Allowing for the Electronic Posting of Reportable Injuries and Occupational Illnesses

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Railroad Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>49 CFR Part 225</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FRA-2025-0122]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2130-AD57</RIN> <SUBJECT>Allowing for the Electronic Posting of Reportable Injuries and Occupational Illnesses</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM). <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This proposed rule would allow railroads to satisfy the requirement of electronically posting a listing of all injuries and occupational illnesses at an establishment. This proposed rule also removes some of the requirements for what information railroads must include in these listings. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments on the proposed rule must be received by September 2, 2025. FRA may consider comments received after that date, but only to the extent practicable. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> <E T="03">Comments:</E> Comments related to Docket No. FRA-2025-0122 may be submitted by going to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and following the online instructions for submitting comments. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> All submissions must include the agency name, docket number (FRA-2025-0122), and Regulatory Identification Number (RIN) for this rulemaking (2130-AD57). All comments received will be posted without change to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov;</E> this includes any personal information. Please see the Privacy Act heading in the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section of this document for Privacy Act information related to any submitted comments or materials. <E T="03">Docket:</E> For access to the docket to read background documents or comments received, go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and follow the online instructions for accessing the docket. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Michael Wissman, Railroad Safety Specialist, Part 225, Federal Railroad Administration, telephone: 610-314-5729, email: <E T="03">michael.wissman@dot.gov;</E> or Michael C. Spinnicchia, Attorney Adviser, Federal Railroad Administration, telephone: 202-713-7671, email: <E T="03">michael.spinnicchia@dot.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> Consistent with the deregulatory agenda of President Donald J. Trump and Secretary of Transportation Sean P. Duffy, which seeks to unleash America's economic prosperity without compromising transportation safety, FRA is reviewing its regulatory requirements in parts 200 through 299 of Title 49, Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). The requirements for FRA-regulated entities to report accidents and incidents meeting certain criteria are established in 49 CFR part 225, “Railroad Accidents/Incidents: Reports Classification, and Investigations.” Some of the requirements contained in part 225 could be updated to reduce burdens, make technical or conforming changes, or otherwise adjust to advancing technology, without any adverse effect on railroad safety. Please review the SECTION-BY-SECTION ANALYSIS below for the relevant information related to each proposed change. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Section-by-Section Analysis</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Section 225.25 Recordkeeping</HD> Paragraph (h) of this section requires that railroads post a listing of all injuries and occupational illnesses reported to FRA “in a conspicuous location at that establishment.” Over the past several years, several Class I railroads have submitted waivers requesting permission to satisfy this posting requirement electronically. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> FRA has granted these waivers, and is unaware of any issues that have resulted from Class I railroads using electronic posting to fulfill this requirement. Thus, FRA is proposing to allow railroads to post these injuries and illnesses electronically, if certain conditions are met. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>   <E T="03">See, e.g.</E> FRA-2018-0083. </FTNT> To achieve this objective, FRA proposes to reorganize paragraph (h). The proposed introductory text of paragraph (h) contains the general posting requirement. Proposed paragraph (h)(1) states the length of time and the sequence that information should be posted. Paragraph (h)(2), which is currently addressed in paragraph (h)(15) of this section, would state that railroads do not have to post information on an occupational injury or illness that is a privacy concern case. New paragraph (h)(3) would contain the list of information that must be included in this posting. FRA is proposing to remove some of the current requirements for these postings. Specifically, FRA proposes removing the requirement in current paragraph (h)(11) that the posting include the annual average number of railroad employees reporting to the establishment. FRA also proposes removing the signature requirement found in current paragraph (h)(12). Finally, FRA is proposing new paragraph (h)(4) which would allow railroads to post the listings required under this paragraph in an electronic format if certain conditions are met. Specifically, railroads using electronic posting would have to ensure that: employees are given instructions or training on accessing the electronic posting; there is a device at the facility employees can use to access the posting or employees are issued a device that can access the posting; and supervisors can show the posting to an employee or FRA representative upon request. These conditions are designed to ensure that railroad employees have guaranteed access to these postings if a railroad decides to post this information electronically. Lastly, FRA will revise the FRA Guide for Preparing Accident/Incident Reports in accordance with any changes to part 225 finalized in this rulemaking. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>   <E T="03">https://railroads.dot.gov/elibrary/fra-guide-preparing-accidentincident-reports-0.</E> </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Regulatory Impact and Notices</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Executive Orders (E.O.) 12866 (Regulatory Planning and Review) and DOT Regulatory Policies and Procedures</HD> FRA has considered the impact of this NPRM under E.O. 12866 (58 FR 51735, Oct. 4, 1993), Regulatory Planning and Review, and DOT Regulatory Policies and Procedures. The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs within the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) determined that this NPRM is not a significant regulatory action under section 3(f) of E.O. 12866. This rule would allow railroads to electronically post a listing of injuries and occupational illnesses and would remove some of the requirements for what information railroads must include in these listings. FRA analyzed the potential costs and benefits of this proposed rule. Since this rule would allow railroads to post listings electronically and would remove some requirements for what must be included in these listings, benefits would include increased flexibility and decreased reporting requirements and reduced burden for railroads. Additionally, this rule would provide further clarity by making technical or conforming changes, and otherwise adjusting to advancing technology. Since this rule would not impose any new requirements, it is not expected to have additional costs. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. E.O. 14192 (Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation)</HD> E.O. 14192 (90 FR 9065, Jan. 31, 2025), Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation, requires that for “each new [E.O. 14192 regulatory action] issued, at least ten prior regulations be identified for elimination.”  <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> Implementation guidance for E.O. 14192 issued by OMB (Memorandum M-25-20, March 26, 2025) defines two different types of E.O. 14192 actions: an E.O. 14192 deregulatory action, and an E.O. 14192 regulatory action. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  Executive Office of the President. <E T="03">Executive Order 14192 of January 31, 2025. Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation.</E> 90 FR 9065-9067 (Feb. 6, 2025). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  Executive Office of the President. Office of Management and Budget. Guidance Implementing Section 3 of Executive Order 14192, Titled “Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation.” Memorandum M-25-20. March 26, 2025. </FTNT> An E.O. 14192 deregulatory action is defined as “an action that has been finalized and has total costs less than zero.” This proposed rulemaking is expected to have total costs less than zero, and therefore it would be considered an E.O. 14192 deregulatory action upon issuance of a final rule. While FRA affirms that each amendment proposed in this NPRM has a cost that is negligible or “less than zero” consistent with E.O. 14912, FRA still requests comment on the extent of the cost savings for the changes proposed in this NPRM. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. Regulatory Flexibility Act and E.O. 13272</HD> The Regulatory Flexibility Act (5 U.S.C. 601 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ), as amended by the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996, <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> requires Federal agencies to consider the effects of the regulatory action on small business and other small entities and to minimize any significant economic impact. Accordingly, DOT policy requires an analysis of the impact of all regulations on small entities, and mandates that agencies strive to lessen any adverse effects on these businesses. The term <E T="03">small entities</E> comprises small businesses and not-for-profit organizations that are independently owned and operated and are not dominant in their fields, and governmental jurisdictions with populations of less than 50,000 (5 U.S.C. 601(6)). <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>  Public Law 104-121, 110 Stat. 857 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 21k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━