Technical Amendment to the Uniform Procedures for State Highway Safety Grant Programs

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>National Highway Traffic Safety Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>23 CFR Part 1300</CFR> <RIN>RIN 2127-AM81</RIN> <SUBJECT>Technical Amendment to the Uniform Procedures for State Highway Safety Grant Programs</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This final rule makes technical amendments to the Uniform Procedures for State Highway Safety Grant Programs to remove references to rescinded Executive Orders. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective on July 15, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> This document may be viewed online through the Federal eRulemaking portal at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> using the RIN number listed above. Electronic retrieval help and guidelines are available on the website. An electronic copy of this document may be downloaded by accessing the Office of the Federal Register's website at: <E T="03">www.federalregister.gov</E> and the U.S. Government Publishing Office's website at: <E T="03">www.GovInfo.gov.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> <E T="03">Program issues:</E> Barbara Sauers, Associate Administrator, Regional Operations and Program Delivery, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; Email: <E T="03">barbara.sauers@dot.gov;</E> Phone: (202) 366-1810. <E T="03">Legal issues:</E> Megan Brown, Attorney-Advisor, Office of the Chief Counsel, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590; Email: <E T="03">megan.brown@dot.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Technical Amendments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Waiver of Notice and Comment</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Regulatory Analyses and Notices</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> On February 6, 2023, NHTSA published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> a final rule titled Uniform Procedures for State Highway Safety Grant Programs. 88 FR 7780 (Feb. 6, 2023). <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> NHTSA promulgated this final rule in accordance with the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), signed into law on November 15, 2021 (Pub. L. 117-58, § 24102 and 24105). <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  Codified, with amendments, at 23 CFR part 1300. </FTNT> In recent months, several prior Executive Orders have been rescinded. As a result of these rescissions, the following Executive Orders, among others, are no longer in effect: Executive Order 12898 (Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations), Executive Order 13166 (Improving Access to Services for Persons with Limited English Proficiency), Executive Order 13985 (Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government), and Executive Order 13988 (Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation). As a condition for receiving formula grant funding under Section 402, State offices of highway safety must sign a certification and assurances document that includes provisions covering many required areas such as Drug-Free Workplace, as well as Hatch Act and State Lobbying restrictions. This document also includes a section on nondiscrimination that references the four rescinded Executive Orders (EOs) identified in the previous paragraph. In addition, NHTSA's highway safety grant rule provides regulatory definitions of certain terms used in statute. Relevant to this final rule, 23 U.S.C. 405(b)(4)(A)(v) allows States to use Section 405 occupant protection grant funds to implement programs related to child passenger safety for low-income and underserved populations. NHTSA derived the definition for “underserved populations” in part from the now-rescinded Executive Order 13985. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> During that rulemaking process, NHTSA received two comments related to the definition for “underserved populations. <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> 87 FR 56756, 56762 (Sept. 15, 2022). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Technical Amendments</HD> In this rule, NHTSA makes technical amendments to remove the references to the now rescinded Executive Orders from the certifications and assurances in Appendix A of NHTSA's Uniform Procedures for State Highway Safety Grant Programs. In addition, NHTSA removes the definition for “low-income and underserved populations” in 23 CFR 1300.21(b). NHTSA also removes the definition for “underserved populations” in 23 CFR 1300.3; the inclusion of this definition, which is duplicative of the more specific definition in 23 CFR 1300.21(b), was a drafting error. With the removal of those definitions, States are not required to change how they identify underserved populations, and will continue to have flexibility to identify the underserved populations within their jurisdiction based on their own data and problem identification. This rule will become effective on July 15, 2025 and will apply to State highway safety grants awarded beginning in fiscal year 2026. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Waiver of Notice and Comment</HD> NHTSA concludes that it has good cause to issue without notice and comment this technical amendment under 5 U.S.C. 553(b)(B). 5 U.S.C. 553(b)(B) provides that when an agency, for good cause, finds that notice and public comment are impractical, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest, the agency may issue a final rule without providing notice and an opportunity for public comment. NHTSA makes this technical amendment consistent with the rescission of Executive Order 12898 (Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations), Executive Order 13166 (Improving Access to Services for Persons with Limited English Proficiency), Executive Order 13985 (Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government), and Executive Order 13988 (Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation). NHTSA has no discretion to continue to require certification of compliance with these rescinded Executive Orders. By issuing this technical amendment, NHTSA establishes consistency with the status of these Executive Orders. In addition, NHTSA removes two definitions of “underserved population” because the definitions were derived in part from rescinded Executive Order 13985. Removal of these definitions does not require changes to States' current identification of these populations, but as stated elsewhere in the preamble, will enable States to identify the underserved populations within their jurisdiction based on their own data and problem identification. For these reasons, NHTSA has determined that providing prior notice and an opportunity for public comment is unnecessary and contrary to the public interest. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Regulatory Analyses and Notices</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Executive Order (E.O.) 12866 (Regulatory Planning and Review)</HD> NHTSA has considered the impact of this rulemaking action under E.O. 12866. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> This rulemaking does not meet the criteria of a “significant regulatory action” under the Executive Order. Therefore, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has not reviewed this rule under that E.O. <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  Regulatory Planning and Review, 58 FR 51735 (Oct. 4, 1993). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Executive Order (E.O.) 14192 (Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation)</HD> This rulemaking is an E.O. 14192  <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> deregulatory action and will have a de minimis reduction in State administrative burden. The updated legal citations in the required certifications and assurances document should incrementally lessen State legal review efforts. Removal of the definitions relating to underserved populations will streamline State identification of those populations by allowing States to use the definition that best meet their specific data and problem identification. <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  Unleashing Prosperity through Deregulation, 90 FR 9065 (Feb. 6, 2025). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. Regulatory Flexibility Act</HD> The Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA) of 1980 (5 U.S.C. 601 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) requires agencies to evaluate the potential effects of their proposed and final rules on small businesses, small organizations, and small governmental jurisdictions. Whenever an agency is required by 5 U.S.C. 553, or any other law, to publish general notice of proposed rulemaking for any proposed rule, the agency must conduct and publish for public comment a regulatory flexibility analysis. Because NHTSA is not required to publish a proposed rulemaking for this action, an analysis under the RFA is not required. NHTSA notes, however, that this action makes a limited revision to the uniform procedures implementing State highway safety grant programs, which were determined previously not to have a significant impact on a substantial number of small entities. The grant programs impacted by this rule will affect State governments, which are not considered to be small entities as that term is defined by the RFA. <HD SOURCE="HD2">D. Executive Order 13132 (Federalism)</HD> Executive Order 13132 on “Federalism” requires NHTSA to develop an accountable process to ensure “meaningful and timely input by State and local officials in the development of regulatory policies that have federalism implications.” 64 FR 43255 (August 10, 1999). “Policies that have federalism implications” are defined in ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 19k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━