Improving and Eliminating Regulations; Diesel Particulate Matter Emission Limits in Underground Coal Mines

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR <SUBAGY>Mine Safety and Health Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>30 CFR Part 72</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. MSHA-2025-0074]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1219-AC05</RIN> <SUBJECT>Improving and Eliminating Regulations; Diesel Particulate Matter Emission Limits in Underground Coal Mines</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 MSHA is proposing to revise 30 CFR part 72 by removing outdated requirements for diesel particulate matter (DPM) emission limits for permissible diesel-powered equipment and non-permissible heavy-duty diesel-powered equipment operated in underground coal mines. These revisions would streamline the current requirements for underground coal mine operators while maintaining the same level of protections for miners who work with such equipment. </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-AC05 or Docket No. MSHA-2025-0074. 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-AC05 or Docket No. MSHA-2025-0074, by any of the following methods: <E T="03">1. Federal E-Rulemaking Portal: https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Follow the online instructions for submitting comments for MSHA-2025-0074. <E T="03">2. Email: zzMSHA-comments@dol.gov.</E> Include “RIN 1219-AC05” in the subject line of the message. <E T="03">3. 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 30 CFR part 72. Existing provisions in §§ 72.500 and 72.501 contain outdated requirements for DPM emission limits for permissible diesel-powered equipment and non-permissible heavy-duty diesel-powered equipment. The provisions in §§ 72.500(a), 72.501(a), and 72.501(b) contain outdated effective dates that are no longer relevant. Removing these provisions would not reduce protections afforded to miners because the requirements are outdated and are no longer applicable to underground coal mines. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Discussion</HD> Existing paragraph (a) of § 72.500 and existing paragraphs (a) and (b) of § 72.501 list outdated effective dates for DPM emission limits for permissible diesel-powered equipment and non-permissible heavy-duty diesel-powered equipment in underground coal mines. MSHA proposes to amend § 72.500 to remove existing paragraph (a). MSHA also proposes to revise paragraph (b) which would contain the current DPM emission limit for permissible diesel-powered equipment in underground coal mines to remove the no longer necessary compliance date. MSHA also proposes to amend § 72.501 to remove existing paragraphs (a) and (b). MSHA also proposed to revise paragraph (c) of § 72.501 which would contain the current DPM emission limit for non-permissible heavy-duty diesel-powered equipment, generators and compressors in underground coal mines to remove the no longer necessary compliance date. Removing these provisions would not reduce protections afforded to miners because they are outdated. As a result of removing §§ 72.500(a), 72.501(a), and 72.501(b), MSHA also proposes conforming amendments to § 72.503(e) to remove references to §§ 72.500(a) and 72.501(a). These proposed actions reflect 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 comments on any aspects of this proposed rule. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Procedural Issues and Regulatory Review</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Review Under Executive Orders 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 outdated requirements for DPM emission limits would not impose new compliance costs to underground coal mine operators or reduce the protections 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 were 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 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 21k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━