is no previous one to compare against. What I can give you instead is the line the watch starts from: the most recent amendment each part carries, as of the copy named above. Everything on this list happened before August.
Part 382
Most recent amendment: 89 FR 90619, Nov. 18, 2024
Part 390
Most recent amendment: 91 FR 45661, July 21, 2026
Part 391
Most recent amendment: 91 FR 45661, July 21, 2026
Part 392
Most recent amendment: 91 FR 7870, Feb. 19, 2026
Part 393
Most recent amendment: 91 FR 45661, July 21, 2026
Part 394
Reserved. No sections, and nothing to amend.
Part 395
Most recent amendment: 91 FR 37053, June 22, 2026
Part 396
Most recent amendment: 91 FR 45662, July 21, 2026
The last thing that moved, and it was in July
One Federal Register document accounts for the most recent amendment in four of those parts: 91 FR 45661 and 91 FR 45662, both dated July 21, 2026. Six sections in the watch were touched by it. Five of them name it in their credit lines, and the sixth does not, for a reason that is worth more than the rest of this entry and is set out under it.
I cannot tell you from a single copy of the rulebook what each of these said before that date, only what it says now and that this is the document that last touched it. That is what the notes below do, and where a summary would have to drop a condition to stay short, the rule's own words are quoted instead.
49 CFR 390.5T
Last amended by 91 FR 45661, July 21, 2026
One of the two definitions sections in Part 390, and the one that is not suspended. The definitions the rest of the safety regulations run on sit here. See the note below on which of the two to cite.
49 CFR 390.5
Last amended by 53 FR 18052, May 19, 1988
The other definitions section, and the sixth unit the July document touched. Its credit line still reads 1988, because an amendment to a suspended section is recorded in an Effective Date Note instead. That is the gap in the credit-line method, in the watched parts, in the month this entry covers.
49 CFR 390.27
Last amended by 91 FR 45661, July 21, 2026
A table of FMCSA's four service centers and the states each one covers, plus two notes for Canadian and Mexican carriers. North Dakota is in the Western Service Center, at 12300 West Dakota Avenue, Suite 131, Lakewood, Colorado 80228. There is no duty in the section.
49 CFR 391.45
Last amended by 91 FR 45661, July 21, 2026
Who has to be medically examined and certified to operate a commercial motor vehicle, and how often. The section opens by saying so: "The following persons must be medically examined and certified in accordance with § 391.43 as physically qualified to operate a commercial motor vehicle:" so everything in it sits behind the commercial motor vehicle test above. There are then three answers, not one. Anyone who has not been examined and certified has to be, which is paragraph (a) and has no clock on it at all. After that the general interval is 24 months. And five paragraphs set a different trigger, three of them on a 12-month clock: the driver authorized only within an exempt intracity zone, the driver with diabetes treated with insulin who holds a certificate under 49 CFR 391.46, and the driver certified under the alternative vision standard in 49 CFR 391.44. That third one is a certification, not an exemption, and a company looking through its files for exemption letters will not find it. The last two carry no interval: a driver whose ability to perform normal duties has been impaired by a physical or mental injury or disease, and, on or after June 23, 2025, a driver a medical examiner has found not physically qualified "under the provisions of paragraph (g)(3) of § 391.43". That is one paragraph of 49 CFR 391.43 and not the section: 49 CFR 391.43(g)(4) covers a determination the examiner has delayed for more information, and a delayed determination is not this trigger.
The rule's own words, for the three that matter most: paragraph (a) reaches "Any person who has not been medically examined and certified as physically qualified to operate a commercial motor vehicle;". The general interval is stated as "during the preceding 24 months". And the impairment trigger reads "Any driver whose ability to perform his or her normal duties has been impaired by a physical or mental injury or disease", which takes in more than a broken arm.
One more thing sits in 49 CFR 391.43(g)(3) and it is the part that bites the same afternoon. When the examiner finds the person not physically qualified, "All medical examiner's certificates previously issued to the person are not valid and no longer satisfy the requirements of § 391.41(a)." The card in the driver file stops working that day. It does not run on to the date printed on it.
