USDA Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE <CFR>2 CFR Chapter IV</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. USDA-2024-0002]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0505-AA18</RIN> <SUBJECT>USDA Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of the Chief Financial Officer, USDA. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is revising parts of the USDA Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards. USDA's revision provides policy changes and clarifications including plain language revisions. These revisions are intended in many cases to reduce agency and recipient burden. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective on October 1, 2024. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Tyson P. Whitney, Office of the Chief Financial Officer, Director, Transparency and Accountability Reporting Division, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1400 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20250-9011, 202-720-8978, <E T="03">tyson.whitney@usda.gov.</E> Individuals who require alternative means for communication should contact the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Target Center at (202) 720-2600 (voice). </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> The regulations found at 2 CFR Chapter IV provide the USDA adoption of subparts A through F of 2 CFR part 200, as supplemented by USDA-specific exceptions and requirements. 2 CFR Chapter IV additionally includes the regulatory implementation of several statutory requirements which provide USDA-wide applicability. On July 1, 2024, USDA published a proposed rule to provide conforming updates to OMB's April 22, 2024 updates to 2 CFR part 200, implement plain language use, and to propose revisions intended in many cases to reduce agency and recipient burden. USDA proposed both policy changes and clarifications to existing requirements. See 89 FR 54372. A correction was published to clarify that the public comment period extended through July 31, 2024. See 89 FR 55114. USDA solicited comments concerning the proposed rule ending July 31, 2024, and received one comment by that date. An anonymous submitter requested that USDA prioritize environmental protection due to concern over costs from damages to public lands and the environment from commercial operations. The submitter also requested that USDA only provide grants for research or projects that reduce fossil fuel production and consumption. As this regulation does not propose specific environmental regulations, describe specific program activities that would impact public lands, or authorize specific USDA grant programs, the public comment is not relevant to the regulations and will not be addressed in the regulatory text. Therefore, for the reasons given in the proposed rule and in this document, we are adopting the proposed rule as a final rule, without change. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Executive Orders 12866 and 13563</HD> Executive Order 12866, “Regulatory Planning and Review” and Executive Order 13563, “Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review” direct agencies to assess all costs and benefits of available regulatory alternatives and, if regulation is necessary, to select regulatory approaches that maximize net benefits. The assessment should include potential economic, environmental, public health and safety effects, distributive impacts, and equity. Executive Order 13563 emphasized the importance of quantifying both costs and benefits, of reducing costs, of harmonizing rules, and of promoting flexibility. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) designated this proposed rule as not significant under Executive Order 12866, “Regulatory Planning and Review,” and therefore, OMB has not reviewed it. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Executive Order 12988</HD> This proposed rule has been reviewed under E.O. 12988 on “Civil Justice Reform.” This proposed rule would not preempt state or local laws, regulations, or policies unless they represent an irreconcilable conflict with it. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Paperwork Reduction Act</HD> This final rule contains no information collection or recordkeeping requirements under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 3501 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ). <HD SOURCE="HD1">USDA Non-Discrimination Policy</HD> In accordance with Federal civil rights law and USDA civil rights regulations and policies, the USDA, its agencies, offices, and employees, and institutions participating in or administering USDA programs are prohibited from discriminating based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, gender identity (including gender expression), sexual orientation, disability, age, marital status, family or parental status, income derived from a public assistance program, political beliefs, or