Rescinding the Production Incentives for Cellulosic Biofuels

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY <CFR>10 CFR Part 452</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. EERE-2025-OT-0031]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1904-AG07</RIN> <SUBJECT>Rescinding the Production Incentives for Cellulosic Biofuels</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Department of Energy (DOE). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE or Department) is proposing to rescind the Production Incentives for Cellulosic Biofuels regulations. The Department seeks comments on any reason to rescind or not rescind these regulations. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before June 16, 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 EERE-2025-OT-0031. <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">I. General Discussion</HD> The U.S. Department of Energy is proposing to rescind the outdated regulations at 10 CFR part 452, Production Incentives for Cellulosic Biofuels. DOE seeks comments on any reason to rescind or not rescind these regulations. Specifically, DOE seeks comments on the relevancy of 10 CFR part 452 and whether DOE should retain these regulations in case funding is appropriated again to the relevant authority, section 942 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (Pub. L. 109-58), codified at 42 U.S.C. 16251, for this activity. 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> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Procedural Issues and Regulatory Review</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. 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. For the reasons stated in the preamble, this proposed regulatory action 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 proposed regulatory action constitutes a “significant regulatory action” under section 3(f) of E.O. 12866. Accordingly, this proposed action was 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 proposed rescission under the provisions of the Regulatory Flexibility Act and the policies and procedures published on February 19, 2003. This proposal rescinds 10 CFR part 452. Therefore, DOE tentatively concludes that the impacts of the proposed 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 proposed rescission 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 policy describing the intergovernmental consultation process it will follow in the development of such regulations. 65 FR 13735. DOE has examined this proposed rescission and has tentatively determined that it would not have a substantial direct effect on the States, on the relationship between the national government and the States, or on the distribution of power and responsibilities among the various levels of government. Therefore, no further action is required by E.O. 13132. <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 to minimize litigation, (3) provide a clear legal standard for affected conduct rather than a general standard, and (4) promote simplification and burden reduction. 61 FR 4729 (Feb. 7, 1996). Regarding the review required by section 3(a), section 3(b) of E.O. 12988 specifically requires that Executive agencies make every reasonable effort to ensure that the regulation (1) clearly specifies the preemptive effect, if any, (2) clearly specifies any effect on existing Federal law or regulation, (3) provides a clear legal standard for affected conduct while promoting simplification and burden reduction, (4) specifies the retroactive effect, if any, (5) adequately defines key terms, and (6) addresses other important issues affecting clarity and general draftsmanship under any guidelines issued by the Attorney General. Section 3(c) of E.O. 12988 requires Executive agencies to review regulations in light of applicable standards in section 3(a) and section 3(b) to determine whether they are met or it is unreasonable to meet one or more of them. DOE has completed the required review and determined that, to the extent permitted by law, this proposed rescission meets the relevant standards of E.O. 12988. <HD SOURCE="HD2">G. Review Under the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act</HD> Title II of the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 (UMRA) requires each Federal agency to assess the effects of Federal regulatory actions on State, local, and Tribal governments and the private sector. Public Law 104-4, sec. 201 (codified at 2 U.S.C. 1531). For a regulatory action likely to result in a rule that may cause the expenditure by State, local, and Tribal governments, in the aggregate, or by the private sector of $100 million or more in any one year (adjusted annually for inflation), section 202 of UMRA requires a Federal agency to publish a written statement that estimates the resulting costs, benefits, and other effects on the national economy. (2 U.S.C. 1532(a), (b)) The UMRA also requires a Federal agency to develop an effective process to permit timely input by elected officers of State, local, and Tribal governments on a “significant intergovernmental mandate,” and requires an agency plan for giving notice an ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 18k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━