Amending the Administrative Procedures With Respect to the Import and Export of Natural Gas

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY <CFR>10 CFR Part 590</CFR> <DEPDOC>[DOE-HQ-2025-0010]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1901-AB67</RIN> <SUBJECT>Amending the Administrative Procedures With Respect to the Import and Export of Natural Gas</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Department of Energy (DOE); Fossil Energy. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Direct final rule (DFR); request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This DFR amends the regulations for the administrative procedures with respect to the import and export of natural gas to update and streamline the general requirements for filing documents with the Office of Fossil Energy (FE). Specifically, this change is made to remove references to offices that no longer exist, allow for the submission of documents online, allow for electronic service, update filing fee instructions, and remove the unnecessary and burdensome requirement that applicants submit multiple copies of applications, filings, and submittals. </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 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 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-2025-0010. 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-2025-0010.</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> DOE is amending Part 590 of Title 10, Code of Federal Regulations by this direct final rule. Part 590 contains rules that govern the administrative procedures with respect to the import and export of natural gas. On July 25, 2018, DOE amended the Part 590 regulations for the first time since being promulgated by DOE in 1989. See 83 FR 35106. DOE now amends the Part 590 regulations again to remove antiquated references and update submission processes to reduce the burden on the public. Notably, DOE is moving the general requirements for filing documents with FE to FE's website ( <E T="03">https://www.energy.gov/fe/regulation</E> ). Doing so allows FE to update filing instructions to increase accuracy and decrease unnecessary burdens on the public. For example, the regulations as currently written require parties to submit “an original and fifteen (15) copies of all applications, filings and submittals” to FE. See § 590.103(a). This may have been an appropriate and reasonable requirement when the regulations were first promulgated in 1989, but this requirement does not serve any legitimate purpose today and only serves to create an unnecessary burden on the public. The regulations also currently require parties to physically file documents to the “Office of Fuels Program” (see § 590.104), an office that no longer exists. Additionally, the regulations as currently written do not contemplate submission, inspection, or service of documents through electronic means. See, <E T="03">e.g.,</E> §§ 590.103(a), 590.104, 590.106, 590.107(c), 590.107(e). Finally, the regulations as currently written are inaccurate with respect to the payment of filing fees (see § 590.207) since checks are no longer accepted and filing fees must be submitted electronically. DOE is updating these antiquated aspects of the regulation to bring the process into the 21st century. <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,” 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. <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 amendment under the provisions of the Regulatory Flexibility Act and the policies and procedures published on February 19, 2003. This direct final rule streamlines and eliminates regulations. Therefore, DOE initially concludes that the impacts of the amendment 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 amendment 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 the 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 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 23k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━