reprisal or retaliation for prior civil rights activity, in any program or activity conducted or funded by USDA (not all bases apply to all programs). Remedies and complaint filing deadlines vary by program or incident. Individuals who require alternative means of communication for program information (for example, braille, large print, audiotape, American Sign Language, etc.) should contact the responsible agency or the USDA TARGET Center at (202) 720-2600 (voice and text telephone (TTY)) or dial 711 for Telecommunications Relay Service (both voice and text telephone users can initiate this call from any telephone). Additionally, program information may be made available in languages other than English. To file a program discrimination complaint, complete the USDA Program Discrimination Complaint Form, AD-3027, found online at <E T="03">https://www.usda.gov/oascr/how-to-file-a-program-discrimination-complaint</E> and at any USDA office or write a letter addressed to USDA and provide in the letter all the information requested in the form. To request a copy of the complaint form, call (866) 632-9992. Submit your completed form or letter to USDA by: (1) mail to: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, 1400 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20250-9410; (2) fax: (202) 690-7442; or (3) email: <E T="03">program.intake@usda.gov.</E> USDA is an equal opportunity provider, employer, and lender. <LSTSUB> <HD SOURCE="HED">List of Subjects</HD> <CFR>2 CFR Part 400</CFR> Administration of Federal financial assistance, Administrative practice and procedure, Federal financial assistance programs <CFR>2 CFR Part 401</CFR> Federal financial assistance programs, Construction Industry <CFR>2 CFR Part 415</CFR> Agriculture programs, Administration of Federal financial assistance, Administrative practice and procedure <CFR>2 CFR Part 416</CFR> Agriculture programs, Administration of Federal financial assistance, Administrative practice and procedure, Government procurement procedure <CFR>2 CFR Part 417</CFR> Administrative practice and procedure; Grant programs; Loan programs; Reporting and recordkeeping requirements <CFR>2 CFR Part 418</CFR> Lobbying procedures, Administration of Federal financial assistance, Government procurement procedure <CFR>2 CFR Part 421</CFR> Administration of Federal financial assistance, Administrative practice and procedure, Drugs <CFR>2 CFR Part 422</CFR> Agricultural research, Administration of Federal financial assistance, Administrative practice and procedure <CFR>2 CFR Part 423</CFR> Reporting and recordkeeping requirements, Administration of Federal financial assistance </LSTSUB> Accordingly, USDA amends 2 CFR Chapter IV as follows: <REGTEXT TITLE="2" PART="400"> 1. Revise part 400 to read as follows: <HD SOURCE="HED">PART 400—UNIFORM ADMINISTRATIVE REQUIREMENTS, COST PRINCIPLES, AND AUDIT REQUIREMENTS FOR FEDERAL AWARDS</HD> <CONTENTS> <SECHD>Sec.</SECHD> <SECTNO>400.0 </SECTNO> <SUBJECT>Definitions.</SUBJECT> <SECTNO>400.1 </SECTNO> <SUBJECT>Applicability.</SUBJECT> <SECTNO>400.2 </SECTNO> <SUBJECT>Conflict of interest.</SUBJECT> </CONTENTS> <HD SOURCE="HED">Authority:</HD> 5 U.S.C. 301; 2 CFR part 200. <SECTION> <SECTNO>§ 400.0 </SECTNO> <SUBJECT>Definitions.</SUBJECT> The definitions in this part are for terms used in this chapter, and to define for USDA terms present in 2 CFR Subtitle A but not defined in that subtitle. Different definitions may be found in Federal statutes, regulations, or other sources that apply more specifically to particular programs or activities. Where parts of this chapter provide alternate definitions than those in this part, those definitions take precedence over any definition in this part. For terms used in this chapter that are not defined in this part, the definitions in 2 CFR part 200 apply. All terms not otherwise defined will use the dictionary definition. <E T="03">Audiovisual</E> means a product containing visual imagery or sound or both. Examples of audiovisuals are motion pictures, live or prerecorded radio or television programs, slide shows, filmstrips, audio recordings, and multimedia presentations. <E T="03">Awarding official</E> means a person with the authority to enter into, administer, and/or terminate financial assistance awards and make related determinations and findings. <E T="03">Construction</E> means construction, alteration, or repair (including dredging, excavating, and painting) of buildings, structures, or other real property. For purposes of this definition, the terms “buildings, structures, or other real property” include, but are not limited to, improvements of all types, such as bridges, dams, plants, highways, parkways, streets, subways, tunnels, sewers, mains, power lines, cemeteries, pumping stations, railways, airport facilities, terminals, docks, piers, wharves, w ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 127k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━