EPA Sends Sunset Final Rule to OMB

Yesterday the OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) announced that it had received a direct final rule from the EPA on “Initiation of Sunset Dates to Covered Regulations”. This rule was not listed in the Spring 2025 Unified Agenda.

This rulemaking is almost certainly the EPA’s response to EO 14270, Zero-Based Regulatory Budgeting To Unleash American Energy. Section 4(a) of that EO requires listed agencies (including the EPA) to:

“To the extent consistent with applicable law, each of the Covered Agencies shall issue a sunset rule, effective not later than September 30, 2025, that inserts a Conditional Sunset Date into each of their Covered Regulations”

The EPA is one of two ‘covered’ agencies for which the EO does not specify the ‘Covered Regulations’. Instead §3(j) requires the EPA to “shall provide to the President, through the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB Director), a list of statutes vesting EPA and ACE with regulatory authority that shall be subject to this order”. So, at this point it is not clear which EPA statutes inform the selection of regulations for the sunsetting requirements.

Review - FERC Sends Sunset Provisions Direct Final Rule to OMB

Yesterday the OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) announced that it had received a direct final rule from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on “Implementation of the Executive Order [EO 14270] Entitled ‘Zero-Based Regulatory Budgeting to Unleash American Energy’”. This rule was not listed in the Spring 2025 Unified Agenda. Without the information that would be provided in a UA rulemaking listing, we can only guess that this rule would implement the sunset provisions of section 4 of  EO 14270 for all covered existing FERC regulations.

 

For a discussion about the ‘sunset rule’ provisions of EO 14270, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/ferc-sends-sunset-provisions-direct - subscription required.