Rescinding New Construction Requirements Related to Nondiscrimination in Federally Assisted Programs or Activities

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY <CFR>10 CFR Part 1040</CFR> <DEPDOC>[DOE-HQ-2025-0015]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1903-AA24</RIN> <SUBJECT>Rescinding New Construction Requirements Related to Nondiscrimination in Federally Assisted Programs or Activities</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of Civil Rights and EEO, Department of Energy (DOE). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Direct final rule (DFR); request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This DFR rescinds certain new construction requirements related to disability nondiscrimination in federally assisted programs or activities. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The final rule is effective July 15, 2025, unless significant adverse comments are received by June 16, 2025. Significant adverse comments are ones which oppose the rule and raise, alone or in combination, a serious enough issue related to each of the independent grounds for the rule that a substantive response is required. If significant adverse comments are received, notification will be published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> before the effective date either withdrawing the rule or issuing a new final rule which responds to significant adverse comments. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Interested persons are encouraged to submit comments using the Federal eRulemaking Portal at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> under docket number DOE-HQ-2025-0015. Follow the instructions for submitting comments. The docket for this final rule, which includes <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notices, comments, and other supporting documents and materials, is available for review at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov.</E> All documents in the docket are listed in the <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> index. However, not all documents listed in the index may be publicly available, such as information that is exempt from public disclosure. The docket web page can be found at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov/docket/DOE-HQ-2025-0015.</E> The docket web page contains instructions on how to access all documents, including public comments, in the docket, as well as a summary. In accordance with 5 U.S.C. 553(b)(4), a summary of this rule may be found at <E T="03">regulations.gov,</E> under the docket number. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Mr. David Taggart, U.S. Department of Energy, Office of the General Counsel, GC-1, 1000 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20585-0121. Telephone: (202) 586-5281. Email: <E T="03">DOEGeneralCounsel@hq.doe.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. General Discussion</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Procedural Issues and Regulatory Review</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Review Under Executive Orders 12866</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Review Under the Regulatory Flexibility Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Review Under the Paperwork Reduction Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Review Under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Review Under Executive Order 13132</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Review Under Executive Order 12988</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">G. Review Under the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">H. Review Under the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act, 1999</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">I. Review Under Executive Order 12630</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">J. Review Under the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act, 2001</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">K. Review Under Executive Order 13211</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">L. Review Under Additional Executive Orders and Presidential Memoranda</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">M. Congressional Notification</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Approval of the Secretary</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. General Discussion</HD> Through this direct final rule, DOE is rescinding certain provisions from its regulations found at part 1040 of chapter X of title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) (“Nondiscrimination in Federally Assisted Programs or Activities”). Specifically, DOE is rescinding 10 CFR 1040.73, “New Construction.” Upon further evaluation, and for the reasons explained subsequently, DOE has determined this provision to be unnecessary and unduly burdensome. Under 10 CFR 1040.73, each facility or part of a facility constructed by, on behalf of, or for the use of a recipient of federal financial assistance is to be designed and constructed in a manner that the facility or part of the facility is readily accessible to, and useable by, handicapped persons, if the construction was commenced after June 13, 1980. 10 CFR 1040.73(a). Relatedly, in the case of an alteration, each facility or part of a facility which is altered by, on behalf of, or for the use of a recipient of Federal financial assistance after June 13, 1980, in a manner that affects or could affect the usability of the facility or part of the facility is, to the maximum extent feasible, to be altered in a manner that the altered portion of the facility is readily accessible to and useable by handicapped persons. 10 CFR 1040.73(b). Finally, under the regulation, design, construction, or alteration of buildings in conformance with section 3-8 of the Uniform Federal Accessibility Standards shall be deemed to comply with the requirements of the regulation with respect to those buildings. 10 CFR 1040.73(c). Given the general prohibition on discriminatory activities and related penalties, see 10 CFR 1040.71, DOE finds these additional provisions unnecessary and unduly burdensome. It is DOE's policy to give private entities flexibility to comply with the law in the manner they deem most efficient. One-size-fits-all rules are rarely the best option. Accordingly, DOE finds good reason to eliminate this regulatory provision. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Procedural Issues and Regulatory Review</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Review Under Executive Orders 12866</HD> Executive Order (E.O.) 12866, “Regulatory Planning and Review,” 58 FR 51735 (Oct. 4, 1993), requires agencies, to the extent permitted by law, to (1) propose or adopt a regulation only upon a reasoned determination that its benefits justify its costs (recognizing that some benefits and costs are difficult to quantify); (2) tailor regulations to impose the least burden on society, consistent with obtaining regulatory objectives, taking into account, among other things, and to the extent practicable, the costs of cumulative regulations; (3) select, in choosing among alternative regulatory approaches, those approaches that maximize net benefits; (4) to the extent feasible, specify performance objectives, rather than specifying the behavior or manner of compliance that regulated entities must adopt; and (5) identify and assess available alternatives to direct regulation, including providing economic incentives to encourage the desired behavior, such as user fees or marketable permits, or providing information upon which choices can be made by the public. Section 6(a) of E.O. 12866 also requires agencies to submit “significant regulatory actions” to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) for review. OIRA has determined that this direct final rule does not constitute a “significant regulatory action” under section 3(f) of E.O. 12866. Accordingly, this direct final rule was not submitted to OIRA for review under E.O. 12866. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Review Under the 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 (IRFA) and a final regulatory flexibility analysis (FRFA) for any rule that by law must be proposed for public comment, unless the agency certifies that the rule, if promulgated, will not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. As required by E.O. 13272, “Proper Consideration of Small Entities in Agency Rulemaking,” 67 FR 53461 (August 16, 2002), DOE published procedures and policies on February 19, 2003, to ensure that the potential impacts of its rules on small entities are properly considered during the rulemaking process. 68 FR 7990. DOE has made its procedures and policies available on the Office of the General Counsel's website ( <E T="03">www.energy.gov/gc/office-general-counsel</E> ). DOE reviewed this rescission under the provisions of the Regulatory Flexibility Act and the policies and procedures published on February 19, 2003. This rule eliminates burdensome regulations. Therefore, DOE initially concludes that the impacts of the rescission would not have a “significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities,” and that the preparation of an IRFA is not warranted. DOE will transmit this certification and supporting statement of factual basis to the Chief Counsel for Advocacy of the Small Business Administration for review under 5 U.S.C. 605(b). <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. Review Under the Paperwork Reduction Act</HD> This rescission imposes no new information or recordkeeping requirements. Accordingly, Office of Management and Budget (OMB) clearance is not required under the Paperwork Reduction Act. (44 U.S.C. 3501 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) <HD SOURCE="HD2">D. Review Under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969</HD> DOE has analyzed this action in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, as amended, (“NEPA”) and DOE's NEPA implementing regulations (10 CFR part 1021). DOE has determined that this rule qualifies for categorical exclusion under 10 CFR part 1021, subpart D, appendix A5, because it is an interpretive rulemaking that does not change the environmental effect of the rule. <HD SOURCE="HD2">E. Review Under Executive Order 13132</HD> E.O. 13132, “Federalism,” 64 FR 43255 (August 10, ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 20k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━