Dear Fellow Citizen,

We’re writing to you about a rare opportunity—one that happens quietly, without fanfare, but with real consequences for how healthcare will work in the age of artificial intelligence.

On August 7, 2026, the Department of Health and Human Services published exactly such a document. It proposes to rescind the Head Start Program Performance Standards — the operating rulebook for a program serving roughly 800,000 children and pregnant women — and replace five parts of the Code of Federal Regulations with one.

You have until October 6, 2026 to tell the government what you think. This piece explains why that matters, what the law actually requires the agency to do with what you say, and how to write something that carries weight.

Part One: The Administrative Procedure Act

What it is

The Administrative Procedure Act, enacted in 1946 and codified at 5 U.S.C. §§ 551–559, establishes how federal agencies make, change, and enforce regulations. It emerged from a New Deal–era worry that has only grown since: Congress delegates enormous authority to agencies staffed by people no one elected, and something has to keep that authority tethered to the public.

The APA’s answer was procedure. Agencies must say what they intend to do before they do it, must let the public respond, must explain themselves, and must submit to judicial review if they fail.

Why it matters to a democracy

A constitutional system rests on separated powers and the rule of law. But agencies exercise powers that look legislative (writing binding rules) and judicial (adjudicating disputes) without standing for election. The APA prevents them from becoming an unaccountable fourth branch by requiring that their power be exercised in the open.

This is not a theoretical safeguard. In Citizens to Preserve Overton Park v. Volpe (1971), the Supreme Court held that agency action is reviewable and must be based on a considered record. In Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Ass’n v. State Farm (1983), the Court set the standard still used today: an agency acts arbitrarily and capriciously if it fails to consider an important aspect of the problem, ignores relevant evidence, or offers an explanation that runs counter to the record before it. An agency that changes a longstanding rule must give reasons for the change — it cannot simply assert a new preference.

Notice and comment: Section 553

The core mechanism is deceptively simple. When an agency proposes a substantive rule, § 553 requires it to:

1. Publish notice in the Federal Register describing the proposal, its legal basis, and its supporting data.

2. Open a comment period — typically 30 to 60 days — during which anyone may submit input.

3. Consider the comments and respond to the significant ones in the preamble to the final rule.

• Explain its reasoning in a way a court can review.

That third step is where citizen participation acquires legal force. An agency need not agree with you. It must engage with you. A significant comment that goes unanswered is a defect in the rule.

One correction worth making

An earlier article used a Request for Information as its example. That distinction matters and is worth stating plainly, because it changes what the agency owes you.

An RFI is a pre-rulemaking tool. It gathers input before anything is proposed. Agencies are not bound by § 553 when issuing one, and the duty to respond is weak.

An NPRM — a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking — is the real thing. The Head Start rescission is an NPRM. Full § 553 obligations attach. The agency must consider significant comments and must respond to them in the final rule. If it doesn’t, the rule is vulnerable.

Your comment on this rule carries more legal weight than a comment on an RFI. Considerably more.

What the end of Chevron changed

For forty years, under Chevron v. NRDC (1984), courts deferred to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous statute it administered. In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (2024), the Supreme Court overruled Chevron. Courts now exercise independent judgment about what a statute means.

This makes public comments more consequential, not less. Two reasons:

• Statutory arguments now land harder. A comment demonstrating that a rule conflicts with the text of its authorizing statute no longer has to overcome a thumb on the scale for the agency.

• The record still governs. State Farm review of the agency’s reasoning is untouched by Loper Bright. The administrative record — built from comments — remains the field on which the rule is judged.

Corner Post v. Board of Governors (2024) also extended the window in which some plaintiffs may challenge a rule, further increasing the shelf life of a well-built comment record.

The record is the point

Even a comment that does not change the agency’s mind does work. It becomes part of the administrative record the agency must consider and a court will later examine.

Two HHS cases make this concrete. In Stewart v. Azar (D.D.C. 2018) and Gresham v. Azar (D.D.C. 2019), federal courts vacated the Secretary’s approval of state Medicaid work requirements, finding that HHS had failed to adequately consider evidence and comments about how many people would lose coverage. The D.C. Circuit affirmed. Comments submitted by ordinary people and organizations became the evidence that the agency had not grappled with what it was told.

Your comment may be read by a judge in 2028. Write it accordingly.

Part Two: The Head Start Rescission as a Case Example

What is proposed

Docket ACF-2026-0595 · RIN 0970-AD30 · 91 FR 51248 · Comments due October 6, 2026

The rule would rescind 45 CFR Parts 1301 through 1305 in their entirety, replacing them with a single consolidated Part 1301. ACF states this removes more than 1,400 regulatory provisions.

The agency’s position: the Performance Standards became so detailed that programs focus on compliance rather than service. Statutory requirements remain fully binding. State early childhood systems have matured. Savings can be reinvested into serving more children — ACF projects roughly $2.2 billion annually at full implementation in 2031, potentially supporting about 116,500 additional Head Start Preschool slots and 45,600 Early Head Start slots.

The critics’ position: deferring to state licensing is not a lateral move but a downward one, because Head Start’s standards are more demanding than nearly every state’s. “Flexibility” under flat funding resolves predictably in one direction. And the projected savings only materialize if programs actually reduce service intensity — which is the thing being denied.

Both accounts are available from the same document. You are entitled to reach your own.

Why the First 1000 Days Initiative is engaging

Early Head Start serves pregnant women and children from birth to age three — almost exactly the window from conception to the second birthday that Moonshot Press’ First 1000 Days of Life Initiative exists to address. The provisions touching that window are specific:

• The requirement to schedule a newborn visit within two weeks of birth would be removed.

