Inflation Adjustment of Civil Monetary Penalties

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY <CFR>10 CFR Parts 207, 218, 429, 431, 490, 501, 601, 810, 820, 824, 851, 1013, 1017, and 1050</CFR> <SUBJECT>Inflation Adjustment of Civil Monetary Penalties</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of the General Counsel, U.S. Department of Energy. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Department of Energy (“DOE”) publishes this final rule to adjust DOE's civil monetary penalties (“CMPs”) for inflation as mandated by the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 1990, as further amended by the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015 (collectively referred to herein as “the Act”). This rule adjusts CMPs within the jurisdiction of DOE to the maximum amount required by the Act. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective on December 27, 2024. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Preeti Chaudhari, U.S. Department of Energy, Office of the General Counsel, GC-33, 1000 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20585, (202) 586-0319, <E T="03">preeti.chaudhari@hq.doe.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Method of Calculation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Summary of the Final Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Final Rulemaking</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Regulatory Review</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> In order to improve the effectiveness of CMPs and to maintain their deterrent effect, the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 1990, 28 U.S.C. 2461 note (“the Inflation Adjustment Act”), as further amended by the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015 (Pub. L. 114-74) (“the 2015 Act”), requires Federal agencies to adjust each CMP provided by law within the jurisdiction of the agency. The 2015 Act required agencies to adjust the level of CMPs with an initial “catch-up” adjustment through an interim final rulemaking and to make subsequent annual adjustments for inflation, notwithstanding 5 U.S.C. 553. DOE's initial catch-up adjustment interim final rule was published June 28, 2016 (81 FR 41790), and adopted as final without amendment on December 30, 2016 (81 FR 96349). The 2015 Act also provides that any increase in a CMP shall apply only to CMPs, including those whose associated violation predated such increase, which are assessed after the date the increase takes effect. In accordance with the 2015 Act, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) must issue annually guidance on adjustments to civil monetary penalties. This final rule to adjust civil monetary penalties for 2025 is issued in accordance with applicable law and OMB's guidance memorandum on implementation of the 2025 annual adjustment. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  OMB's annual guidance memorandum was issued on December 17, 2024, providing the 2025 adjustment multiplier and addressing how to apply it. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Method of Calculation</HD> The method of calculating CMP adjustments applied in this final rule is required by the 2015 Act. Under the 2015 Act, annual inflation adjustments subsequent to the initial catch-up adjustment are to be based on the percent change between the October Consumer Price Index for all Urban Consumers (CPI-U) preceding the date of the adjustment, and the prior year's October CPI-U. Pursuant to the aforementioned OMB guidance memorandum, the adjustment multiplier for 2025 is 1.02598. In order to complete the 2025 annual adjustment, each CMP is multiplied by the 2025 adjustment multiplier. Under the 2015 Act, any increase in CMP must be rounded to the nearest multiple of $1. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Summary of the Final Rule</HD> The following list summarizes DOE authorities containing CMPs, and the penalties before and after adjustment. <GPOTABLE COLS="3" OPTS="L2,tp0,i1" CDEF="s100,xs90,xs90"> <TTITLE> </TTITLE> <CHED H="1"> DOE authority containing civil monetary penalty </CHED> <CHED H="1">Before adjustment</CHED> <CHED H="1">After adjustment</CHED> <ROW> <ENT I="01">10 CFR 207.7</ENT> <ENT>$12,937</ENT> <ENT>$13,273.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">10 CFR 218.42</ENT> <ENT>$28,020</ENT> <ENT>$28,748.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">10 CFR 429.120</ENT> <ENT>$560</ENT> <ENT>$575.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">10 CFR 431.382</ENT> <ENT>$560</ENT> <ENT>$575.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">10 CFR 490.604</ENT> <ENT>$10, 846</ENT> <ENT>$11,128.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">10 CFR 501.181</ENT> —$9/mcf. —$46/bbl. </ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">10 CFR 601.400 and appendix A</ENT> <ENT> —minimum $24,496 —maximum $244,958 </ENT> <ENT> —minimum $25,132. —maximum $251,322. </ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">10 CFR 810.15</ENT> <ENT>$124,732</ENT> <ENT>$127,973.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">10 CFR 820.81</ENT> <ENT>$255,964</ENT> <ENT>$262,614.