49 CFR 393.45
Last amended by 91 FR 45661, July 21, 2026
Brake tubing and hose, in four paragraphs. The first says all brake tubing and hoses, brake hose assemblies and brake hose end fittings "must meet the applicable requirements of FMVSS No. 106 (49 CFR 571.106)". The word doing the work there is applicable: that standard attaches by component and by system, and not all of it reaches every part. The second is the installation rule, and it asks for two properties rather than one: "Be long and flexible enough to accommodate without damage all normal motions of the parts to which it is attached", "secured against chafing, kinking, or other mechanical damage", and installed so it cannot contact "the vehicle's exhaust system or any other source of high temperatures". The third is where every number in the section lives, and it is a permission rather than a measurement everyone is held to: "Coiled nonmetallic brake tubing may be used for connections between towed and towing motor vehicles or between the frame of a towed vehicle and the unsprung subframe of an adjustable axle of the motor vehicle" if the conditions in it are met. Both of those uses are permitted, and an earlier draft of this page quoted only the first. It reaches nonmetallic coiled tubing and nothing else, so a straight hose or a metallic line is not inside it. The conditions are a straight pigtail at least 51 mm (2 inches) long at each end, encased in a "spring guard or similar device" which prevents kinking at the fitting, and that device carrying at least 51 mm (2 inches) of "closed coils or similar surface" at its interface with the fitting and extending at least 38 mm (1 1/2 inches) into the coiled segment. My reading is that a molded anti-kink boot can be the similar device this paragraph allows, because the rule names a spring guard or similar device and then measures that device by what it carries at the fitting rather than by what it is made of. That is a reading and not the rule's own words. The measurements are not a reading: whatever the device is, it needs 51 mm of closed coils or similar surface at the fitting and 38 mm reaching into the coil. The fourth covers the connections themselves: "All connections for air, vacuum, or hydraulic braking systems shall be installed so as to ensure an attachment free of leaks, constrictions or other conditions which would adversely affect the performance of the brake system."
49 CFR 396.3
Last amended by 91 FR 45662, July 21, 2026
Inspection, repair and maintenance, in three paragraphs, and the middle one is the paperwork most small carriers are short of. The first is the duty, and it is owed by two different kinds of business: "Every motor carrier and intermodal equipment provider must systematically inspect, repair, and maintain, or cause to be systematically inspected, repaired, and maintained, all motor vehicles and intermodal equipment subject to its control." Then the standard: "Parts and accessories shall be in safe and proper operating condition at all times." Parts and accessories is wider than Part 393, because the same paragraph reaches those "and any additional parts and accessories which may affect safety of operation, including but not limited to, frame and frame assemblies, suspension systems, axles and attaching parts, wheels and rims, and steering systems". Pushout windows, emergency doors and emergency door marking lights in buses are inspected at least every 90 days.
The second requires a record for each vehicle you "control for 30 consecutive days", and it lists four things that record has to include: the vehicle identified by company number if it is marked, make, serial number and year, and "In addition, if the motor vehicle is not owned by the motor carrier, the record shall identify the name of the person furnishing the vehicle;"; a means to show the nature and due date of each inspection and maintenance operation; a record of inspections, repairs and maintenance with their date and nature; and, for buses, a record of the tests on those windows, doors and lights. A private motor carrier of passengers on nonbusiness operations is excepted from the records. An intermodal equipment provider is on a different trigger with no 30-day test in it: "Intermodal equipment providers must maintain or cause to be maintained, records for each unit of intermodal equipment they tender or intend to tender to a motor carrier."
The third is retention: "The records required by this section shall be retained where the vehicle is either housed or maintained for a period of 1 year and for 6 months after the motor vehicle leaves the motor carrier's control."
Part 390 has two definitions sections, and one of them is suspended
This is the sixth section, and it is the one worth five minutes. 49 CFR 390.5 has an Effective Date Note printed underneath it. The last sentence of that note reads:
At 91 FR 45661, July 21, 2026, the suspension was lifted, § 390.5 was amended, and the section was again suspended indefinitely, effective July 21, 2026.
The other is 49 CFR 390.5T, which sits immediately after it and carries different text. 390.5T was created by the same document that first suspended 390.5 back in 2017, its own credit line runs to the same July 21, 2026 document, and it carries no suspension note of its own. My reading is that 49 CFR 390.5T is the one to cite, and that is a reading rather than something the rule says in as many words. What the rule does say is that 49 CFR 390.5 is suspended and has been since January 2017, and a suspended section is not one to put in a policy, in a prequalification answer or in front of an auditor. The round number is the one that looks right, which is what makes this worth saying out loud.
The reading is not airtight and the reason is worth knowing. Current rule text still points at the suspended section by name: 49 CFR 382.103(d)(4) carves out operators of covered farm vehicles "as defined in 49 CFR 390.5". So if a rule sends you to 390.5 by number, follow it there and read the Effective Date Note when you arrive. Where you are choosing for yourself which definitions section to quote, 390.5T is the one carrying text that is not suspended.
Two things follow from it, and the second is why this section leads rather than trails.
First, 49 CFR 390.5 is the sixth section the July 21, 2026 document touched, and its credit line does not say so. The credit line reads 1988. The amendment is in the Effective Date Note instead, which is what the CFR does with a suspended section. So a watch that read credit lines and nothing else would have missed one of the six, inside the parts it watches, in the month it is reporting on. It is disclosed here rather than buried in the method section because a limit that is only admitted at the bottom of a page is a limit nobody reads.
Second, the fix is already running. Every Effective Date Note in the watched parts is read alongside the credit lines, and so is the pointer the CFR prints when an amendment has been published and has not yet landed. All three were read before this entry said the month was quiet.
