Remove Regulations for Sulphur Operations

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement</SUBAGY> <CFR>30 CFR Part 250</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket ID: BSEE-2025-0003; EEEE500000 256E1700D2 ET1SF0000.EAQ000]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1014-AA64</RIN> <SUBJECT>Remove Regulations for Sulphur Operations</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Direct final rule; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Department of the Interior (DOI or Department), through the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), is rescinding the majority of the provisions in its sulphur operations subpart and revising the subpart by applying other available regulatory requirements for similar operations to sulphur operations in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). The existing regulations are outdated, duplicative of, or inconsistent with, other Department regulations. This direct final rule provides consistency and clarity to industry regarding regulatory requirements for sulphur operations by aligning the requirements with the Department's other BSEE-administered regulations. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The final rule is effective September 30, 2025, unless significant adverse comments are received by September 2, 2025. If significant adverse comments are received, notice will be published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> before the effective date either withdrawing the rule or issuing a new final rule that responds to significant adverse comments. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments on this rulemaking by any of the following methods. Please use the Regulation Identifier Number (RIN) 1014-AA64 as an identifier in your message. • <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal:</E> <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov.</E> In the entry entitled, Enter Keyword or ID, enter BSEE-2025-0003, then click search. Follow the instructions to submit public comments and view supporting and related materials available for this rulemaking. BSEE may post all comments submitted. • Mail or hand-carry comments to the Department of the Interior; Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement; Attention: Regulations and Standards Branch; 45600 Woodland Road, Sterling, Virginia 20166. Please reference “Remove Regulations for Sulphur Operations at 30 CFR part 250, Subpart P, 1014-AA64” in your comments and include your name and return address. • Send comments on the information collection in this rule to: Interior Desk Officer 1014-AA64, Office of Management and Budget; by fax at 202-395-5806; or by email at <E T="03">oira_submission@omb.eop.gov.</E> In addition, please send a copy of your comments to BSEE by one of the methods previously listed. <E T="03">Public Availability of Comments</E> —Before including your address, phone number, email address, or other personal identifying information in your comment, you should be aware that your entire comment—including your personal identifying information—may be made publicly available at any time. In order for BSEE to withhold from disclosure your personal identifying information, you must identify any information contained in your comment submittal that, if released, would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of your personal privacy. You must also briefly describe any possible harmful consequence(s) of the disclosure of the information, such as embarrassment, injury, or other harm. While you can ask us in your comment to withhold your personal identifying information from public review, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to do so. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For questions, contact Kirk Malstrom, Regulations and Standards Branch, (202) 258-1518, or by email: <E T="03">regs@bsee.gov.</E> Individuals in the United States who are deaf, deafblind, hard of hearing, or have a speech disability may dial 711 (TTY, TDD, or TeleBraille) to access telecommunications relay services. Individuals outside the United States should use the relay services offered within their country to make international calls to the point-of-contact in the United States. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> The Department is issuing this rule as a direct final rule. Although the Administrative Procedure Act (APA, 5 U.S.C. 551-559) generally requires agencies to engage in notice and comment rulemaking, section 553 of the APA provides an exception when the agency “for good cause finds” that notice and comment are “impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest.” <E T="03">Id.</E> § 553(b)(B). The Department has determined that notice and comment are unnecessary because this rule is noncontroversial; of a minor, technical nature; and is unlikely to receive any significant adverse comments. Significant adverse comments are those that oppose the rescission of the rule and raise, alone or in combination, (1) reasons why the rescission of the rule is inappropriate, including challenges to the rescission's underlying premise, or (2) serious unintended consequences of the rescission. A comment recommending an addition to the rule will not be considered significant and adverse unless the comment explains how this direct final rule would be ineffective without the addition. <E T="03">Executive Summary:</E> This direct final rule (DFR) revises the regulatory provisions in subpart P of 30 CFR part 250 that are inconsistent with other similar operational and equipment requirements of this part. On January 20, 2025, the President issued Executive Order (E.O.) 14154 “Unleashing American Energy,” which rescinded E.O. 13990 “Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis” and directed the removal of regulations that impede the development and use of the Nation's energy and natural resources. In response to E.O. 14154, the Secretary of the Interior (Secretary) issued Secretary's Order (S.O.) 3418, “Unleashing American Energy,” which directs all Assistant Secretaries to “review all agency actions and submit an action plan” that includes steps that “as appropriate, will be taken to suspend, revise, or rescind documents,” to address potential burden to industry. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  Secretary's Order 3418, Sec. 4. Directive, Feb. 3, 2025. </FTNT> This DFR revises provisions that, consistent with and as authorized by the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), will achieve the objectives of E.O. 14154 and S.O. 3418. At this time, BSEE would streamline the subpart P regulations by: • Applying other regulations in 30 CFR part 250 to sulphur operations; and • Rescinding the regulations in §§ 250.1601 through 250.1634 and reserving those sections. BSEE will continue to evaluate the effectiveness of all BSEE regulations for any necessary and appropriate rulemakings in the future. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Statutory and Regulatory Authority and Responsibilities</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Purpose and Summary of the Rulemaking</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Section-by-Section Discussion of Proposed Changes</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. § 250.1600 Performance Standard</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. §§ 250.1601-250.1634</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Procedural Matters</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Statutory and Regulatory Authority and Responsibilities</HD> The Department's authority for this direct final rule is derived from OCSLA, codified at 43 U.S.C. 1331-1356a. OCSLA, enacted in 1953 and substantially revised in 1978, authorizes the Secretary to regulate and administer mineral and oil and gas exploration, development, and production operations on the OCS. The Secretary has delegated authority to perform certain of these functions to BSEE under Secretary's Order 3299. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>   <E T="03">https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/elips/documents/3299a2-establishment_of_the_bureau_of_ocean_energy_management_the_bureau_of_safety_and_environmental_enforcement_and_the_office_of_natural_resources_revenue.pdf.</E> </FTNT> To carry out its responsibilities, BSEE regulates offshore oil and gas and sulphur operations to enhance the safety of oil and gas and sulphur exploration and development on the OCS, ensure that those operations are safe, and implement advancements in technology. BSEE also conducts onsite inspections to ensure compliance with regulations, lease terms, and approved plans and permits. Detailed information concerning the BSEE-administered regulations and guidance to the offshore oil and gas and sulphur industries may be found on BSEE's website at: <E T="03">https://www.bsee.gov/guidance-and-regulations.</E> BSEE administers a regulatory program that covers a wide range of OCS facilities and activities that offshore operators  <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> perform, including sulphur operations, throughout the OCS. <E T="03">See</E> 30 CFR part 250. This DFR is applicable to the operational activities that involve sulphur exploration, development, and production. <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  The regulations at 30 CFR part 250 generally apply to “a lessee, the owner or holder of operating rights, a designated operator or agent of the lessee(s)” (30 CFR 250.105 (definition of “you”) and “the person actually performing the activity to which the requirement applies” (30 CFR 250.146(c)). For convenience, this preamble will refer to these regulated entities as “operators” unless otherwise indicated. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Purpose and Summary of the Rulemaking</HD> On August 29, 2011, the Secretary issued Secretary's Order 3299 2A (S.O. 3299 2A), which ann ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 26k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━