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">10 CFR 824.1</ENT> <ENT>$182,916</ENT> <ENT>$187,668.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">10 CFR 824.4</ENT> <ENT>$182,916</ENT> <ENT>$187,668.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">10 CFR 851.5 and appendix B</ENT> <ENT>$118,790</ENT> <ENT>$121,876.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">10 CFR 1013.3</ENT> <ENT>$13,946</ENT> <ENT>$14,308.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">10 CFR 1017.29</ENT> <ENT>$329,408</ENT> <ENT>$337,966.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">10 CFR 1050.303</ENT> <ENT>$24,973</ENT> <ENT>$25,622.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01"> 50 U.S.C. 2731  <SU>2</SU> </ENT> <ENT>$11,198</ENT> <ENT>$11,489.</ENT> </ROW> <TNOTE> <SU>2</SU>  Implemented by 10 CFR 820.81, 10 CFR 851.5, and appendix B to 10 CFR part 851. </TNOTE> </GPOTABLE> <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Final Rulemaking</HD> The 2015 Act requires that annual adjustments for inflation subsequent to the initial “catch-up” adjustment be made notwithstanding 5 U.S.C. 553. <HD SOURCE="HD1">V. Regulatory Review</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Executive Orders 12866, 13563, and 14094</HD> This final rule has been determined not to be a significant regulatory action under Executive Order 12866, “Regulatory Planning and Review,” 58 FR 51735 (October 4, 1993), as supplemented and reaffirmed by E.O. 13563, “Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review,” 76 FR 3821 (Jan. 21, 2011) and amended by E.O. 14094, “Modernizing Regulatory Review,” 88 FR 21879 (April 11, 2023). Accordingly, this action was not subject to review under that Executive order by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs of the Office of Management and Budget. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. National Environmental Policy Act</HD> DOE has determined that this final rule is covered under the Categorical Exclusion found in DOE's National Environmental Policy Act regulations at paragraph A5 of appendix A to subpart D, 10 CFR part 1021, which applies to a rulemaking that amends an existing rule or regulation and that does not change the environmental effect of the rule or regulation being amended. Accordingly, neither an environmental assessment nor an environmental impact statement is required. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. Regulatory Flexibility Act</HD> The Regulatory Flexibility Act (5 U.S.C. 601 <E T="03">et seq.)</E> requires preparation of an initial regulatory flexibility analysis for any rule that by law must be proposed for public comment. As discussed previously, the 2015 Act requires that annual inflation adjustments subsequent to the initial catch-up adjustment be made notwithstanding 5 U.S.C. 553. Because a notice of proposed rulemaking is not required for this action pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 553, or any other law, no regulatory flexibility analysis has been prepared for this final rule. <HD SOURCE="HD2">D. Paperwork Reduction Act</HD> This final rule imposes no new information collection requirements subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act. <HD SOURCE="HD2">E. Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995</HD> The Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 (Pub. L. 104-4) generally requires Federal agencies to examine closely the impacts of regulatory actions on State, local, and tribal governments. Section 201 excepts agencies from assessing effects on State, local or tribal governments or the private sector of rules that incorporate requirements specifically set forth in law. Because this rule incorporates requirements specifically set forth in 28 U.S.C. 2461 note, DOE is not required to assess its regulatory effects under section 201. Unfunded Mandates Reform Act sections 202 and 205 do not apply to this action because they apply only to rules for which a general notice of proposed rulemaking is published. Nevertheless, DOE has determined that this regulatory action does not impose a Federal mandate on State, local, or tribal governments or on the public sector. <HD SOURCE="HD2">F. Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act, 1999</HD> Section 654 of the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act, 1999 (Pub. L. 105-277) requires Federal agencies to issue a Family Policymaking Assessment for any proposed rule that may affect family well-being. This final rule would not have any impact on the autonomy or integrity of the family as an institution. Accordingly, DOE has concluded that it is not necessary to prepare a Family Policymaking Assessment. <HD SOURCE="HD2">G. Executive Order 13132</HD> Executive Order 13132, “Federalism,” 64 FR 43255 (August 4, 1999) imposes certain requirements on agencies formulating and implementing policies or regulations that preempt State law or that have federalism implications. Agencies are required to examine the constitutional and statutory authority supporting any action that would limit the policymaking discretion of the States and carefully assess the necessity for such ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 34k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━