Rights of Way

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>National Park Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>36 CFR Parts 1 and 14</CFR> <DEPDOC>[NPS-WASO-PPFL-36986; PPWOPPFLL0; PPMPSPD1Y.YM0000]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1024-AE75</RIN> <SUBJECT>Rights of Way</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Park Service, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The National Park Service (NPS) proposes to revise regulations governing the application, processing, and issuance of right-of-way (ROW) permits for lands and waters administered by the NPS. A ROW permit authorizes the use of such lands and waters for the operation and maintenance of infrastructure associated with utilities such as fiber, water lines, power lines, and cellular antennas. The proposed changes would align NPS processes more closely with those of other Department of the Interior (DOI) bureaus by allowing for a pre-application meeting, identifying a common standard application form, and broadening methods the NPS can use to determine fair market value. The proposed rule would clarify the process for permitting construction related to a ROW permit, make updates that reflect current technology and standard practices, and integrate applicable laws that have been implemented since the regulations were first promulgated in 1980. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments on the proposed rule must be received by 11:59 p.m. ET August 9, 2024. <E T="03">Information collection requirements:</E> If you wish to comment on the information collection requirements in this proposed rule, please note that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is required to make a decision concerning the collection of information contained in this proposed rule between 30 and 60 days after publication of this proposed rule in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . Therefore, comments should be submitted to OMB (see “Information Collection” section below under <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> ) by August 9, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments, identified by Regulation Identifier Number (RIN) 1024-AE75, by either of the following methods: • <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal:</E> <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov.</E> Follow the instructions for submitting comments. • <E T="03">Mail to:</E> Kevin McKay, Branch Chief, Realty Management, National Park Service, WASO Land Resources Division, Park Planning, Facilities and Lands, 1849 C Street NW, 2nd Floor (MIB 2340), Washington, DC 20240. • <E T="03">Instructions:</E> Comments will not be accepted by fax, email, or in any way other than those specified above. Comments delivered on external electronic storage devices (flash drives, compact discs, etc.) will not be accepted. All submissions received must include the words “National Park Service” or “NPS” and must include the docket number or RIN (1024-AE75) for this rulemaking. Comments received will be posted without change to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> including any personal information provided. • <E T="03">Docket:</E> For access to the docket to read comments received, go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and search for “1024-AE75.” <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Kevin McKay, Branch Chief, Realty Management, National Park Service, Land Resources Division. Phone: (720) 576-0656; email: <E T="03">Kevin_McKay@nps.gov.</E> Individuals in the United States who are deaf, deafblind, hard of hearing, or have a speech disability may dial 711 (TTY, TDD, or TeleBraille) to access telecommunications relay services. Individuals outside the United States should use the relay services offered within their country to make international calls to the point-of-contact in the United States. In compliance with the Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act of 2023, the plain language summary of the proposal is available on <E T="03">Regulations.gov</E> in the docket for this rulemaking. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Legal Authority for ROWs</HD> The National Park System includes any area of land or water administered by the NPS. 54 U.S.C. 100501. The mission of the NPS is to preserve unimpaired the natural and cultural resources and values of the National Park System for the enjoyment of this and future generations. 54 U.S.C. 100101. Since it was created in 1916, the National Park System has expanded to 428 units covering more than 85 million acres in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories. A general statutory authority, codified at 54 U.S.C. 100902, allows the Secretary of the Interior, acting through the NPS, to issue ROW permits for public utilities and communication facilities within System units. Specifically, this authority authorizes the NPS to issue ROW permits for: • electrical plants, poles, and lines for the generation, transmission, and distribution of electrical power; • telephone and telegraph purposes; • canals, ditches, pipes and pipe lines, flumes, tunnels, or other water conduits and water plants, dams, and reservoirs used to promote irrigation or mining or quarrying, or the manufacturing or cutting of timber or lumber, or the supplying of water for domestic, public, or any other beneficial uses; • poles and lines for communication purposes; and • radio, television, and other forms of communication transmitting, relay, and receiving structures and facilities. The NPS may not issue a ROW permit for any purpose that is not identified in 54 U.S.C. 100902, unless the NPS is separately authorized to do so by law, such as through legislation specific to a System unit. In limited circumstances such as where authorized by legislation specific to a System unit, or where exclusively serving NPS facilities or authorized concessioner facilities, the NPS may issue ROW permits to utilities for the operation and maintenance of petroleum product pipelines. Under the general authority in 54 U.S.C. 100902, a ROW shall be allowed within a National Park System unit only on the approval of the Secretary, acting through the NPS. The NPS may issue a ROW permit only on a finding that the ROW is not incompatible with the public interest. The statute establishes duration and size limits for ROWs and authorizes the NPS to revoke ROWs. The Secretary, acting through the NPS, is authorized to implement the statute through regulations. Before 1980, the NPS managed ROW permits under Bureau of Land Management (BLM) regulations at 43 CFR 2800. Those regulations no longer applied to System units after BLM revised them in 1980. That same year, the NPS promulgated its own regulations (45 FR 47092) that matched the provisions of 43 CFR 2800, with some editorial changes. The NPS regulations are codified at 36 CFR part 14 and have not been revised since, except for minor changes in 1995 (60 FR 55791) and 2018 (83 FR 2069). The NPS regulations are organized into eight subparts, with an Appendix, as follows: <GPOTABLE COLS="2" OPTS="L2,nj,i1" CDEF="s200,15"> <CHED H="1">Subpart of 36 CFR part 14</CHED> <CHED H="1">Sections</CHED> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Subpart A—Rights-of-Way: General</ENT> <ENT>14.1-14.2</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Subpart B—Nature of Interest</ENT> <ENT>14.5-14.10</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Subpart C—Procedures</ENT> <ENT>14.20-14.38</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Subpart D—Under Title 23, U.S.C. (Interstate and Defense Highway System)</ENT> <ENT>14.50-14.61</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Subpart E—Power Transmission Lines, General</ENT> <ENT>14.70-14.71</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Subpart F—Principles and Procedures, Power Transmission Lines</ENT> <ENT>14.75-14.78</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Subpart G—Radio and Television Sites</ENT> <ENT>14.90-14.91</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Subpart H—Telephone and Telegraph Lines</ENT> <ENT>14.95-14.96</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Appendix A to Part 14</ENT> <HD SOURCE="HD2">NPS Administration of ROWs</HD> The NPS's authority to grant ROWs within System units is discretionary provided the allowed use is not incompatible with the public interest. When the NPS evaluates a request for a ROW permit, it considers whether the use will be consistent with applicable laws and policies that govern the administration of the System. Applicable laws include, but are not limited to, the NPS Organic Act and the National Historic Preservation Act (NPHA). Applicable policies include, but are not limited to, 2006 NPS Management Policies, Reference Manual 53B: Rights of Way, and guidance and planning documents for particular System units. ROW infrastructure proposed by permit applicants is not always compatible with the purposes for which the National Park System or the particular System unit was established, or with the protection of the resources and values of the System unit where it would be located. The NPS, to the greatest extent possible, seeks to minimize impacts to resources, visitors, and employees from the construction, installation, maintenance and operation of infrastructure in System units. For this reason, it only issues ROW permits when there is no practicable alternative to the use of lands and waters within a System unit. After this evaluation process, the NPS may determine that the proposed use is not appropriate in the System unit and location requested and deny the request. When they are approved, ROW permits most commonly allow for the operation and maintenance of common utilities such as fiber, water, and power lines, as well as cellular antennas and associated equipment such as cell towers. The NPS issues ROW permits to Federal, State, and local governments, Tribes, citizens, and organizations of the United States, including corporations, a ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 115k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━