Short Takes – 7-30-26 - Federal Register Editon

EPA  

Proposed Information Collection Request; Comment Request; Facility Ground-Water Monitoring Requirements, EPA ICR No. 0959.18, OMB Control No. 2050-0033. EPA 60-day ICR renewal notice. Summary: “Owners or operators that conduct ground-water monitoring are required to report information to the oversight agencies on releases of contaminants and to maintain records of ground-water monitoring data at their facilities. The goal of the ground-water monitoring program is to prevent and quickly detect releases of hazardous contaminants to groundwater, and to establish a program whereby any contamination is expeditiously cleaned up as necessary to protect human health and environment.” 

1,1,2-Trichloroethane Draft Risk Evaluation Under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA); Notice of Availability and Request for Comment. EPA draft risk evaluation notice. Summary: “The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or Agency) is announcing the availability of and seeking public comment on the draft risk evaluation under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) for 1,1,2-trichloroethane. The purpose of risk evaluations under TSCA is to determine whether a chemical substance presents an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment under the conditions of use (COUs), including unreasonable risk to potentially exposed or susceptible subpopulations identified as relevant to the risk evaluation by EPA, and without consideration of costs or non-risk factors. EPA is seeking comment on the draft risk evaluation for 1,1,2-trichloroethane.” 

Space Geek  

Waiver of Specified Statutory Requirements for Commercial Space Launch and Reentry Actions. FAA notice of proposed rulemaking. Summary: “FAA proposes to amend its commercial space licensing regulations to streamline the licensing process and reduce regulatory burden for applicants. Specifically, FAA proposes to invoke the Secretary of Transportation's statutory authority to waive requirements of laws of the U.S. for a license or permit, after consultation with the head of the appropriate executive agency, when the requirement is not necessary to protect the public health and safety, safety of property, and national security and foreign policy interests of the United States. FAA proposes waiving requirements under 13 laws for commercial space licenses and permits to operate a launch site, licenses to operate a reentry site, experimental permits, and licenses to operate a launch or reentry vehicle.” 

UAS 

Notice of Availability of the Final Programmatic Environmental Assessment and FONSI/ROD. FAA notice of availability. Summary: “The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announces the availability of the Final Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA) and Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI)/Record of Decision (ROD), following the FAA's evaluation of the potential environmental effects of its decision related to unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) (drone) package delivery operations in the United States.” 

Executive Orders 

EO 14416 - Restoring Trust in the Smithsonian Institution – Federal Register. 

OMB Approves BIS Drone Export Final Rule

Yesterday the OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) announced that it had approved a final rule from the DOC’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) on “Streamlining Export Controls for Drone Exports”. The final rule was sent to OIRA on June 11th, 2026. The interim final rule for this rulemaking was published on January 21st, 2026. 

According to the 2026 Unified Agenda entry for this rulemaking:  

“The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) is easing export controls on certain civil Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and related technologies, which currently need a license to be exported to most countries. In particular, this interim final rule (IFR): a) allows less sensitive UAVs namely, commercial UAVs with a maximum endurance of less than one hour, for which there is broad foreign availability to be exported to most Wassenaar Arrangement Participating States (Country Group A:1) without a license; and b) allows more capable non-military UAVs namely, certain long-range cargo delivery and agricultural spraying drones to be exported to certain U.S. partners and allies (Country Group A:5) under License Exception Strategic Trade Authorization (STA). Exports pursuant to License Exception STA are subject to notification and reporting requirements to ensure the security of the exports. BIS is making these changes pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 14307 [link added], Unleashing American Drone Dominance.”” 

I will not be covering this rulemaking in any detail, but I do expect that notification of its publication in the Federal Register will be reported in the appropriate Short Takes post. 

FAA Sends UAS BVLOS Final Rule to OMB

On Friday, the OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) announced that it had received a final rule from the DOT’s Federal Aviation Administration on “Normalizing Unmanned Aircraft Systems Beyond Visual Line of Sight Operations”. The notice of proposed rulemaking was published on August 7th, 2025. 

