Drilling

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR <SUBAGY>Mine Safety and Health Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>30 CFR Part 56</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. MSHA-2025-0082]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1219-AC13</RIN> <SUBJECT>Drilling</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), Department of Labor. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> MSHA is proposing to rescind requirements for the maintenance of drill equipment and inspection of drilling areas before starting drilling operations at surface metal and nonmetal mines. Removing these provisions would not reduce protections afforded to miners because the requirements are duplicative and covered elsewhere in 30 CFR part 56. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before July 31, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> All submissions must include RIN 1219-AC13 or Docket No. MSHA-2025-0082. You should not include personal or proprietary information that you do not wish to disclose publicly. If you mark parts of a comment as “business confidential” information, MSHA will not post those parts of the comment. Otherwise, MSHA will post all comments without change, including any personal information provided. MSHA cautions against submitting personal information. You may submit comments and informational materials, clearly identified by RIN 1219-AC13 or Docket No. MSHA-2025-0082, by any of the following methods: 1. <E T="03">Federal E-Rulemaking Portal: https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Follow the online instructions for submitting comments for MSHA-2025-0082. 2. <E T="03">Email: zzMSHA-comments@dol.gov.</E> Include “RIN 1219-AC13” in the subject line of the message. 3. <E T="03">Regular Mail or Hand Delivery:</E> MSHA, Office of Standards, Regulations, and Variances, Room C3522, 200 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20210. Before visiting MSHA in person, call 202-693-9440 to make an appointment. No telefacsimiles (“faxes”) will be accepted. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Jessica D. Senk, Acting Director, Office of Standards, Regulations, and Variances, MSHA at 202-693-9440 (voice). This is not a toll-free number. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> MSHA is proposing to remove existing provisions from title 30 of the Code of Federal Regulations (30 CFR) part 56. Existing § 56.7002 requires mine operators to correct any safety related equipment defects on drilling equipment before using the equipment in surface metal and nonmetal mines. Existing § 56.7003 requires that a drilling area is inspected for hazards before drilling operations begin in surface metal and nonmetal mines. MSHA is proposing to remove and reserve §§ 56.7002 and 56.7003. Removing these provisions would not reduce protections afforded to miners. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Discussion</HD> In this proposed rule, MSHA is removing the existing provisions in §§ 56.7002 and 56.7003. Section 56.7002 requires mine operators to correct any safety related equipment defects on drilling equipment before using the equipment in surface metal and nonmetal mines. Section 56.7003 currently requires that a drilling area is inspected for hazards before drilling operations begin in surface metal and nonmetal mines. The proposed removal of §§ 56.7002 and 56.7003 would not reduce protection to miners because they are duplicative requirements already addressed §§ 56.14100 and 56.18002. This proposed action reflects MSHA's experience and ongoing review of existing regulations to ensure they remain necessary, effective, and aligned with current technologies and mining practices. MSHA seeks comment on any aspects of this proposed rule. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Procedural Issues and Regulatory Review</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Review Under Executive Order 12866 and 13563</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. E.O. 13563, “Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review” 76 FR 3821 (Jan. 21, 2011), requires agencies to use the best available techniques to quantify anticipated present and future benefits and costs as accurately as possible. E.O. 13563 reaffirms the principles of E.O. 12866 while calling for improvements in the nation's regulatory system to promote predictability, reduce uncertainty, and use the best, most innovative, and least burdensome tools for achieving regulatory ends. E.O. 12866 and E.O. 13563 direct agencies to assess all costs and benefits of available regulatory alternatives and, if regulation is necessary, to select regulatory approaches that maximize net benefits. E.O. 13563 emphasizes the importance of quantifying both costs and benefits, reducing costs, harmonizing rules, and promoting flexibility. Under section 3(f) of E.O. 12866, a “significant regulatory action” is a regulatory action that is likely to result in a rule that may: (1) have an annual effect on the economy of $100 million or more, or adversely affect in a material way he economy, a sector of the economy, productivity, competition, jobs, the environment, public health or safety, or state, local, or tribal governments or communities (also referred to as economically significant); (2) create a serious inconsistency or otherwise interfere with an action taken or planned by another agency; (3) materially alter the budgetary impact of entitlements, grants, user fees, or loan programs or the rights and obligations of recipients; or (4) raise novel legal or policy issues arising out of legal mandates, the President's priorities, or the principles set forth in the E.O. Under section 6(a) of E.O. 12866, the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB's) Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) determines whether a regulatory action is significant and whether Agencies are required to submit the regulatory action to OIRA for review. Removing the provisions concerning the maintenance of drill equipment and inspection of drilling areas before starting drilling operations would not impose new compliance cost to surface metal and nonmetal mine operators or reduce the protection afforded to miners. This proposed rule is determined to not constitute a “significant regulatory action” because it does not meet any of the four “significant regulatory action” criteria under section 3(f) of E.O. 12866. Accordingly, this proposed rule was not submitted to OIRA for review under E.O. 12866. No alternatives are considered for this proposed deregulatory action. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Review Under the Regulatory Flexibility Act</HD> The Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA) of 1980, as amended by the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA) of 1996, requires preparation of an Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis (IRFA) 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. The RFA defines small entities to include small businesses, small organizations, including not-for-profit organizations, and small governmental jurisdictions. MSHA reviewed this proposed rule under the provisions of the RFA, which eliminates burdensome regulations. Therefore, MSHA initially concludes that the impacts of the proposed rule would not have a “significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities,” and that the preparation of an IRFA is not warranted. MSHA 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> The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 3501 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) provides for the Federal Government's collection, use, and dissemination of information. The goals of the Paperwork Reduction Act include minimizing paperwork and reporting burdens and ensuring the maximum possible utility from the information that is collected under 5 CFR part 1320. The Paperwork Reduction Act requires Federal agencies to obtain approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) before requesting or requiring “a collection of information” from the public. This proposed rule imposes no new information collection or record-keeping requirements. Accordingly, OMB clearance is not required under the Paperwork Reduction Act. <HD SOURCE="HD2">D. Review Under Executive Order 13132</HD> E.O. 13132, “Federalism” 64 FR 43255 (August 10, 1999), imposes certain requirements on Federal agencies formulating and implementing policies or regulations that preempt State law or that have federalism implications. The E.O. requires agencies to examine the constitutional and statutory authority ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 19k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━