Deregulatory-Revision; Agency Agreements and Appointment of Agents

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Maritime Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>46 CFR Part 315</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket Number MARAD-2025-0090]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2133-AC03</RIN> <SUBJECT>Deregulatory—Revision; Agency Agreements and Appointment of Agents</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Maritime Administration (MARAD), Department of Transportation DOT) <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> MARAD is revising its regulations pertaining to the award and administration of agency agreements in the form of service agreements and ship manager contracts. The rule is intended to correct numerous citations in accordance with the codification of Title 46 of the United States Code; improve accessibility by modernizing text and updating agency contact information; and remove obsolete references. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective on July 1, 2025. <E T="03">Privacy Act:</E> Anyone can search the electronic form of all comments received into any of our dockets by the name of the individual submitting the comment (or signing the comment, if submitted on behalf of an association, business, labor union, etc.). For information on DOT's compliance with the Privacy Act, please visit <E T="03">https://www.transportation.gov/privacy.</E> <E T="03">Information Collection:</E> MARAD will publish a separate <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notice notifying the public of Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approval of the information collections in this rulemaking. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Mitch Hudson, Office of the Chief Counsel, Division of Legislation and Regulation, (202) 366-9373 or via email at <E T="03">Mitch.Hudson@dot.gov.</E> Persons who use a telecommunications device for the deaf (TDD) may call the Federal Information Relay Service (FIRS) at 1-800-877-8339 to contact the above individual during business hours. The FIRS is available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, to leave a message or question. You will receive a reply during normal business hours. You may send mail to Department of Transportation, Maritime Administration, Office of the Chief Counsel, Division of Legislation and Regulations, W24-220, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590-0001. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED"> SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: </HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Electronic Access and Filing</HD> An electronic copy of this document may also be downloaded by accessing the Office of the Federal Register's home page at: <E T="03">www.federalregister.gov.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> Improvement of regulations is a continuous focus for DOT and MARAD. For that reason, DOT/MARAD regularly and deliberately review their rules in accordance with DOT Order 2100.6B, Policies and Procedures for Rulemakings, Executive Order (E.O.) 12866, Regulatory Planning and Review (Oct. 4, 1993), and section 610 of the Regulatory Flexibility Act. That process is summarized in Appendix D of DOT's semi-annual regulatory agenda. In addition, E.O. 14192, Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation (Feb. 6, 2025), and E.O. 14219, Ensuring Lawful Governance and Implementing the President's “Department of Government Efficiency” Deregulatory Initiative (Feb. 19, 2025) directed agencies to further scrutinize their regulations to reduce unnecessary costs, clear barriers to emerging technology, and alleviate unnecessary regulatory burdens. MARAD has identified changes that will improve its regulations governing agency agreements and appointment of agents. This final rule will revise the regulations to ensure that they are current, modern, and the least burdensome to the public. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Section by Section Analysis</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Authority Citations</HD> MARAD proposes to revise the authority citations for accuracy. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Section 315.1 Purpose</HD> MARAD proposes to make minor, non-substantive edits to this section for clarity. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Section 315.3 Definitions</HD> MARAD proposes adding definitions of general agency agreement and ship manager contract for clarity. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Section 315.5 Appointment of Agents</HD> MARAD proposes to update MARAD contact information and made minor, non-substantive edits to this section for clarity. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Section 315.6 Transferred Vessel and Contracts</HD> MARAD proposes to make minor, non-substantive edits to this section for clarity. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Section 315.9 Administration of Agency Agreements</HD> MARAD proposes to make minor, non-substantive edits to this section for clarity. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Section 315.11 Duties of Agents</HD> MARAD proposes to make minor, non-substantive edits to this section for clarity. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Section 315.13 Vessel Deactivation Procedures</HD> MARAD proposes to make minor, non-substantive edits to this section for clarity. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Section 315.15 Marine Protection and Indemnity Insurance</HD> MARAD proposes this section for the sake of clarity. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Rulemaking Analysis and Notices</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Administrative Procedure Act</HD> MARAD is issuing this final rule without prior notice and the opportunity for public comment and the 30-day delayed effective date ordinarily prescribed by the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). Pursuant to section 553(b)(B) of the APA, general notice and the opportunity for public comment are not required with respect to a rulemaking when an “agency for good cause finds (and incorporates the finding and a brief statement of reasons therefor in the rules issued) that notice and public procedure thereon are impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest.” The intent of this action is to provide simple, clerical updates needed to correct numerous citations in accordance with the codification of Title 46 of the United States Code; improve accessibility by modernizing text, update agency contact information, and remove obsolete references. For these reasons, MARAD has determined that there is good cause to waive prior notice and comment because clerical non substantive updates will not benefit from public input. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Executive Order 12866 and DOT Rulemaking Procedures</HD> This rule is not a significant regulatory action under Executive Order (E.O.) 12866 and DOT Order 2100.6B and, therefore it was not reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget. It is also not considered a major rule for purposes of Congressional review under Public Law 104-121. This rule is limited to updating the citations, addresses, and modernizing text. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Executive Order 14192 (Deregulation)</HD> E.O. 14192 requires that for “each new [E.O. 14192 regulatory action] issued, at least ten prior regulations be identified for elimination.” Implementation guidance for E.O. 14192, issued by OMB (Memorandum M-25-20, March 26, 2025), defines an E.O. 14192 deregulatory action as “an action that has been finalized and has total costs less than zero.” This rule will have total costs less than zero, and therefore is an E.O. 14192 deregulatory action. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Executive Order 13132 (Federalism)</HD> MARAD analyzed this rulemaking in accordance with the principles and criteria contained in Executive Order 13132 (“Federalism”) and has determined that it does not have sufficient Federalism implications to warrant the preparation of a Federalism summary impact statement. This rulemaking has no substantial effect on the States, or on the current Federal-State relationship, or on the current distribution of power and responsibilities among the various local officials. Nothing in this document preempts any State law or regulation. Therefore, MARAD did not consult with State and local officials because it was not necessary. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Executive Order 13175 (Consultation and Coordination With Indian Tribal Governments)</HD> MARAD does not believe that this rulemaking will significantly or uniquely affect the communities of Indian tribal governments when analyzed under the principles and criteria contained in Executive Order 13175 (Consultation and Coordination with Indian Tribal Governments). Therefore, the funding and consultation requirements of this Executive Order do not apply. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Regulatory Flexibility Act</HD> The Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980 requires MARAD to assess whether this rulemaking would have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities and to minimize any adverse impact. This rule is limited to updating the citations, addresses, and modernizing text. MARAD certifies that this rulemaking will not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Privacy Impact Assessment</HD> Section 522(a)(5) of the Transportation, Treasury, Independent Agencies, and General Government Appropriations Act, 2005 (Pub. L. 108- 447, div. H, 118 Stat. 2809 at 3268) requires the Department of Transportation and certain other federal agencies to conduct a privacy impact assessment of each proposed rule that will affect the privacy of individuals. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995</HD> The Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 requires agencies to evaluate whether an agency action would result in the expenditure by State, local, and tribal governments, in the aggregate, or by the private sector, of $206 million or more (as adjusted for inflation) in any 1 year, and if so, to take steps to minimize these unfunded mandates. This rulemaking will not impose unfunded mandates under the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995. It will not result in costs of $206 million or more to either State, local, or tribal governments, in the aggregate, or to the private sector, and is the least burdensome alternative that achiev ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 24k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━