According to the 2026 Unified Agenda entry for this rulemaking: 

“This action proposes performance-based regulations enabling the design and operation of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) at low altitudes beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) and for third-party services, to include UAS Traffic Management (UTM), that support these operations. The FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 directs the development of this proposed rule. This proposed rule is necessary to support the integration of UAS into the national airspace system (NAS). This proposed rule is intended to provide a predictable and clear pathway for safe, routine, and scalable UAS operations that include package delivery, agriculture, aerial surveying, civic interest, operations training, demonstration, recreation, and flight testing.” 

As I noted in a CFSN Detailed Analysis post the NPRM included security language from the TSA. I reported that: “The preamble notes that: ‘While FAA and TSA are issuing a joint proposed rulemaking, the agencies intend to concurrently issue separate final rules.’” That separate rulemaking was listed in the 2026 Unified Agenda, but there has been no announcement of its being sent to OIRA at this time. 

Review - 2026 Unified Agenda – FAA and UAS

As I mentioned on Sunday, last week the Administration published their 2026 Unified Agenda. The DOT’s Agenda page lists 36 rulemakings from the Federal Aviation Administration. Five of those address uncrewed aircraft system (UAS) rulemakings. There are no DOT inactive rulemakings. There are just two completed FAA actions; neither of which deal with UAS regulations. 

Those five UAS rulemakings are: 

Commentary  

These five rulemakings related to UAS operations, even the fixed site designation rule, have the common thread of solidifying the place of uncrewed systems in the regulation of the national airspace. This will make counter UAS operations that much more complicated as law enforcement will have to contend with identifying whether a suspect UAS has a legal purpose in the airspace where it is operating. 

For more information on these five rulemakings, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/2026-unified-agenda-faa-and-uas - subscription required. 

Review - FAA UAS Facility NPRM – Critical Infrastructure Qualifications

The FAA recently published a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) that would allow critical infrastructure facilities to apply to the agency for designation as a unmanned aircraft flight restrictions (UAFR) zone, in accordance with the requirements of § 2209, of the FAA Extension, Safety and Security Act of 2016 {PL 114-190 (130 STAT. 634)}. This post looks at the critical infrastructure requirements that a facility must meet to successfully apply for such a designation. 

Earlier posts about this NPRM include: 

PHMSA Publishes UAS Facility Restriction NPRM, and 

FAA UAS Facility NPRM – UAFR Descriptions. 

The FAA was specifically tasked with establishing a process for critical infrastructure facilities to request UAFR designation. The problem faced by the FAA is that there are no current definitions of critical infrastructure that would help the FAA select the critical infrastructure facilities that would justify limiting access to the National Air Space. 

To deal with this problem, the FAA is proposing to establish specific criteria for each critical infrastructure sector to identify those facilities. Those criteria are outlined in Subpart C of the proposed Part 74. They include: 

• Chemical Sector (§ 74.81) 

• Commercial Facilities Sector (§ 74.82), 

• Communications Sector (§ 74.83), 

• Critical Manufacturing Sector (§ 74.84), 

• Dams Sector (§ 74.85), 

• Defense Industrial Base Sector (§ 74.86), 

• Emergency Services Sector (§ 74.87), 

• Energy Sector (§ 74.88), 

• Financial Services Sector (§ 74.89), 

• Food and Agriculture Sector (§ 74.90), 

• Government Services and Facilities Sector (§ 74.91), 

• Healthcare and Public Health Sector (§ 74.92), 

• Information Technology Sector (§ 74.93), 

• Nuclear Reactors, Materials, and Waste Sector (§ 74.94), 

• Transportation Systems Sector (§ 74.95), 

• Water and Wastewater Systems Sector (§ 74.96) 

For more information on these sector criteria, including a detailed look at the chemical sector requirements, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/faa-uas-facility-nprm-critical-infrastructure - subscription required.