More Withdrawn Rulemakings – 1-22-25

Yesterday, in accordance with the President’s order on regulatory reviews (still no EO number), 25 rulemakings were reported (EO Review Search Criteria: Agencies=All;   Review Status=Concluded;   Concluded from 01/20/2025)‘Withdrawn’ by the OMB on their Reginfo.gov website. This includes three rulemakings of potential interest here:

There are still 24 ‘active’ rulemakings listed on the RegInfo.gov site. One of those, a DOE notice of proposed rulemaking on “Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Incentive Program” may be of interest here. It is not clear at this point whether or not any of the remaining rules will be withdrawn today.

Technically, Trumps order did not require any action on rulemakings sent to the OMB for review, only on rulemakings sent to the Office of the Federal Register. Still, it is clear that agency review by Trump Administration appointees of these rules would be expected. It is not clear from the information on this web site if these rulemakings were withdrawn at the submitting agency’s request or whether they were directed to be withdrawn by the OMB.

The most concerning withdrawal, in my opinion, is the FAA rule that would have established the criteria and procedures for the operator or proprietor of eligible fixed site facilities to apply to the FAA for an unmanned aircraft-specific flight restriction. This rule was congressionally mandated {§2209 of the the FAA Extension, Safety and Security Act of 2016 (PL 114-190, 130 Stat. 634)} to be in place almost eight years ago. The chemical industry (and many others, to be sure) has been begging the FAA to issue this rule so that they could get some protection of their airspace from UAS intrusions. While I have not seen the language submitted to OMB, I would think that allowing this rulemaking to continue would have been under the discretionary authority provided to the OMB Director or Acting Director under Trump’s order.