• Health care determinations and assistance navigating insurance would no longer be required.

• Home visitor caseloads, service duration, and make-up visit requirements would be removed, along with all curriculum and instructional design requirements for home visits.

• Monthly mental health consultation would no longer be required.

• The provision addressing disparities in maternal and birth outcomes would be removed.

Not everything moves one direction. The rule adds a minimum physical activity requirement, keeps lead-exposure prevention, requires nutrient-dense whole foods, and retains the requirement that infants be held during bottle feeding. An honest assessment says so.

Part Three: Where Comments Have the Most Leverage on This Rule

Generic opposition will be filed in volume and discounted accordingly. These are the openings that are hard to dismiss.

1. The non-regression clause. The Head Start Act requires that revisions to the Performance Standards “shall not result in the elimination of or any reduction in quality, scope, or types of health, educational, parental involvement, nutritional, social, or other services” required as of December 12, 2007 (42 U.S.C. 9836a(a)(2)(C)(ii)). The NPRM’s Statutory Authority section quotes Sec. 641A(a)(2) selectively, with ellipses, and does not address this subparagraph. After Loper Bright, a statutory argument like this is at its strongest in forty years.

2. The internal tension in the cost analysis. ACF projects $2.2 billion in savings while asserting programs may keep current practices. Both cannot be fully true at scale. Ask which.

3. The administrative cost cap. The rule cuts allowable administrative costs from 15 percent to 5 percent. If programs must meet remaining statutory obligations with a third of the prior administrative capacity, how?

4. Regulatory alternatives. Under State Farm, an agency must consider reasonable alternatives. The NPRM contains such a section. Read it and say whether the alternatives are serious.

5. The questions ACF asked. The agency explicitly requested comment on implementation timing, on how to support states in complying with statute absent the rescinded regulations, on removing the age-documentation provision, on eliminating self-attestation, and on nutrition supports. Comments aimed at questions the agency asked are the hardest to leave unanswered.

6. Local evidence nobody else has. ACF estimates roughly 26 percent of Head Start service locations are not licensed under state child care licensing. If you can document what your state’s licensing standards actually require compared with current Head Start standards — for your county, with real numbers — you are supplying evidence the agency does not have.

Part Four: How to Write a Comment That Counts

Adapted from guidance published by the Office of the Federal Register and regulations.gov.

The comment process is not a vote. Organizations run form-letter campaigns, and many people believe volume decides outcomes. It does not. Agencies decide based on reasoning and evidence. Duplicate mass submissions are often counted once — and sometimes not posted at all. One well-supported comment may carry more weight than a thousand identical letters.

What makes a comment substantive:

• Cite the specific provision. Give the page number, column, and section — “proposed § 1301.05, 91 FR 51266.” Comments tied to specific text are traceable and harder to bundle into a generic response.

• Pick your issues. Seventy-five pages raise dozens. Address the two or three you understand best or that affect you most.

• Say who you are. Head Start teacher, home visitor, pediatrician, parent, program director, licensing specialist. Relevant experience distinguishes your comment from opinion.

• Bring evidence. Data, research, and documented experience. Quantitative comments on economic effects are especially useful, because the agency has published numbers you can test.

• Propose an alternative. If you disagree, say what should happen instead and why it would meet the agency’s stated objective. “Retain the two-week newborn visit requirement while removing X” is more useful than “don’t do this.”

• Address the other side. Acknowledge the strongest version of the agency’s argument and answer it. This is what separates a comment that must be engaged from one that can be waved past.

• Write it yourself. Personal experience is precisely what the agency cannot generate internally, and it is the one thing no form letter provides.

Practical notes. Comments close at 11:59 p.m. Eastern on October 6. Submit through regulations.gov (docket ACF-2026-0595) or by email to Deregulation@acf.hhs.gov with the docket number in the subject line. Keep your own copy. And know that comments are posted publicly without change, including your identity — think about that before including details about your family or your workplace.

Part Five: What Moonshot Press Will Do

Building on the First 1000 Days Initiative and the Project 2026 method:

1. A plain-language Citizen Brief translating the rule — including what it adds, not only what it removes — into something a parent can finish.

2. A scientific review of the evidence on the specific provisions affecting the first 1000 days: newborn visit timing, home visiting intensity, health care navigation, and infant-toddler ratios.

3. A local application. Pennsylvania licensing standards compared with current Head Start standards, site by site in Montgomery County, with an accounting of how many local sites are license-exempt. Concrete evidence for the record that no national organization will produce.

4. A comment clinic teaching people to write comments that count — not distributing a template.

5. A deliberative framework applying the case presentation structure to the rule, so that disagreement is documented rather than resolved by volume.

6. Follow the record. When the final rule publishes, we will read ACF’s responses and assess whether the agency substantively engaged the comments it received. That is the accountability step almost nobody performs — and it is where this method proves itself or doesn’t.

A Closing Note

The barrier to participation here is real. It is seventy-five pages of technical text with a sixty-day clock, and most of the people most affected — parents working multiple jobs, home visitors carrying full caseloads — have the least time to read it.

That asymmetry is exactly the problem the APA was written to address and exactly the problem it does not fully solve on its own. The law guarantees the door is open. It does not walk anyone through it.

That part is up to us.

Resources

• The rule: federalregister.gov, document 2026-16134 (91 FR 51248)

• Submit a comment: regulations.gov, docket ACF-2026-0595

• Why Public Comments Matter — Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation, Harvard Law School

• Step-by-Step Tips for Writing Effective Public Comments — Environmental Law Institute

• A Guide to the Rulemaking Process — Office of the Federal Register

• How to Participate in the Rulemaking Process — HHS Rulemaking Toolkit

This document is a guide, not legal advice.