Rescinding the Grant Programs for Schools and Hospitals and Buildings Owned by Units of Local Government and Public Care Institutions Regulations

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY <CFR>10 CFR Part 455</CFR> <DEPDOC>[DOE-HQ-2025-0022]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1930-AA02</RIN> <SUBJECT>Rescinding the Grant Programs for Schools and Hospitals and Buildings Owned by Units of Local Government and Public Care Institutions Regulations</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of the State and Community Energy Programs, 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 is proposing to rescind the Grant Programs for Schools and Hospitals and Buildings Owned by Units of Local Government and Public Care Institutions regulations. The Department seeks comments on any reason to rescind or not rescind these regulations. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> <E T="03">Comments:</E> Written comments, data, and information must be received no later than 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 DOE-HQ-2025-0022. Follow the instructions for submitting comments. The docket for this notice of proposed rulemaking, 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-2025-0022.</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">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">I. General Discussion</HD> The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE or Department) is proposing to rescind the regulations at 10 CFR part 455, Grant Programs for Schools and Hospitals and Buildings Owned by Units of Local Government and Public Care Institutions. Title III of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, as amended, 42 U.S.C. 6371 <E T="03">et seq.,</E> authorized DOE's prior Institutional Conservation Program (ICP) to adopt the regulations at issue in this notice. The ICP provided grants to various institutions to fund detailed energy audits, called technical assistance programs, and energy conservation measures. 58 FR 9424, 9424 (Feb. 19, 1993). In 1996, DOE's State Energy Program was established by consolidating two existing programs, the ICP and the State Energy Conservation Program (SECP), to provide formula grants going forward. In July of that same year, DOE amended the regulations for SECP to support the newly formulated SEP. 61 FR 35890 (July 8, 1996). While DOE did not eliminate ICP's regulations at 10 CFR part 455 during that rulemaking, DOE did direct states wishing to undertake activities previously administered through ICP to apply to SEP using the newly amended regulations at 10 CFR part 420. The final rule explained that ICP's regulations, 10 CFR part 455, would not apply to SEP issued grants but that States were “free to adopt any of the requirements in those regulations to cover ICP-type activities under SEP.” 61 FR 35890, 35890. Now, many decades later, ICP's regulations remain in place even though it is unclear if those regulations are still in use. DOE is now proposing to rescind the regulations at 10 CFR part 455 and seeks comments on any reason to rescind or not rescind these regulations. Specifically, DOE seeks comments on the relevancy of 10 CFR part 455 and whether SEP's regulations, 10 CFR part 420, are sufficient for any related future activity. <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. For the reasons stated in the preamble, this proposed regulatory action is consistent with these principles. <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 eliminates unused regulations. Therefore, DOE initially 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. 129 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 18k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━