Tell HN: Regulations.gov Comments API is shutting down on Friday

8 points by sadmiralakbar 11 hours ago

Subject: Regulations.gov API Date: August 11, 2025 at 10:15:00 AM EDT To: undisclosed-recipients:;

Good morning,

If you are on this distribution list, you have previously been approved to use the POST method for the Regulations.gov API. This is used by third parties to aggregate and electronically submit comments on behalf of a group or constituency.

As of Friday, the POST method will no longer be allowed for all users with the exception of approved use cases by federal agencies. Any attempted submissions will result in a 403 error response.

We apologize for not being able to provide advanced notice. I wanted to reach out to the impacted API key holders as early as possible. We are in the process of updating the references to our POST API on Regulations.gov and https://open.gsa.gov/api/regulationsgov/.

Please note that your groups and constituencies can still submit comments through our web user interface on Regulations.gov.

codingdave 5 hours ago

> This is used by third parties to aggregate and electronically submit comments on behalf of a group or constituency.

So... lobbyists? Is that who uses this API? I don't have enough knowledge or context of how this is used, when, or by who in order to know if this change is good or bad. I tend to assume everything is bad these days, but more info to clarify it all would be helpful.