Freight Car Safety Standards Implementing the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Railroad Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>49 CFR Part 215</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FRA-2023-0021, Notice No. 2]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2130-AC94</RIN> <SUBJECT>Freight Car Safety Standards Implementing the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> FRA is amending the Freight Car Safety Standards (FCSS) to implement section 22425 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (Act). The Act places certain restrictions on newly built freight cars placed into service in the United States (U.S.) including limiting content that originates from a country of concern (COC) or is sourced from a state-owned enterprise (SOE) and prohibiting sensitive technology that originates from a COC or is sourced from a SOE. The Act mandates that FRA issue a regulation to monitor and enforce industry's compliance with the Act's standards. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The Final Rule is effective January 21, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> <E T="03">Docket:</E> For access to the docket to read background documents or 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> Check Kam, Mechanical Engineer, Office of Railroad Safety at (202) 366-2139, email: <E T="03">check.kam@dot.gov;</E> or Michael Masci, Senior Attorney Adviser, Office of the Chief Counsel, telephone: (202) 302-7117, email: <E T="03">michael.masci@dot.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Abbreviations and Terms Used in This Document</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">CBP—Customs and Border Protection</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">CE—Categorical Exclusion</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">CFR—Code of Federal Regulations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">COC—Country of Concern</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">DOT—Department of Transportation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">EA—Environmental Assessment</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">EIS—Environmental Impact Statement</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">FCSS—Freight Car Safety Standards</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">FR—Federal Register</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">FRA—Federal Railroad Administration</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">FTA—Federal Transit Administration</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">GS—General Schedule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">IIJA—Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">IP—Intellectual Property</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">NAFTA—North American Free Trade Agreement</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">NEPA—National Environmental Policy Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">NPRM—Notice of Proposed Rulemaking</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">OMB—Office of Management and Budget</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">PRA—The Paperwork Reduction Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">RSA—Rail Security Alliance</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">RSEP—Railroad Safety Enforcement Procedures</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">RSIA—Rail Safety Improvement Act of 1988</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">SOE—State-Owned Enterprise</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">Umler—Universal Machine Language Equipment Register</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">U.S.—United States</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">U.S. DOC—United States Department of Commerce</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">U.S.C.—United States Code</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">USITC—U.S. International Trade Commission</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">USMCA—United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">USTR—U.S. Trade Representative</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents for Supplementary Information</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Executive Summary</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Discussion of Comments to the NPRM</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Comments About FRA's Proposed Application of the Act's Content Limitation and Sensitive Technology Requirements to Railroad Freight Car Manufacturers</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">1. The Act Does Not Regulate After-Manufacture Changes to Railroad Freight Cars, Including Content Limitations and Sensitive Technology</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">2. Railroad Freight Cars Already Placed in Service in the U.S. Are Not Subject to the Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">3. Definitions Provided by the Act for the Terms Sensitive Technology, Component, Country of Concern, and State-Owned Enterprise Are Suitable for Implementing the Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">4. The Scope of the IP Violation or Infringement Prohibition Being Incorporated Into the Freight Car Safety Standards Is Intended To Be the Same as the Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Comments About FRA's Proposal Implementing the Act's Freight Car Compliance Certification</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">1. The Act Requires Certain Information To Be Included in the Certification</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">2. The Act Requires Certification To Be Submitted Prior to Placing Freight Cars Into Service on the U.S. General Rail System</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Comments About FRA's Process for Enforcing the Act's Requirements and Penalties</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">1. The Act Does Not Require a Finding of Willfulness To Establish a Violation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">2. Process for Manufacturers To Defend Against and Appeal Findings of Noncompliance With the Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">3. Process for Railroad Freight Car Manufacturer To Be Reinstated After Being Prohibited Under the Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">4. Five-Year Statute of Limitations Applies to the Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Section-by-Section Analysis</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Regulatory Impact and Notices</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Executive Order 12866 as Amended by Executive Order 14094</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Regulatory Flexibility Act and Executive Order 13272</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Paperwork Reduction Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Federalism Implications</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. International Trade Impact Assessment</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Environmental Impact</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">G. Environmental Justice</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">H. Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">I. Energy Impact</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">J. Privacy Act Statement</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Executive Summary</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Purpose of the Regulatory Action</HD> FRA is issuing this rulemaking as required by the Act, as codified at 49 U.S.C. 20171. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> The Act provides that a railroad freight car, wholly manufactured on or after the date that is 1 year after the date of issuance of regulations, may only operate on the U.S. general railroad system if: (1) the railroad freight car is manufactured, assembled, and substantially transformed, as applicable, by a qualified manufacturer in a qualified facility; (2) none of the sensitive technology located on the railroad freight car, including components necessary to the functionality of the sensitive technology, originates from a COC or is sourced from a SOE; and (3) none of the content of the railroad freight car, excluding sensitive technology, originates from a country of concern (COC) or is sourced from a state-owned enterprise (SOE) that has been determined by a recognized court or administrative agency of competent jurisdiction and legal authority to have violated or infringed valid U.S. intellectual property rights of another including such a finding by a Federal district court under title 35 or the U.S. International Trade Commission under section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930 (19 U.S.C. 1337). <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), Sec. 22425, Pub. L. 117-58, 135 Stat. 752 (Nov. 15, 2021) (codified at 49 U.S.C. 20171) and generally referred to in this rule as the Act, or section 20171). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  49 U.S.C. 20171(b)(1). </FTNT> The Act further provides percentage limitations on freight car contents so that not later than one year after the date of issuance of regulations, a newly manufactured railroad freight car, even if complying with the requirements in the preceding paragraph, may not operate on the U.S. general railroad system if more than 20 percent of the content of the railroad freight car, calculated by the net cost of all components of the car and excluding the cost of sensitive technology, originates from a COC or is sourced from a SOE. After three years from the date of issuance of regulations, the percentage may not be more than 15 percent. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> See the notice of proposed rulemaking  <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> (NPRM) for detailed discussion on the background of the Act and other relevant laws. <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>   <E T="03">Id.</E> at (b)(2). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  88 FR 85561 (Dec. 8, 2023). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Summary of the Regulatory Action</HD> The Act requires regulations to be issued to implement its mandate and for freight car manufacturers to certify that freight cars covered by the Act are in compliance. <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> FRA issued an NPRM on December 8, 2023, <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> proposing to codify a process for FRA to monitor and enforce compliance with the Act. This final rule adopts that proposal with minor clarifications. To carry out the Act's certification requirement, this rule requires railroad freight car manufacturers to electronically certify to FRA that each freight car complies with the Act before that car is operated on the U.S. general railroad system of transportation. The certification is required to identify each car being offered for operation and include the manufacturer's name and the name of the individual responsible for certifying compliance with the Act. In addition, this final rule requires manufacturers offering freight cars for service in the U.S. to maintain all records showing information to s ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 141k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━