Administrative Updates to the Federal Railroad Administration's System Safety Program Regulations

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Railroad Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>49 CFR Part 270</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FRA-2025-0112]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2130-AD53</RIN> <SUBJECT>Administrative Updates to the Federal Railroad Administration's System Safety Program Regulations</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This rule makes administrative updates to FRA's system safety program regulations, including updating addresses in those regulations. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Effective July 1, 2025. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Veronica Chittim, Senior Attorney, Office of Safety Law, Office of the Chief Counsel, FRA, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590 (telephone 202-480-3410), <E T="03">veronica.chittim@dot.gov;</E> or Lucinda Henriksen, Senior Advisor, Office of Railroad Safety, FRA (telephone 202-657-2842), <E T="03">lucinda.henriksen@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, and as described in more detail below, this rule is making miscellaneous, administrative updates to its regulations in 49 CFR part 270. These changes include updating addresses that are no longer valid. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Section-by-Section Analysis</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Part 270</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD3">§ 270.7 Penalties and Responsibility for Compliance</HD> FRA is amending § 270.7(a) to update the web address from <E T="03">www.fra.dot.gov</E> to <E T="03">https://railroads.dot.gov/.</E> FRA is updating § 270.7(c)(2)(ii) to direct notifications to the email address <E T="03">FRA-SSP@dot.gov.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD3">§ 270.107 Consultation Requirements</HD> FRA is amending § 270.107(c)(1) to replace the mailing address with the email address <E T="03">FRA-SSP@dot.gov</E> and to remove a duplicate reference to filing statements with the FRA Associate Administrator for Railroad Safety and Chief Safety Officer. <HD SOURCE="HD3">§ 270.201 Filing and Approval</HD> FRA is amending § 270.201(a)(1) to replace the mailing address with the email address <E T="03">FRA-SSP@dot.gov.</E> FRA is updating § 270.201(c)(1)(i) to direct amendments to be filed at the email address <E T="03">FRA-SSP@dot.gov.</E> FRA is removing § 270.201(e), as the language is superfluous, given the overall update to electronic submissions. <HD SOURCE="HD3">§ 270.303 Internal System Safety Program Assessment</HD> FRA is amending § 270.303(c)(1)(i) to replace the mailing address with the email address <E T="03">FRA-SSP@dot.gov.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD3">§ 270.305 External Safety Audit</HD> FRA is amending § 270.305(b)(1) to direct a passenger rail operation to submit an improvement plan to the email address <E T="03">FRA-SSP@dot.gov.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD3">§ 270.405 General Requirements; Procedure</HD> FRA is amending § 270.405(c)(1) and (2) to direct a passenger rail operation to submit an FRMP plan or an update to that FRMP plan to the email address <E T="03">FRAFatigue@dot.gov.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD3">§ 270.409 Requirements for an FRMP Plan</HD> FRA is amending § 270.409(a) to direct a passenger rail operation to submit an FRMP plan to the email address <E T="03">FRAFatigue@dot.gov.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD3">Appendix C Procedures for Submission of SSP Plans and Statements From Directly Affected Employees</HD> FRA is amending appendix C to replace the mailing address (Mail Stop 25, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590) with the email address <E T="03">FRA-SSP@dot.gov.</E> FRA is revising the language to reflect the change to electronic submissions throughout part 270. FRA is also amending appendix C to affirmatively reference amendments to SSP plans. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Public Participation</HD> Under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), an agency may waive the normal notice and comment procedures if the action is a rule of agency organization, procedure, or practice. 5 U.S.C. 553(b)(A). Additionally, under the APA, an agency may waive notice and comment procedures when the agency for good cause finds that notice and public procedure are impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest. 5 U.S.C. 553(b)(B). Since this final rule merely makes miscellaneous, administrative updates to the CFR, such as updating web addresses, it would not benefit from public comment, and notice and comment is not necessary. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Regulatory Impact and Notices</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Executive Order (E.O.) 12866 (Regulatory Planning and Review) and DOT Regulatory Policies and Procedures</HD> FRA has evaluated this final rule in accordance with E.O. 12866, Regulatory Planning and Review (58 FR 51735, Oct. 4, 1993), and DOT Order 2100.6B, Policies and Procedures for Rulemaking (Mar. 10, 2025). The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs within the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) determined that this final rule is not a significant regulatory action under section 3(f) of E.O. 12866. Because this final rule makes administrative changes such as updating web and email addresses, this final rule imparts no additional burdens on regulated entities. Moreover, this rule will provide some qualitative benefits to regulated entities and the U.S. government, by clarifying the language of part 270 and directing the regulated entities to the appropriate sites in the CFR. Additionally, this final rule allows electronic methods, such as email, for submitting documents. This will expedite the speed at which documents are delivered while also reducing costs that would otherwise exist from having to physically print, mail, and process documents. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. E.O. 14192 (Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation)</HD> E.O. 14192, Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation (90 FR 9065, Jan. 31, 2025), requires that for “each new [E.O. 14192 regulatory action] issued, at least ten prior regulations be identified for elimination.”  <SU>1</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>2</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</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>2</SU> Executive Office of the President. Office of Management and Budget. <E T="03">Guidance Implementing Section 3 of Executive Order 14192, Titled “Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation.”</E> Memorandum M-25-20. Mar. 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 final rule is expected to have total costs less than zero, and therefore it would be considered an E.O. 14192 deregulatory action. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. Regulatory Flexibility Act and E.O. 13272</HD> The Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980 ((RFA), 5 U.S.C. 601 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) and E.O. 13272 (67 FR 53461, Aug. 16, 2002) require an agency to prepare and make available to the public a regulatory flexibility analysis that describes the effect of the rule on small entities ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> small businesses, small organizations, and small governmental jurisdictions). A regulatory flexibility analysis is not required when a rule is exempt from notice and comment rulemaking. FRA has determined that this rule is exempt from notice and comment rulemaking. Therefore, a regulatory flexibility analysis is not required for this rule. <HD SOURCE="HD2">D. Paperwork Reduction Act</HD> There is no new collection of information requirements contained in this final rule, and in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, 44 U.S.C. 3501 <E T="03">et seq.,</E> therefore, an information collection submission to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is not required. The recordkeeping and reporting requirements already contained in part 270 became effective when they were approved by OMB on November 7, 2023. The OMB approval number is 2130-0599, and OMB approval expires November 30, 2026. <HD SOURCE="HD2">E. Environmental Assessment</HD> FRA has analyzed this rule for the purposes of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA). In accordance with 42 U.S.C. 4336 and DOT NEPA Order 5610.1C, FRA has determined that this rule is categorically excluded pursuant to 23 CFR 771.118(c)(4), “[p]lanning and administrative activities that do not involve or lead directly to construction, such as: [p]romulgation of rules, regulations, and directives.” This rulemaking is not anticipated to result in any environmental impacts, and there are no unusual or extraordinary circumstances present in connection with this rulemaking. <HD SOURCE="HD2">F. Federalism Implications</HD> This final rule will not have a substantial effect on the States, on the relationship between the national government and the States, or on the distribution of power and responsibilities among the various levels of government. Thus, in accordance with E.O. 13132, “Federalism” (64 FR 43255, Aug. 10, 1999), preparation of a Federalism Assessment is not warranted. <HD SOURCE="HD2">G. Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995</HD> This final rule will not result in the expenditure, in the aggregate, of $100,000,000 or more, adjusted for inflation, in ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 20k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━