DHS Spring 2011 Regulatory Agendas Published

The twice a year publication of the Regulatory Agenda in the Federal Register took place today. Each regulatory agency in the Federal Government is required to publish their regulatory flexibility agenda in the Federal Register listing any rule “which is likely to have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities”. A more complete list of all regulatory actions underway can be found at the Unified Agenda web site.

As late as the Fall 2010 Regulatory Agenda the Regulation Information Service Center (RISC) published in the Federal Register a complete listing of the regulatory actions underway or currently planned by the Administration. This year the RISC RFA stopped doing that, relying on the listing on the Unified Agenda web site to fulfill their communications requirement.

Of the regulatory agenda listings in today’s Federal Register that I reviewed, only the DHS Agenda (76 FR 40074-40081) has a potential item of interest to the chemical security. I found nothing of specific interest to the cyber security community.

DHS Regulatory Flexibility Agenda

There is only a single entry in the Spring 2010 DHS Regulatory Flexibility Agenda (RFA) published in today’s Federal Register that may be of possible interest to the chemical security community. That is the Coast Guard’s Updates to Maritime Security (RIN: 1625–AB38). This is the same rule making program that I briefly discussed (okay I referred readers to another blog site that discussed it more authoritatively than I could) last December for the Fall 2010 Regulatory Agenda. The only real difference is that this time DHS reports that the Coast Guard expects to publish a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) for this item this month.

There is nothing in the DHS RFA that addresses cyber security matters.

In a later blog post I’ll look at the entire list of regulations under development or consideration that will be of interest to the chemical and cyber security communities.