Application for Authorization To Transmit Electric Energy to a Foreign Country

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY <CFR>10 CFR Part 205</CFR> <DEPDOC>[DOE-HQ-2025-0019]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1901-AB69</RIN> <SUBJECT>Application for Authorization To Transmit Electric Energy to a Foreign Country</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Grid Deployment Office; Department of Energy (DOE). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking and request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> DOE is proposing to amend existing provisions regarding authorization to transmit electric energy to a foreign country. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before July 15, 2025. </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-2025-0019. Follow the instructions for submitting comments. The docket for this proposed 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-2025-0019.</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 proposed 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="FP-2">III. Approval of the Secretary</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. General Discussion</HD> DOE is proposing to amend the application process codified in 10 CFR 205.300 through 309. Statutory authority for these sections can be found at 16 U.S.C. 824(e) which establishes that no person shall transmit any electric energy from the United States to a foreign country without first having secured an order of the Secretary authorizing it to do so. Extensive regulations established in response to 16 U.S.C. 824(e), which are now also out of date, impose economic, administrative and procedural burdens on applicants. Such burdens impede private enterprise and entrepreneurship and run contrary to the President's goal of unleashing American energy. Executive Order (E.O.) 14154. Further, Executive Order 14192, Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation, explicitly makes it “the policy of the executive branch . . . to alleviate unnecessary regulatory burdens placed on the American people.” Such burdens “are often difficult for the average person or business to understand, as they require synthesizing the collective meaning not just of formal regulations but also rules, memoranda, administrative orders, guidance documents, policy statements, and interagency agreements that are not subject to the Administrative Procedure Act, further increasing compliance costs and the risk of costs of non-compliance.” <E T="03">Id.</E> The Secretary is therefore proposing to reduce regulatory burden wherever possible. Accordingly, DOE proposes to amend the aforementioned sections to reduce burden and remove out of date requirements while simultaneously bolstering American energy dominance by increasing exports and subsequently the reliance of foreign nations on American energy. The amended rule will simply allow applicants to include information the applicant deems relevant to such an authorization for consideration by the DOE under the Federal Power Act. DOE will endeavor to expeditiously approve applications. DOE seeks comment on all aspects of that proposal, including but not limited to the prior rule's consistency with statutory authority and the Constitution, national security, whether the prior rules are out of date, the prior rule's costs and benefits, and the prior rule's effect on small business, entrepreneurship and private enterprise. <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 (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 the proposed amendment under the provisions of the Regulatory Flexibility Act and the policies and procedures published on February 19, 2003. This proposal eliminates requirements. Therefore, DOE initially concludes that the impacts thereof 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 proposed 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 is analyzing 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 categorical exclusions for certain rulemakings. See 10 CFR part 1021, subpart D, appendices A and B. DOE is considering the categorical exclusions potentially applicable to this proposed rule and welcomes comment on the potential application of categorical exclusion(s). DOE will complete its NEPA review before issuing the final rule. <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 po ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 21k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━