OMB Receives Two New Rules from Administration

Well, actually OMB received 5 new draft regulations from the Administration yesterday but two just might be of interest to readers of this blog. Unfortunately I can’t tell you much about either of them, or be completely sure I’m interested in them, because they have never been published in the Unified Agenda.

The two proposed rules (presumably going to be notices of proposed rulemaking – NPRM) are from the Coast Guard and DOD respectively. They are:

• Training of Personnel and Manning on Mobile Offshore Units and Offshore Supply Vessels Engaged in U.S. Outer Continental Shelf Activities; and

• Prohibition on Storage and Removal of Toxic and Hazardous Materials--Statutory Update (DFARS Case 2013-D013)

The first one is probably a safety training rule. If it is I won’t be much interested in it unless it also includes security training requirements. The second is just too odd of a title for a DOD rule (even a DFARS related one) that I’ll at least have to look at it.

All administrations have rules that come up outside of the planned rulemaking process, so there is nothing inherently unusual in these not being on the last Unified Agenda, and the last UA was published on July 4^th. But, it seems to me (and I haven’t done any statistical analysis on this so it is just an impression) that the Obama Administration does a lot of rulemaking outside of the Unified Agenda process.