Removing Obsolete Directives From Phase-In Reporting Requirements

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>National Highway Traffic Safety Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>49 CFR Part 585</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. NHTSA-2025-0030]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2127-AM82</RIN> <SUBJECT>Removing Obsolete Directives From Phase-In Reporting Requirements</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> NHTSA is proposing to remove obsolete directives from the phase-in reporting requirements. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received within 60 days of May 30, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Comments must be submitted through the Federal rulemaking portal at <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov</E> and should reference the docket number and the date and page number of this issue of the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . NHTSA strongly prefers comments be submitted electronically. However, written comments may be submitted ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> postmarked) via mail to 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590. All comments submitted in response to this document will be included in the record and will be made available to the public. Please be advised that any information submitted with your comment will be made public, without change, on the internet at the address provided above. A plain language summary of this document is available at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> in the docket for this rulemaking. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For technical issues, you may contact James Myers (email: <E T="03">James.Myers@dot.gov</E> ). For legal issues, you may contact John Piazza at <E T="03">John.Piazza@dot.gov.</E> You can reach these officials by phone at 202-366-1810. Address: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building, Washington, DC 20590. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> NHTSA is proposing to remove obsolete directives from its phase-in reporting requirements that only pertain to vehicles manufactured in prior years. A phase-in is a mechanism by which a final rule specifies a certain percentage of a vehicle manufacturer's vehicles that must comply with the requirements in a final rule in successive model years until all vehicles to which the standard applies comply with the new requirements. Some phase-ins are accompanied by reporting requirements, and Part 585 contains a number of such requirements, many of which have long since expired. The phase-in reporting requirements that the proposed amendments would delete are the advanced air bag phase-in reporting requirements (subpart B); the rear inboard lap/shoulder belt phase-in reporting requirements (subpart C); the fuel system integrity phase-in reporting requirements (subpart E); the reporting requirements for tires for motor vehicles with a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of 10,000 pounds or less (subpart F); the tire pressure monitoring system phase-in reporting requirements (subpart G); the side impact protection phase-in reporting requirements (subpart H); the electronic stability control system phase-in reporting requirements (subpart I); the head restraints phase-in reporting requirements (subpart J); the ejection mitigation phase-in reporting requirements (subpart K); the roof crush resistance phase-in reporting requirements (subpart L); and the rear visibility improvements reporting requirements (subpart M). The proposed rule would eliminate those directives while maintaining other directives in 49 CFR part 585 that pertain to vehicles that are being manufactured or will be manufactured. We seek comment on all aspects of this proposal. <HD SOURCE="HED">Authority: </HD> 49 U.S.C. 322, 30111, 30115, 30117, 30166. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Regulatory Analyses</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Executive Orders 12866 and 13563</HD> This proposed rule does not meet the criteria of a “significant regulatory action” under Executive Order 12866, as amended by Executive Orders 14215 and 13563. Therefore, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has not reviewed this proposed rule under those orders. This regulation is not an E.O. 14192 regulatory action. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Promoting International Regulatory Cooperation</HD> The policy statement in section 1 of Executive Order 13609 provides that the regulatory approaches taken by foreign governments may differ from those taken by the United States to address similar issues, and that in some cases the differences between them might not be necessary and might impair the ability of American businesses to export and compete internationally. It further recognizes that in meeting shared challenges involving health, safety, and other issues, international regulatory cooperation can identify approaches that are at least as protective as those that are or would be adopted in the absence of such cooperation and can reduce, eliminate, or prevent unnecessary differences in regulatory requirements. In addition, section 24211 of the Infrastructure, Investment, and Jobs Act, Global Harmonization, provides that DOT “shall cooperate, to the maximum extent practicable, with foreign governments, nongovernmental stakeholder groups, the motor vehicle industry, and consumer groups with respect to global harmonization of vehicle regulations as a means for improving motor vehicle safety.”  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  H.R. 3684 (117th Congress) (2021). </FTNT> Because the proposed changes are deleting obsolete regulatory text, they do not implicate any issues regarding international regulatory cooperation. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Initial Regulatory Flexibility Act</HD> Under the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA) (5 U.S.C. 601-612) (as amended by the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA) of 1996; 5 U.S.C. 601 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ), agencies must prepare and make available for public comment a regulatory flexibility analysis that describes the effect of the rulemaking on small entities ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> small businesses, small organizations, and small government jurisdictions). No regulatory flexibility analysis is required, however, if the head of an agency or an appropriate designee certifies that the rulemaking will not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. NHTSA has concluded and hereby certifies that this proposed rule will not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities; therefore, an analysis is not included. This proposed rule will only remove directives that are no longer needed. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Unfunded Mandates Reform Act</HD> This proposed rule does not contain Federal mandates (under the regulatory provisions of Title II of the UMRA) for State, local and Tribal governments, or the private sector of $100 million or more in any one year. Thus, the rulemaking is not subject to the requirements of sections 202 and 205 of the UMRA. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Executive Order 13175</HD> Executive Order 13175 requires Federal agencies to consult and coordinate with Tribes on a government-to-government basis on policies that have Tribal implications, including regulations, legislative comments or proposed legislation, and other policy statements or actions that have substantial direct effects on one or more Indian Tribes, on the relationship between the Federal Government and Indian Tribes, or on the distribution of power and responsibilities between the Federal Government and Indian Tribes. NHTSA has assessed the impact of this proposed rule on Indian tribes and determined that this rulemaking would not have tribal implications that require consultation under Executive Order 13175. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Paperwork Reduction Act</HD> In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 3501-3520), an agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information, unless the collection displays a currently valid Office of Management and Budget (OMB) control number. This proposed rule is deregulatory and so would not impose any additional information collection requirements. <HD SOURCE="HD1">E-Government Act Compliance</HD> NHTSA is committed to complying with the E-Government Act, 2002 to promote the use of the internet and other information technologies to provide increased opportunities for citizen access to Government information and services, and for other purposes. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Executive Order 13132; Federalism Summary Impact Statement</HD> NHTSA has examined this proposed rule pursuant to Executive Order 13132 (64 FR 43255; Aug. 10, 1999) and concluded that no additional consultation with States, local governments, or their representatives is mandated beyond the rulemaking process. The agency has concluded that the proposed rule does not have sufficient federalism implications to warrant consultation with State and local officials or the preparation of a federalism summary impact statement. The proposed rule does not have “substantial direct effects 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.” NHTSA rules can have a preemptive effect in two ways. First, the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act contains an express preemption provision: When a motor vehicle safety standard is in effect under this chapter, a State or a political subdivision of a State may prescribe or continue in effect a standard applicable to the same aspect of performance of a motor vehicle or motor vehicle equipment only if the standard is identical to the standa ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 24k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━