Rescinding Regulations Related to Nondiscrimination in Federally Assisted Programs or Activities (Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Age)

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY <CFR>10 CFR Part 1040</CFR> <DEPDOC>[DOE-HQ-2025-0023]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1903-AA21</RIN> <SUBJECT>Rescinding Regulations Related to Nondiscrimination in Federally Assisted Programs or Activities (Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Age)</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of Minority Economic Impact, Department of Energy (DOE). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> DOE is proposing to rescind certain regulatory provisions related to nondiscrimination based on age in federally assisted programs or activities. </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-2025-0023. 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-2025-0023.</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 proposing to rescind certain provisions from its regulations found in subpart E (“Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Age”) to part 1040 of chapter X of title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) (“Nondiscrimination in Federally Assisted Programs or Activities”). Specifically, DOE is rescinding subparagraphs (b) through (c) of 10 CFR 1040.88, “Remedial and affirmative action by recipients.” Upon further evaluation, and for the reasons explained subsequently, DOE has determined these provisions to be unnecessary. Under 10 CFR 1040.88(a), if the Director of DOE's Office of Equal Opportunity finds that a recipient of financial assistance has discriminated against persons on the basis of age, the recipient shall take such remedial action as the Director considers necessary to overcome the effects of discrimination. This provision can be distinguished from 10 CFR 1040.88(b), which suggests financial assistance recipients may take other affirmative actions, even in the absence of any finding of discrimination. “Even in the absence of a finding of discrimination, a recipient may take affirmative action to overcome the effects of conditions that resulted in limited participation in the recipient's program or activity on the basis of age.” 10 CFR 1040.88(b). This provision contains no substantive right or obligation but rather grants permission for a recipient to take action in the absence of a finding of discrimination. Accordingly, DOE finds this provision to be unnecessary. 10 CFR 1040.88(c) clarifies the conditions under which a recipient operating a program or activity shall be presumed to be providing voluntary affirmative action. 10 CFR 1040.88(c) states, “If a recipient operating a program or activity which serves the elderly or children, in addition to persons of other ages, provides special benefits to the elderly or to children, the provision of those benefits shall be presumed to be voluntary affirmative action provided that it does not have the effect of excluding otherwise eligible persons from participation in the program or activity.” 10 CFR 1040.88(c). Given the general prohibition on age-related discriminatory activities and related penalties, DOE finds these additional provisions unnecessary. DOE finds no reason to suggest additional actions associated with the provisions under 10 CFR 1040.88(b) in the absence of any improper action or attempt to provide unnecessary “clarification” of age based “voluntary affirmative action” under 10 CFR 1040.88(c). Accordingly, DOE finds good reason to eliminate these regulatory provisions. DOE seeks all comments. <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. 12866 also requires agencies to submit “significant regulatory actions” to OIRA for review. OIRA has determined that this proposed regulatory action does not constitute a “significant regulatory action” under section 3(f) of E.O. 12866. Accordingly, this proposed rulemaking action 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 proposed rule rescission under the provisions of the Regulatory Flexibility Act and the policies and procedures published on February 19, 2003. This proposal eliminates provisions in regulations that are unnecessary and create no substantive right or obligation. Therefore, DOE initially concludes that the impacts of the proposed rule 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 rule 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> Pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA), DOE is analyzing this proposed rule rescission in accordance with NEPA and DOE's NEPA implementing regulations (10 CFR part 1021). DOE's regulations include a categorical exclusion for rulemakings that are strictly procedural. <E T="03">See</E> 10 CFR part 1021, subpart D, appendix A6. DOE anticipates that this rulemaking qualifies for categorical exclusion A6 because it is a strictly procedural rulemaking and otherwise meets the requirements for application of a categorical exclusion. <E T="03">See</E> ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 20k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━