The Department of Transportation’s 2026 Regulatory Agenda: Acceleration of Autonomous Vehicle Rulemaking and Future Action on Fuel Economy

On July 7, 2026, the Department of Transportation released its 2026 unified rulemaking agenda. Many of the items on it relate to autonomous driving systems. They signal that the Trump Administration is accelerating its efforts to promote the development and deployment of autonomous technologies, while — with notable exceptions, particularly fuel economy — putting other regulatory efforts on the back burner.

Updates to Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards to Accommodate Automated Driving Systems

The rulemaking agenda lists eight separate rulemakings aimed at “modernizing” a total of ten different Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) so that the standards can account for autonomous vehicles. Six of the affected FMVSS were either previously listed in DOT’s Spring 2025 Unified Agenda, or are already the subject of published proposed rulemakings. But the new agenda includes the modernization of four new FMVSS that had not been previously announced or proposed:

• FMVSS No. 111, “Rear visibility.”
• FMVSS No. 126, “Electronic stability control systems for light vehicles.”
• FMVSS No. 201, “Occupant protection in interior impact.”
• FMVSS No. 208, “Occupant crash protection.”

These proposed rulemakings are likely to be similar in concept to the other currently pending NHTSA rulemakings, as well as an earlier rulemaking finalized in 2022. Each such rulemaking updated several crashworthiness FMVSS to account for vehicles that operate without a human driver behind the wheel, and may lack such driver-focused equipment as a designated driver’s seat, brake pedal, or steering wheel. These rulemakings do not create new safety standards for autonomous operations; rather, they adjust existing standards to account for vehicles that are designed to operate without a human driver.

The new FMVSS rulemakings look to be similarly surgical. For example, the existing FMVSS Nos. 201 and 208 are long and elaborate standards that deal with occupant crash protection. They were already modified substantially in the rulemaking that was completed in 2022. But the new rulemaking for these two standards, according to the agenda, would focus on “the requirement for sun visors,” which may not be necessary in a vehicle without a human driver.

Similarly, FMVSS No. 111 deals with rearview mirrors and backup cameras, whose effectiveness is tested through the detection of test objects. According to the agenda item, the proposed rulemaking would “address the requirements for vehicles equipped with Automated Driving Systems … that lack human drivers, by establishing functional requirements pertaining to detection of the test cylinders.”

Likewise, the agenda item for the rulemaking on FMVSS No. 126 says that the current standard “assumes the presence of a human driver using a steering wheel” and, accordingly, would “address the requirements for vehicles equipped with Automated Driving Systems (ADS) that lack manually operated driving controls.”

More Autonomous Vehicle Rulemakings on the Horizon

In another agenda item, NHTSA put in writing a more ambitious long-term undertaking: an effort to identify substantive performance metrics for automated driving systems. Specifically, the agenda item states:

“This rulemaking would seek public comment on the means to assess the safety performance of vehicles equipped with ADS. NHTSA anticipates ultimately identifying ADS behavioral competencies that will require assessment via tests that are objective, practicable, and repeatable. Such tests are expected to address, among other things: (1) the concept of operations for ADS operations; and (2) the operational areas under which ADS would be the sole driver of an ADS-equipped vehicle. NHTSA will also identify metrics to predict and to track safety outcomes associated with each behavioral competency, and methods and means of assessment.”

This effort is, according to the agenda, in the pre-rule stage, with no proposed rule pending or imminent. This announcement follows other press releases and public statements from the agency stating that such a rulemaking is under consideration.

