DOT Publishes Regulatory Review Notice

Today DOT published a notice in the Federal Register (86 FR 23876-23877) that the Department was seeking public input on the regulatory review DOT is conducting in accordance with two Biden Administration executive orders; EO 13990 – “Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis”, and EO 13992 – “Revocation of Certain Executive Orders Concerning Federal Regulation”. DOT is inviting the public to provide input on existing rules and other agency actions for the Department's consideration regarding consistency with the policies and objectives of these executive orders.

The notice discusses the presidential directives from EO 13990 and EO 13992. It also mentions the specific directive from the President for DOT to review the Liquified Natural Gas by Rail rulemaking finalized last summer.

In requesting these public comments, DOT is looking for specific information about each recommendation. The items of interest listed below are not intended to limit target of recommendations, but rather to ensure that the recommendations will provide actionable items for consideration.

• Specific reference to regulation or agency action,

• Description of the effects of the identified regulation or agency action,

• Description of potential alternative action, and

• Examples of the affected entities or projects.

Comments may be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal (www.Regulations.gov; Docket number DOT-OST-2021-0036). Comments should be submitted by June 4^th, 2021.

DHS Retrospective Review of Existing Regulations

Today the Department of Homeland Security published a notice in the Federal Register (81 FR 70060-70061) requesting public input into the Department’s periodic retrospective review of existing regulations. The regulations included in this review are found in the following Code of Federal Regulations chapters:

• 6 CFR Chapter I;

• 8 CFR Chapter I;

• 19 CFR Chapter I;

• 33 CFR Chapter I;

• 44 CFR Chapter I;

• 46 CFR Chapters I and III; and

• 49 CFR Chapter XII

This includes the following regulations that may be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

• 6 CFR Part 27 - Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards

• 6 CFR Part 29 - Protected Critical Infrastructure Information

• 33 CFR Subchapter H - Maritime Security (Parts 101 - 107)

• 33 CFR Subchapter L - Waterfront Facilities (Parts 125 - 128)

• 33 CFR Subchapter N - Dangerous Cargoes (Parts 140 - 149)

• 33 CFR Subchapter O - Certain Bulk Dangerous Cargoes (Parts 150 - 155)

• 49 CFR Part 1520 - Protection of Sensitive Security Information

• 49 CFR Part 1572 - Credentialing and Security Threat Assessments

• 49 CFR Part 1580 - Rail Transportation Security

DHS notes that:

“DHS will afford significantly greater weight to feedback that identifies specific regulations, includes actionable data, or provides viable alternatives that meet statutory obligations and regulatory objectives. Feedback that simply states that a stakeholder feels strongly that DHS should change a regulation, but does not contain specific information on how the proposed change would impact the costs and benefits of the regulation, is much less useful to DHS. DHS is looking for new information and new economic data to support any proposed changes.” [emphasis in original]

DHS is soliciting public comment based upon specific principles and proposes a series of potential questions that such comments should address. Written comments can be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal (www.Regulations.gov; Docket # DHS-2016-0072). Comments should be submitted by November 11^th, 2016.

DHS Publishes Plan for Review of Regulations

Today the Department of Homeland Security published a notice in the Federal Register noting the public availability of their Preliminary Plan for Retrospective Review of Existing Regulations and requesting public comments on that plan. This plan outlines how the Department expects to comply with Executive Order 13563, “Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review”.

In general, the Department is going to focus its review effort on the regulations written and maintained by the six operational components of DHS with regulatory responsibilities. Those components are:

• Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)
• Coast Guard (USCG or Coast Guard)
• U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
• Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
• U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
• Transportation Security Administration (TSA)

Public Comment Support Plan

DHS had requested public comments on items to be include in this plan back in March. DHS set up an IdeaScale web page to accept such comments as well accepting comments on the Regulations.gov website. Readers of this blog will be interested in the comments received on the CFATS program. Those comments addressed:

• Overlapping jurisdictions covering chemical facility security;

• Application of CFATS to research laboratories;

• Application of CFATS to gasoline; and

• Reducing the burden associated with Chemical-Terrorism Vulnerability Information

The Preliminary Plan addresses the first three comments by stating:

“During the CFATS rulemaking in 2007, commenters raised similar issues, and DHS considered them in the final rule. Regarding the gasoline related issues, DHS issued a Federal Register notice in January 2010, seeking additional comment on several gasoline-related issues; comments received in response to that notice are currently under review. DHS is continuing to review these retrospective review focused comments more closely to determine the appropriateness and scope of retrospective review of the CFATS regulation.”

DHS noted that the CVI issue is being addressed under a separate Executive Order; EO 13556, “Controlled Unclassified Information”.

Regulations to be Reviewed

The Preliminary plan provides three appendixes that list the regulations that are currently covered in the review process. Appendix A lists recently published regulations and Information Collection Requests (ICRs) that DHS is taking credit for having completed this review process. Appendix B lists the regulations and ICRs currently under review for a variety of reasons. Appendix C lists the regulations and ICRs that are candidates for the retrospective review process covered in this Preliminary Plan.

The CFATS regulations are listed in Appendix C.