Outside this watch: one August change, in the hazardous materials rules
One document has landed in the text of Title 49 with an August 2026 date on it: 91 FR 49315, August 4, 2026. It is named by two sections, and neither of them is in the parts above. Separately, 87 sections elsewhere in Title 49 are carrying a pointer to an August 2026 amendment that has been published and has not reached the text yet, and most of those are the railroad rules. None of either kind is in the parts this watch covers. I have not read any of those documents. What follows is what the two sections say today, which is a pointer and not a review.
49 CFR 171.7
Last amended by 91 FR 49315, Aug. 4, 2026
The list of outside standards the hazardous materials rules adopt by reference.
49 CFR 173.307
Last amended by 91 FR 49315, Aug. 4, 2026
Headed "Exceptions for compressed gases", and the heading is much wider than the section. What it takes out of the hazardous materials rules is carbonated beverages, tires inflated no higher than their rated pressure, balls used for sports, refrigerating machines and their components within stated quantity limits, small manufactured articles containing inert gas, and light bulbs. There is nothing in it about a cylinder on a service truck.
That last one is the reason this section is written out rather than summarized. A heading reading "Exceptions for compressed gases" on a page telling you a hazmat rule moved is exactly the sentence a welder with oxygen and acetylene behind the cab would go and read as relief, and it is not. Both sections point at ANSI and ASHRAE refrigerant standards, which is the only thread the copy on disk shows between them, and it is not enough to tell you what the document did.
So: if you move hazardous materials, read 91 FR 49315 itself. The hazardous materials rules are not in this watch, I have not read that change the way I read the parts above, and nothing here should be taken as a review of it.
How this page is built, and what it cannot see
Titles 29, 40 and 49 of the Code of Federal Regulations are downloaded to a machine here and read locally. That is on purpose. A web reader summarizes, and a summary is exactly where a changed word gets smoothed away; an incomplete capture and a deleted phrase look identical once they reach a page. Working from the file means a quote is compared against the rule rather than against a description of it.
Four things are read. The first is the credit line: most sections that have been amended since their part was published carry one, and the last document named in it is the one that last touched that section. The second is the Effective Date Note, which is where the CFR records an amendment to a section that is suspended, and which is the only reason 49 CFR 390.5 appears in this entry at all. The third is a fingerprint of the words themselves, taken once a month and compared against last month's, so a change that neither of the first two announces still shows up. The fourth is the pointer the CFR prints on a section when an amendment has been published in the Federal Register and has not yet reached the text, which is how this page can tell you that nothing is waiting as well as that nothing has landed.
For this entry, three of the four ran. The fingerprint is the one that did not, because it is taken from now on and there was nothing to compare this month's against. From October onward there will be.
Here is where all of that stops working, and I would rather you know the shape of the gap than trust the page further than it goes.
- A section with no credit line of its own usually carries no amendment date of its own. Across the eleven parts above there are 681 sections and appendices, and 226 have none. In the eight parts the August 2026 entry covers, 93 of 315 have none. Seven of the 226, four of them among the 93, do carry a date, in an Effective Date Note recording that the section was suspended. For the rest, that is not evidence that nothing happened to them. It is the absence of evidence either way, and it is why the fingerprint exists.
- A credit line can be stale even when it is there. 49 CFR 390.5 was amended on July 21, 2026 and its credit line reads 1988, because the section is suspended and the CFR records the amendment elsewhere. Reading the Effective Date Notes is the answer to that one and it is now part of the method, but it is a good illustration of why one instrument is never enough.
- A single copy cannot show a removal. A section that was taken out leaves nothing behind to read. From the second entry onward the fingerprint catches that; this first entry could not have.
- A rule published in the month with a later effective date is not in the copy yet, but it is no longer invisible. The text arrives when it takes effect. Until then the CFR prints a pointer on the section saying an amendment has been published, and those pointers are read. In the copy behind this entry there are 111 of them in the whole of Title 49, 87 of them dated in August 2026, and none at all in the parts this watch covers. What that cannot tell you is what the document said, only that one is coming.
- A change that does not change the words of the rule is invisible here. An FMCSA exemption, a waiver, an emergency declaration that suspends hours of service after a storm, a piece of agency guidance: all of those change what you owe without moving a comma in the CFR, and none of them will ever appear on this page. In this basin they are common, and a blizzard declaration is the one you are most likely to meet.
- This is a note, not advice. It tells you a section moved and points you at the document. It does not tell you what your company owes, and the sections it names are the ones I watch, not the only ones that can reach you.
The entry above was written on September 17, 2026, and the copy behind it was current through September 1, 2026, so it covers the whole of August. Where a future entry rests on a copy that does not reach the end of the month, the entry will say so and stop there rather than print a date it cannot cite.
Where this ends up in the app
If F&H STAC runs your compliance suite, the rules on this page are the ones behind your driver qualification files, your drug and alcohol records, your accident register and your vehicle maintenance module. A change here is a change I have to read against those modules, and that is a large part of why this page exists at all: writing it every month is what makes sure somebody actually looks.