Acceptable Payment Methods

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement</SUBAGY> <CFR>30 CFR Part 870</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket ID: OSM 2023-0010; S1D1S SS08011000 SX064A000 245S180110;S2D2S SS08011000 SX064A000 24XS501520]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1029-AC25</RIN> <SUBJECT>Acceptable Payment Methods</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Direct final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE) is issuing this direct final rule to amend its regulations by reducing the threshold for electronic payment of quarterly Abandoned Mine Land (AML) reclamation fees from $25,000 to $500. On April 30, 2024, the U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury) will close OSMRE's lockbox, which is used to process non-electronic reclamation fee payments. After April 15, 2024, quarterly reclamation fees of $500 or more must be paid by electronic transfer, while quarterly reclamation fees of less than $500 may be paid by electronic transfer or by check or money order sent to OSMRE's Division of Financial Management. By reducing the threshold for electronic payments, OSMRE will receive more payments through electronic funds transfer, which will expedite and streamline its fee collection efforts. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This direct final rule is effective April 15, 2024, without further notice, unless OSMRE receives significant adverse comment by March 7, 2024. If OSMRE receives a significant adverse comment that leads it to conclude that the rule is controversial, OSMRE will publish a timely withdrawal in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Send written comments identified by docket number OSM-2023-0010 or regulation identifier number (RIN) 1029-AC25 by the following method: • <E T="03">Federal e-Rulemaking Portal: https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Follow the instructions for submitting comments to docket number OSM-2023-0010. • <E T="03">U.S. Postal Service or other mail delivery service:</E> Address comments to Division of Regulatory Support, Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, Department of the Interior, Attn: James Tyree, 1849 C Street NW, Mail Stop 4557, Washington, DC 20240. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> James Tyree, Chief, Division of Regulatory Support, (202) 208-4479, <E T="03">jtyree@osmre.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Direct Final Rulemaking</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Discussion</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Procedural Matters and Required Determinations</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> Title IV of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMCRA) (30 U.S.C. 1231-1244) created the Abandoned Mine Reclamation Fund, which is funded in part by a reclamation fee (also known as the Abandoned Mine Land (AML) fee) assessed on each ton of coal produced in the United States, and that, among other things, provides funding to eligible States and Tribes for the reclamation of coal mining sites abandoned or left in an inadequate reclamation status as of August 3, 1977. Section 402(b) of SMCRA (30 U.S.C. 1232(b)) requires coal mine operators and/or permittees to pay reclamation fees no later than thirty days after the end of each calendar quarter. OSMRE collects these fees from coal mine operators and/or permittees through electronic funds transfer and non-electronic payments. Currently, coal mine operators and/or permittees are required to send non-electronic fee payments to OSMRE's lockbox in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In April 2018, Treasury's Bureau of the Fiscal Service published a white paper titled, “The Future of Federal Financial Management,” which outlined an initiative to transform Federal collections by, among other things, reducing revenue collection lockboxes and increasing digitization. Subsequently, OSMRE received notice from Treasury's General Lockbox Network (GLN) that it intended to close OSMRE's lockbox by September 30, 2023, as part of its effort to close all lockboxes functioning below a minimum item threshold of 1,000 items. (OSMRE's lockbox receives fewer than 400 items annually.) The GLN is a collection and processing service provided by certain financial institutions to help federal government agencies process paper checks and other remittance documents (not related to taxes) that are received through the mail. To allow time to amend its regulations, OSMRE requested a lockbox closure extension until April 30, 2024, which Treasury approved. OSMRE is promulgating this direct final rule pursuant to section 413(a) of SMCRA (30 U.S.C. 1242(a)), which authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to do all things necessary or expedient, including promulgation of rules and regulations, to implement and administer the provisions of SMCRA relating to abandoned mine reclamation. