Rescinding Regulations Related to Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Sex in Education Programs or Activities Receiving Federal Financial Assistance

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY <CFR>10 CFR Part 1042</CFR> <DEPDOC>[DOE-HQ-2025-0025]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1903-AA22</RIN> <SUBJECT>Rescinding Regulations Related to Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Sex in Education Programs or Activities Receiving Federal Financial Assistance</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of Minority Economic Impact, Department of Energy (DOE). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Direct final rule; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This final rule rescinds certain unnecessary regulatory provisions related to nondiscrimination on the basis of sex in education programs or activities receiving federal financial assistance. </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 are ones which 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, notification 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-2025-0025. 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-2025-0025.</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. <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="FP-2">III. Approval of the Secretary</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. General Discussion</HD> DOE is rescinding certain provisions from its regulations found in part 1042 of chapter X of title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) (“Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Sex in Education Programs or Activities Receiving Federal Financial Assistance”). Specifically, DOE is rescinding paragraphs (b) through (d) of 10 CFR 1042.110, “Remedial and affirmative action and self-evaluation.” Upon further evaluation, and for the reasons explained subsequently, DOE has determined these provisions to be unnecessary. Under 10 CFR 1042.110(a), if the designated agency official finds that a recipient of financial assistance has discriminated against persons on the basis of sex in an education program or activity, the recipient “shall take such remedial action as the designated agency official deems necessary to overcome the effects of such discrimination.” This provision contains a direct requirement for recipients to take remedial action upon a finding of discrimination. This provision can be distinguished from 10 CFR 1042.110(b), which permits recipients to take action in the absence of such a finding. The regulation at 10 CFR 1042.110(b) states, “a recipient may take affirmative action consistent with law to overcome the effects of conditions that resulted in limited participation therein by persons of a particular sex.” 10 CFR 1042.110(b) contains no substantive right or obligation but rather grants permission for a recipient to “take action . . . consistent with law.” Accordingly, DOE finds this provision to be unnecessary. The regulations at 10 CFR 1042.110(c) and (d) contain self-evaluation and records maintenance requirements for recipients. The regulation at 10 CFR 1042.110(c) requires that each recipient conduct a self-evaluation “within one year of February 20, 2001” which will then be maintained “for at least three years” pursuant to 10 CFR 1042.110(c). The regulations under 10 CFR 1042.110(c) and (d) are not ongoing self-evaluation and records maintenance requirements for recipients, rather these were focused on an evaluation conducted during a limited time period (February 20, 2001-February 20, 2002) and the records maintenance requirements for that evaluation. As the requirements from the regulations under 10 CFR 1042.110(c) and (d) expired over twenty years ago, they are unnecessary. For the reasons above, DOE is rescinding these provisions. DOE seeks all comments on its recission. <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,” as supplemented and reaffirmed by E.O. 13563, “Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review, 76 FR 3821 (Jan. 21, 2011), 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 final rule is consistent with these principles. Section 6(a) of E.O. 12866 also requires agencies to submit “significant regulatory actions” to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (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 (August 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 rescission under the provisions of the Regulatory Flexibility Act and the policies and procedures published on February 19, 2003. This recission eliminates provisions in regulations that are unnecessary and create no substantive right or obligation. Therefore, DOE initially concludes that the impacts of the 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 rescission imposes no new information or recordkeeping requirements. Accordingly, Office of Management and Budget (OMB) clearance is not required under the Paperwork Reduction Act. (44 U.S.C. 3501 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 21k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━