Federal Railroad Administration Accident/Incident Investigation Policy for Gathering Information and Consulting With Stakeholders

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Railroad Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>49 CFR Part 225</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FRA-2024-0034]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2130-AC98</RIN> <SUBJECT>Federal Railroad Administration Accident/Incident Investigation Policy for Gathering Information and Consulting With Stakeholders</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Direct final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> FRA is taking direct final action to amend its Accident/Incident Regulations governing reporting, classification, and investigations by codifying FRA's policy for gathering information from, and consulting with, stakeholders during an accident/incident investigation. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> <E T="03">Effective date:</E> This final rule is effective on October 31, 2024, without further notice unless FRA receives adverse, substantive comment by October 31, 2024. If FRA receives adverse, substantive comment on this direct final rule, it will publish a timely withdrawal in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> informing the public the rule will not take effect. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> <E T="03">Comments:</E> Comments related to Docket No. FRA-2024-0034 may be submitted by going to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and following the online instructions for submitting comments. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> All submissions must include the agency name and docket number or Regulatory Identification Number (RIN) for this rulemaking (RIN 2130-AC98). Note that all comments received will be posted without change to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> including any personal information provided. Do not submit electronically any information you consider to be Confidential Business Information (CBI) or other information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. For additional submission methods and general guidance on making effective comments, please visit <E T="03">https://www.transportation.gov/regulations/rulemaking-process.</E> <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 follow the online instructions for accessing the docket. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Rick Huggins, Supervisory Railroad Security Specialist, Office of Railroad Safety, FRA, telephone: 202-465-6922 or email: <E T="03">ricky.huggins@dot.gov;</E> or Senya Waas, Senior Attorney, Office of the Chief Counsel, FRA, telephone: 202-875-4158 or email: <E T="03">senyaann.waas@dot.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> Pursuant to 49 U.S.C. 20103, FRA, as delegated by the Secretary of Transportation, <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> has authority to “prescribe regulations and issue orders for every area of railroad safety supplementing laws and regulations in effect on October 16, 1970.” As part of its mission to enforce and improve rail safety, FRA investigates rail transportation accidents/incidents which result in serious injury to an individual or to railroad property. <E T="03">See</E> 49 U.S.C. 20902. In Section 22417 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), Congress mandated that the Secretary of Transportation (Secretary) create a standard process for investigators to use during accident and incident investigations conducted under this section. This process is to be used to determine when it is appropriate and the appropriate method for gathering information about an accident or incident under investigation from railroad carriers, contractors or employees of railroad carriers, or representatives of employees of railroad carriers, and others, as determined relevant by the Secretary. The process will also be used to determine when it is appropriate to consult with railroad carriers, contractors or employees of railroad carriers, or representatives of employees of railroad carriers, and others, as determined relevant by the Secretary, for technical expertise on the facts of the accident or incident under investigation. <E T="03">See</E> Public Law 117-58, section 22417, Nov. 15, 2021, 135 Stat. 748. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  49 CFR 1.89(a); 49 U.S.C. 103(g). </FTNT> In developing this standard process, the Secretary must also factor in ways to maintain the confidentiality of any entity if: (1) The entity requests confidentiality; (2) The entity was not involved in the accident or incident; and (3) Maintaining the entity's confidentiality does not adversely affect FRA's investigation. The IIJA specifies that any process developed under section 22417 applies only to FRA investigations and does not apply to any investigation carried out by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). In response to the IIJA mandate, FRA worked with stakeholders, including both labor and rail organizations, to develop a <E T="03">Policy for Gathering Information and Consulting with Stakeholders</E> (Policy Document). The resulting Policy Document is available on FRA's website  <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> and includes guidelines for: <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>   <E T="03">https://railroads.dot.gov/elibrary/bipartisan-infrastructure-law-section-22417-fra-accident-and-incident-investigations-0.</E> </FTNT> • When FRA will provide the opportunity for stakeholders to participate in FRA accident/incident investigations; • How FRA will notify stakeholders of an accident investigation in which they may participate; • The expectations of stakeholders; • How stakeholders can participate in FRA's accident investigation process; • How stakeholders can submit information to FRA to assist with the investigation; and • How confidentiality of individuals and requests for confidentiality by entities will be addressed and maintained. This rule codifies the process contained in the Policy Document. FRA is publishing this rule without a prior proposed rule because it views this as a noncontroversial action that generally codifies FRA's current process for accident investigations. As noted above, FRA has already worked with stakeholders (both labor and the rail organizations) to develop the Policy Document which is posted on FRA's website. Accordingly, FRA anticipates no adverse, substantive comment on any of the provisions of the rule. If FRA receives an adverse, substantive comment on any of the provisions, it will publish in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> a timely withdrawal, informing the public that the direct final rule will not take effect. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Section-by-Section Analysis</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Part 225 Investigations</HD> FRA is amending 49 CFR 225.31 by consolidating existing paragraphs (a) through (f) into numbered paragraphs (a)(1) through (6) and adding new paragraph (b) addressing stakeholder participation in certain FRA accident/incident investigations. FRA is also revising existing paragraph (a) (now paragraph (a)(1)) to clarify that FRA's policy is to investigate rail accidents/incidents which result in the serious injury or death of a railroad employee or passenger and other accidents/incidents where FRA determines investigation would substantially serve to promote railroad safety. New paragraph (b) codifies the process contained in the Policy Document. Specifically, paragraph (b) codifies the procedures for FRA investigators to gather information from, and consult with, various stakeholders as part of certain accident/incident investigations. Consistent with the Policy Document, paragraph (b) includes guidelines for when FRA will provide stakeholders the opportunity to participate in investigations, how FRA will notify stakeholders of an accident investigation, how stakeholders will participate in the accident investigation process, and how stakeholders can submit information to FRA to assist with the investigation. Paragraph (b) explains that, based on initial information, for accidents or incidents involving an on-duty employee fatality, an on-duty employee amputation, or an on-duty employee suffering a life-threatening injury), and other accidents or incidents FRA's Chief Safety Officer (or their delegate) determines appropriate, FRA will provide an opportunity for stakeholder involvement in the agency's accident investigation. Paragraph (b) further provides that those stakeholders may include railroads, contractors, employees, representatives of employees, industry associations, academia, the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, and others, as FRA determines relevant. Paragraphs (b)(1) through (6) set forth the procedures both FRA and involved stakeholders must follow when conducting or participating in accident/incident investigations under this section. Paragraph (b)(1) addresses FRA's initial accident response and stakeholder notification. Specifically, when initiating an accident investigation under this section, paragraph (b)(1) requires FRA to identify stakeholders relevant to the accident/incident. Paragraph (b)(1)(i) requires FRA to notify identified stakeholders when it is initiating an investigation of an accident or incident under paragraph (b), and (b)(1)(ii) requires stakeholders interested in participating in any such investigation to communicate their intent to participate to FRA's Chief Safety Officer (or their delegate) within 24 hours of being notified of the investigation. As soon as practicable after receipt of a stakeholder's notice of its intent to participate in an FRA investigation, paragraph (b)(1)(iii) requires FRA to establish clear channels of communication with stakeholders, including, for example, email correspondence, teleconferences, and in-person meetings, to facilitate the efficient transfer o ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 60k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━