The Department of Transportation’s Spring 2025 agenda also includes several other notable items relevant to autonomous technology:

• NHTSA’s ADS-Equipped Vehicle Safety, Transparency, and Evaluation Program (AV STEP), a rulemaking proposed at the end of the Biden Administration in January 2025, is still technically pending. But NHTSA recently published a notice withdrawing the proposal.
• The agenda also still includes a proposed rule that would largely codify the agency’s Standing General Order (SGO) 2021-01, which requires manufacturers and operators of vehicles equipped with autonomous capabilities or SAE Level 2 ADAS (advanced driver assistance systems) to report crash information involving those vehicles.
• NHTSA is still developing a proposed rule to expand a program that allows vehicles to be exempted from the FMVSS if the vehicles are used for “purposes of research, investigations, demonstrations, training, competitive racing events, show, or display, but not sale or lease.” The proposed rule would expand the availability of the exemptions to domestic manufacturers. Even though the rule is still in progress, NHTSA has already recently begun to grant such exemptions to domestic autonomous vehicle companies.

Other Major Pending Rulemakings

Some of the other items in the 2026 agenda provided a reminder that DOT has other major rulemakings in the works:

Three rulemakings relate to automatic emergency braking (AEB): First an NHTSA rulemaking would modify the initial compliance date and testing requirements in FMVSS No. 127, which requires AEB systems in light vehicles. Second, NHTSA and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) plan to issue a supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking for AEB on heavy trucks — a rulemaking that has already been pending for three years. Both of these items were on the last version of the agenda released on September 2025, and they are still pending. But a third AEB-related rulemaking is new: “rulemaking seeks public comments on a potential regulatory action rule to exempt passenger vehicles equipped with [AEB] sensors and Crash Avoidance Technologies (CAT) sensors from current bumper standard requirements.”

In addition, the comment period has closed on NHTSA’s effort to update Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) and NHTSA is working on the final rule. In December 2025, NHTSA proposed a significant reduction in the stringency of CAFE standards, and a final rule may be coming before the end of this year.

Finally, and notably, NHTSA has another new rulemaking relating to fuel economy that is not on the Unified Agenda. OMB’s website includes an entry titled “Further Resetting NHTSA’s Fuel Economy Program” which, according to the entry, is at the final rule stage. The listing provides no detail on the rule’s content beyond the title, but it may be a follow-on to an Interpretive Rule that NHTSA published in June 2025, which was similarly titled “Resetting the Corporate Average Fuel Economy Program.”

Takeaways:

• In its rulemaking efforts, NHTSA, and DOT more generally, are all-in on autonomous vehicles. No less than fifteen of the NHTSA and FMCSA rulemakings on the 2026 agenda are focused on AVs. Apart from modifying CAFE standards, this is the major policy objective of the agency’s current leadership. Other rulemaking endeavors are taking a back seat, so to speak.
• Companies and organizations involved in autonomous and AEB technology should pay close attention to these rulemakings as they progress and provide input on the best language for modifying the FMVSS. The FMVSS set strict design and performance requirements for all vehicles that operate on public roads in the United States. Once proposed rules are published, interested stakeholders should read the proposed regulatory text carefully, identifying any concerns. Where necessary, they should submit comments during the designated public comment period and, as appropriate, engage with the agency and the public about the rulemaking.
• Substantive AV performance standards are still further in the future. NHTSA has acknowledged that it would be a major undertaking to develop them. With even a proposed rulemaking far off, it is not at all clear that those standards will be finalized in the current Administration.
• NHTSA’s new off-agenda rulemaking on fuel economy may herald significant additional changes to the agency’s fuel economy programs.
• The agenda characterizes the FMVSS, CAFE, and AEB rulemakings as “Deregulatory” under Executive Order 14192. This executive order (EO 14192) provides that “whenever an executive department or agency … publicly proposes for notice and comment or otherwise promulgates a new regulation, it shall identify at least 10 existing regulations to be repealed,” and that “any new incremental costs associated with new regulations shall … be offset by the elimination of existing costs associated with at least 10 prior regulations.” To the extent these proposed rulemakings are considered to constitute the “repeal” of existing regulations or to reduce costs, they may pave the way for new regulations.

This post is as of the posting date stated above. Sidley Austin LLP assumes no duty to update this post or post about any subsequent developments having a bearing on this post.