Revisions to the Office of Hearings and Appeals Procedural Regulations

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY <CFR>10 CFR Part 1003</CFR> <DEPDOC>[DOE-HQ-2025-0013]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1910-AA57</RIN> <SUBJECT>Revisions to the Office of Hearings and Appeals Procedural Regulations</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Department of Energy (DOE). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Direct final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> DOE is issuing this direct final rule to revise the Office of Hearings and Appeals (OHA) procedures encouraging alternative dispute resolution for parties appearing before the OHA. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The direct final rule is effective July 15, 2025, unless significant adverse comments are received by June 16, 2025. Significant adverse comments 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, notice 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 the 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-2025-0013. Follow the instructions for submitting comments. The docket for this final rule, which includes <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notices, public meeting attendee lists and transcripts (if one is held), 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-2025-0013.</E> The docket web page contains instructions on how to access all documents, including public comments, in the docket, as well as a summary of the rulemaking. In accordance with 5 U.S.C. 553(b)(4), a summary of this rule may be found at <E T="03">www.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 Order 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 Office of the Secretary</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. General Discussion</HD> DOE is rescinding Section 1003.13 of Title 10, Code of Federal Regulations by this direct final rule. This regulation contains a statement that encourages the use of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) for parties appearing before the OHA and advises that participation in ADR is voluntary. It does not confer any substantive right or obligation on the Agency or any party and is not required by statute. Therefore, DOE rescinds 1003.13 in its entirety. DOE seeks any comments on this proposal. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Procedural Issues and Regulatory Review</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Review Under Executive Order 12866</HD> Executive Order (“E.O.”) 12866, “Regulatory Planning and Review,” 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; (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. For the reasons stated in the preamble, this direct final rule is consistent with these principles. Section 6(a) of E.O. 12866 also requires agencies to submit “significant regulatory actions” to 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 (Aug. 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 final rule under the provisions of the Regulatory Flexibility Act and the policies and procedures published on February 19, 2003. This final rule eliminates a provision in regulations that creates no substantive right or obligation. Therefore, DOE initially concludes that the impacts of this final rule 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 final rule imposes no new information or record-keeping requirements. Accordingly, 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 proposed action in accordance with National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, as amended, (“NEPA”) and DOE's NEPA implementing regulations (10 CFR part 1021). DOE's regulations include a categorical exclusion for rulemakings that are strictly procedural. See 10 CFR part 1021, subpart D, appendix A6. DOE has determined that this rulemaking qualifies for categorical exclusion A6 because it is a strictly procedural rulemaking. <HD SOURCE="HD2">E. Review Under Executive Order 13132</HD> E.O. 13132, “Federalism,” 64 FR 43255 (Aug. 10, 1999), imposes certain requirements on Federal agencies formulating and implementing policies or regulations that preempt State law or that have federalism implications. The Executive order requires agencies to examine the constitutional and statutory authority supporting any action that would limit the policymaking discretion of the States and to carefully assess the necessity for such actions. The Executive order also requires agencies to have an accountable process to ensure meaningful and timely input by State and local officials in the development of regulatory policies that have federalism implications. On March 14, 2000, DOE published a statement of policy describing the intergovernmental consultation process it will follow in the development of such regulations. 65 FR 13735. DOE has examined this final rule and has tentatively determined that it would not have a substantial direct effect on the States, on the relationship between the Federal government and the States, or on the distribution of power and responsibilities among the various levels of government. <HD SOURCE="HD2">F. Review Under Executive Order 12988</HD> With respect to the review of existing regulations and the promulgation of new regulations, section 3(a) of E.O. 12988, “Civil Justice Reform,” imposes on Federal agencies the general duty to adhere to the following requirements: (1) eliminate drafting errors and ambiguity, (2) write regulations ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 19k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━