Law Gaps Blog
Research and analysis on regulatory ambiguity, legal gaps, and AI-powered policy intelligence.
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Regulatory Analysis
OSHA’s 2026 Deregulatory Hearings Highlight a Process Gap Before Final Rule Text
OSHA’s hearing schedule creates a process gap where organizations may start scenario planning before final deregulatory text exists, while existing obligations remain in effect.
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Regulatory Analysis
PFAS Superfund and the Municipal Passive-Receiver Gap: Liability Without Exemption
EPA's 2024 CERCLA designation of PFOA and PFOS exposes municipalities, POTWs, and airports to Superfund liability they did not create. Enforcement discretion shields them for now — but it is not a statutory exemption and can be withdrawn at any time.
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Regulatory Analysis
OSHA's Heat Standard Gap: Federal Worker Protection Still Depends on the General Duty Clause
OSHA proposed a heat illness prevention rule in August 2024, but no specific federal heat standard is yet in effect. Workers in federal OSHA states remain protected only by the residual general duty clause — a gap that affects tens of millions of workers.
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Regulatory Analysis
The Stablecoin AML Rule Is Open for Comment, but the Compliance Boundary Is Still Blurry
Federal proposed rules for payment stablecoin issuers are active. The hard part now is operating in the transition window where obligations are visible but implementation details are still moving.
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Regulatory Analysis
The No Surprises Act IDR Gap: Vacated Rules, Enforcement Discretion, and Unresolved Payment Disputes
Key provisions of the No Surprises Act's independent dispute resolution regulations have been vacated by federal courts. Agencies are operating on enforcement discretion while the Fifth Circuit considers the case en banc — leaving the IDR payment framework legally fragile.
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Regulatory Analysis
After Ryan LLC: The Federal Noncompete Vacuum and the State-Law Patchwork That Replaced It
The FTC's 2024 noncompete rule was vacated by a federal court and abandoned by the agency. No federal prohibition on noncompetes exists. Workers and employers now navigate a fragmented 50-jurisdiction patchwork with no federal floor.
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Regulatory Analysis
GAO Says Federal AI Privacy Guidance Still Leaves a Real Compliance Gap
A March 2026 GAO report says OMB's government-wide AI guidance does not fully address known privacy risks and leaves multiple agency challenges unresolved. That's not a theoretical policy problem. It's a live governance gap.
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Regulatory Analysis
NHTSA's June 3 Rule Batch Shows a Preemption Gap That Still Isn't Settled
NHTSA's June 3, 2026 final rule package looked administrative at first glance: obsolete language removed from long-standing safety standards. But the Federal Register text spends real time on preemption, common-law liability, and conflict analysis.
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Regulatory Analysis
After Loper Bright: How the End of Chevron Deference Is Widening Federal Regulatory Gaps
The Supreme Court's 2024 Loper Bright decision ended Chevron deference. Combined with the major questions doctrine from West Virginia v. EPA, it's creating a compliance landscape where agency authority is contested across entire regulatory domains — and AI regulation is the clearest case study.
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Regulatory Analysis
The OCC's Escrow Preemption Ruling: A New Federal-State Gap in Mortgage Servicing
The OCC issued a final preemption determination overriding state interest-on-escrow laws for national banks. Borrowers in 11 states with stronger state protections now fall into a federal-state gap that servicers and regulators are still mapping.
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Regulatory Analysis
The PFAS Private Well Gap: Federal Drinking Water Rules Stop at the Property Line
EPA's 2024 PFAS maximum contaminant levels under 40 CFR Part 141 apply only to public water systems. Roughly 43 million Americans on private wells have no enforceable federal PFAS standard — a structural gap written into the Safe Drinking Water Act.
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Research
The Gaps in the Law You Didn't Know Existed
Every piece of legislation creates zones of legal ambiguity — spaces between what is regulated and what isn't. We break down the three structural categories of legal gaps and explain why AI is uniquely positioned to map them.