Pipeline Safety: Rationalize Calculation of Regulatory Filing and Compliance Deadlines

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>49 CFR Part 190</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. PHMSA-2025-0106; Amdt. No. 190-23]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2137-AF76</RIN> <SUBJECT>Pipeline Safety: Rationalize Calculation of Regulatory Filing and Compliance Deadlines</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Direct final rule (DFR); request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This DFR amends PHMSA's procedural regulations to establish a rule of construction clarifying the operation of procedural filing deadlines scheduled to fall on weekends and Federal holidays. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The DFR is effective October 9, 2025, unless adverse comments are received by September 2, 2025. If adverse comments are received, notification will be published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> before the effective date either withdrawing the rule (in its entirety or portions thereof) or issuing a new final rule which responds to those comments. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments identified by the Docket Number PHMSA-2025-0106 using any of the following methods: <E T="03">E-Gov Web: https://www.regulations.gov.</E> This site allows the public to enter comments on any <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notice issued by any agency. Follow the online instructions for submitting comments. <E T="03">Mail:</E> Docket Management System: U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590-0001. <E T="03">Hand Delivery:</E> U.S. DOT Docket Management System: West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. <E T="03">Fax:</E> 1-202-493-2251. For commenting instructions and additional information about commenting, see <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> . <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Brianna Wilson, Transportation Specialist, by phone at 771-215-0969 or email at <E T="03">brianna.wilson@dot.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. General Discussion</HD> PHMSA's administrative procedures for enforcement and regulation are codified at 49 CFR part 190. Part 190 contains numerous filing and compliance deadlines but says nothing about what happens when those deadlines fall on a weekend or a Federal holiday. That omission has real-world financial consequences for operators and other interested persons; they may incur additional costs by accelerating workstreams or incurring overtime personnel costs to satisfy a deadline early that would otherwise fall on a weekend or Federal holiday. To avoid that result, PHMSA is amending the definition of “day” at § 190.3 to specify that a filing deadline scheduled to fall on a weekend or Federal holiday will be deferred until the following business day. PHMSA notes that this rule of regulatory construction will only apply to part 190 filing requirements and not to other filing or regulatory compliance deadlines elsewhere in the pipeline safety regulations (PSRs, 49 CFR parts 190-199). PHMSA finds that adjusting the part 190 filing deadlines is unlikely to have any meaningful impact on the public safety but will provide operators and other interested parties with additional certainty and generate cost savings. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Commenting</HD> <E T="03">Instructions:</E> Please include the docket number PHMSA-2025-0106 at the beginning of your comments. If you submit your comments by mail, submit two copies. If you wish to receive confirmation that PHMSA received your comments, include a self-addressed stamped postcard. Internet users may submit comments at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> <NOTE> <HD SOURCE="HED">Note:</HD> Comments are posted without changes or edits to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> including any personal information provided. There is a privacy statement published on <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> </NOTE> <E T="03">Privacy Act:</E> In accordance with 5 U.S.C. 553(c), DOT solicits comments from the public to inform its rulemaking process. DOT posts these comments, without edit, including any personal information the commenter provides, to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> as described in the system of records notice (DOT/ALL-14 FDMS), which can be reviewed at <E T="03">https://www.dot.gov/privacy.</E> <E T="03">Confidential Business Information:</E> Confidential Business Information (CBI) is commercial or financial information that is both customarily and actually treated as private by its owner. Under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA, 5 U.S.C. 552), CBI is exempt from public disclosure. It is important that you clearly designate the comments submitted as CBI if: your comments responsive to this document contain commercial or financial information that is customarily treated as private; you actually treat such information as private; and your comment is relevant or responsive to this notice. Pursuant to 49 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 190.343, you may ask PHMSA to provide confidential treatment to information you give to the agency by taking the following steps: (1) mark each page of the original document submission containing CBI as “Confidential”; (2) send PHMSA, along with the original document, a second copy of the original document with the CBI deleted; and (3) explain why the information that you are submitting is CBI. Submissions containing CBI should be sent to Brianna Wilson, Standards and Rulemaking Division, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), 2nd Floor, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590-0001, or by email at <E T="03">brianna.wilson@dot.gov.</E> Any materials PHMSA receives that is not specifically designated as CBI will be placed in the public docket. <E T="03">Docket:</E> For access to the docket to read background documents or comments received, go to <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov.</E> Follow the online instructions for accessing the docket. Alternatively, you may review the documents in person at the street address listed above. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Regulatory Analysis and Notices</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Legal Authority</HD> This direct final rule is published under the authority of the Secretary of Transportation set forth in the Federal Pipeline Safety Laws (49 U.S.C. 60101 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) and delegated to the PHMSA Administrator pursuant to 49 CFR 1.97. PHMSA has determined that this direct final rule is unlikely to elicit significant adverse comment because it is a rule of agency procedure that provides interested parties with additional flexibility and certainty in meeting their part 190 filing requirements. <E T="03">See</E> 49 U.S.C. 60102(b)(6)(A); 49 CFR 190.339. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Executive Order 12866; Regulatory Planning and Review</HD> Executive Order (E.O.) 12866 (“Regulatory Planning and Review”; 58 FR 51735 (Oct. 4, 1993)), as implemented by DOT Order 2100.6B (“Policies and Procedures for Rulemaking”), requires agencies to regulate in the “most cost-effective manner,” to make a “reasoned determination that the benefits of the intended regulation justify its costs,” and to develop regulations that “impose the least burden on society.” DOT Order 2100.6B specifies that regulations should generally “not be issued unless their benefits are expected to exceed their costs.” In arriving at those conclusions, E.O. 12866 requires that agencies should consider “both quantifiable measures . . . and qualitative measures of costs and benefits that are difficult to quantify” and “maximize net benefits . . . unless a statute requires another regulatory approach.” E.O. 12866 also requires that “agencies should assess all costs and benefits of available regulatory alternatives, including the alternative of not regulating.” DOT Order 2100.6B directs that PHMSA and other Operating Administrations must generally choose the “least costly regulatory alternative that achieves the relevant objectives” unless required by law or compelling safety need. E.O. 12866 and DOT Order 2100.6B also require that PHMSA submit “significant regulatory actions” to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within the Executive Office of the President's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review. This direct final rule is a not significant regulatory action pursuant to E.O. 12866; it also has not been designated as a “major rule” as defined by the Congressional Review Act (5 U.S.C. 801 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ). PHMSA has complied with the requirements in E.O. 12866 as implemented by DOT Order 2100.6B and determined that this direct final rule may result in cost savings by reducing regulatory burdens for pipeline facility operators and other external stakeholders with no adverse impact on safety. The cost savings of this rulemaking could not be quantified. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. Executive Orders 14192 and 14219</HD> This direct final rule will be a deregulatory action pursuant to E.O. 14192 (“Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation”; (90 FR 9065 (Feb. 6, 2025)). PHMSA estimates that the total costs of the rule on the regulated community will be less than zero. Nor does this rulemaking implicate any of the factors identified in section 2(a) of E.O. 14219 (“Ensuring Lawful Governance and Implementing the President's `Department of Government Efficiency' Deregulatory Initiative”) indicative that a regulation is “unlawful . . . [or] that undermine[s] the national interest.” (90 FR 10583 (F ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 21k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━