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Direct Final Rulemaking</HD> OSMRE is issuing this rule as a direct final rule. Although the Administrative Procedure Act (APA, 5 U.S.C. 551-559) generally requires agencies to engage in notice and comment rulemaking, section 553 of the APA provides an exception when the agency “for good cause finds” that notice and comment are “impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest.” <E T="03">Id.</E> 553(b)(B). OSMRE has determined that notice and comment are unnecessary because this rule is noncontroversial; of a minor, technical nature; involves little agency discretion; and is unlikely to receive any significant adverse comments. A significant adverse comment is one that explains: (1) why the rule is inappropriate, including challenges to the rule's underlying premise or approach; or (2) why the direct final rule will be ineffective or unacceptable without a change. If such a comment is received, this direct final rule will be withdrawn. If no such comment is received, this direct final rule will become effective on April 15, 2024, without further OSMRE action. A comment recommending an addition to the rule will not be considered significant and adverse unless the comment explains how this direct final rule would be ineffective without the addition. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Discussion</HD> OSMRE is amending 30 CFR 870.16 to: (1) reduce the threshold for electronic payment of quarterly AML fees; (2) update the instructions for remitting both electronic and non-electronic payment; and (3) remove paragraph (c). OSMRE is amending 30 CFR 870.16(a) and (b) to reduce the threshold for electronic payment of quarterly AML fees from $25,000 to $500. By reducing the threshold, OSMRE will receive more payments through electronic funds transfer, which will expedite and streamline its fee collection efforts and align with Treasury's initiative to transform Federal collections. However, coal mine operators and/or permittees who owe quarterly AML fees in an amount below the electronic payment threshold ($500) may still pay those fees using non-electronic methods. In addition, OSMRE is amending 30 CFR 870.16(a)(3) by updating the instructions for locating the Master Entity Number on the OSM-1 form to read “Part 1-Block 3” instead of “Part 1-Block 4” and by revising “on the wire message” to read “with the electronic payment.” OSMRE is also amending 30 CFR 870.16(b)(2) by removing the lockbox address and directing coal mine operators and/or permittees to send non-electronic payments to the address indicated in the “Instructions for Completing the OSM-1 Form.” Relying on the “Instructions for Completing the OSM-1 Form” to communicate the location where coal mine operators and/or permittees must send non-electronic reclamation fee payments will allow OSMRE to update the location for non-electronic payments in the future without requiring OSMRE to further amend its regulations. Finally, OSMRE is amending 30 CFR 870.16 by removing paragraph (c), which explains that payment of reclamation fees over the electronic payment threshold by any means other than electronic funds transfer is a violation of SMCRA. As SMCRA clearly requires that coal mine operators and/or permittees pay reclamation fees and the Federal regulations clearly prescribe how those fee payments must be made, paragraph (c) is unnecessary. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Who is impacted by this rulemaking?</HD> This direct final rule will impact coal mine operators and/or permittees who use non-electronic methods to pay the reclamation fees required under Title IV of SMCRA. However, ninety-eight percent (98%) of OSMRE's total collections are already paid through electronic fund transfer mechanisms. This direct final rule will not affect those operators and/or permittees. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Why is the effective date of the rule April 15, 2024?</HD> An effective date of April 15, 2024, will afford OSMRE the time necessary to deliver and process payments submitted to the lockbox before its closure on April 30, 2024. <HD SOURCE="HD2">What if I send a payment to the lockbox after April 15, 2024?</HD> OSMRE will continue to process payments submitted to the lockbox between April 15 and April 30, 2024. However, if you submit a payment to the lockbox after April 30, 2024, it will be returned to you, and you will be required to submit payment to the address indicated in the “Instructions for Completing the OSM-1 Form” or through electronic funds transfer. If your reclamation fees are due and you fail to submit payment through either of the acceptable payment methods by the due date, your payment will be considered late and may be subject to one or more of the actions specified in 30 CFR 870.21. <HD SOURCE="HD1">I ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 20k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━