OMB Still Reviewing PHMSA Oil Spill ANPRM

I was sure that I must have missed the OMB notice that their Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) had approved the PHMSA ANPRM for Revisions to Oil Spill Prevention and Response Plans for Rail Transport that was published in Friday’s Federal Register. This morning I just went back and checked the OIRA web site and that ANPRM is still under review.

It is more than a little odd that the three Administration agencies; PHMSA, OIRA, and Federal Register; are acting in such an uncoordinated manner. I suspect that someone at DOT decided that the two rules (the HHFT NPRM and the Oil Spill ANPRM) just had to be published together and damn the niceties of the regulatory approval process.

It will be interesting to see how the Administration decides to deal with this. Do they ignore the regulatory faux pas or do they withdraw the Oil Spill ANPRM?