Rescission of Renewable Energy Leasing Schedule

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Bureau of Ocean Energy Management</SUBAGY> <CFR>30 CFR Part 585</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket ID: BOEM-2025-0036]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1010-AE35</RIN> <SUBJECT>Rescission of Renewable Energy Leasing Schedule</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Direct final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Department of the Interior (the Department or DOI), acting through the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), is amending the Department's regulations to rescind a section that provides for publishing a renewable energy leasing schedule every 2 years. This section is not necessary because it is not mandated by the statute for renewable energy regulations. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This direct final rule is effective on September 4, 2025 without further action, unless significant adverse comment is received by August 20, 2025 If adverse comment is received, BOEM will publish a timely withdrawal of the rule in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> BOEM has established a docket for this action under Docket ID No. BOEM-2025-0036. All documents in the docket are listed on the website at <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov</E> and can be found by entering the Docket ID in the “Enter Keyword or ID” search box and clicking “search”. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Jennifer Jones, Office of Regulatory Affairs, BOEM, 1849 C Street NW, Washington, DC 20240, at email address <E T="03">jennifer.jones@boem.gov,</E> or at telephone number (202) 571-8664. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <E T="03">Background information.</E> This direct final rule revises the Department's regulations, which are administered by BOEM, that contain a provision specifying that at least every 2 years, the Secretary of the Interior (Secretary) will publish a 5-year schedule of anticipated lease sales in section 585.150 of title 30 of the Code of Federal Regulations. Upon reviewing this regulation, the Department has determined that it should be rescinded because this schedule of anticipated lease sales is not mandated by the authorizing statute, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), and unnecessarily limits the Secretary's discretion over scheduling renewable lease sales. Moreover, on January 20, 2025, President Trump invoked section 12(a) of OCSLA (43 U.S.C. 1341(a)) to temporarily but indefinitely withdraw unleased areas on the OCS from wind leasing, and, because that withdrawal prevents future renewable energy leasing while it is in effect, it serves no purpose for the Department to publish a schedule of sales every 2 years. The Department has determined that these reasons justify rescission of 30 CFR 585.150. The Department has no interest in maintaining a rule that is unnecessary. The Department has determined that this rule is not controversial and is administrative in nature and is therefore issuing this action as a direct final rule. Rescinding § 585.150 does not prevent BOEM from publishing a schedule of renewable lease sales if the Secretary determines that such a schedule is warranted, and, indeed, BOEM had done so in the past before § 585.150 was promulgated. Moreover, publication of a renewable lease sale schedule does not mandate that BOEM ultimately hold any particular lease sale. This rescission will be effective September 4, 2025 unless significant adverse comments are received by August 20, 2025. For purposes of this section, an adverse comment is one which explains why the rule would be inappropriate, including a challenge to the rule's underlying premise or approach, or why the rule would be ineffective or unacceptable without changes. Comments that are insubstantial or opinion only will not be considered adverse under this procedure. A comment recommending a rule change in addition to the rule will not be considered an adverse comment, unless there is a statement of why the rule would be unacceptable without the additional change. <E T="03">Organization of this document.</E> The information in this preamble is organized as follows: <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. General Information</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Purpose of This Regulatory Action and Summary</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Does this action apply to me?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Where can I get a copy of this document and other related information?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Statutory and Regulatory Authority</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Executive Order (E.O.) 12866: Regulatory Planning and Review, as Amended by Executive Order 13563: Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Executive Order 12630: Governmental Actions and Interference With Constitutionally Protected Property Rights</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Executive Order 13132: Federalism</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">G. Executive Order 12988: Civil Justice Reform</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">H. Executive Order 13175: Consultation and Coordination With Indian Tribal Governments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">I. Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">J. National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">K. Data Quality Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">L. Executive Order 13211: Actions Concerning Regulations That Significantly Affect Energy Supply, Distribution, or Use</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">M. Congressional Review Act (CRA)</FP> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. General Information</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Purpose of This Regulatory Action and Summary</HD> 30 CFR 585.150 directs a schedule for publication of projected renewable energy lease sales. A projected schedule of lease sales is not mandated by the authorizing statute, the OCSLA. The Department does not wish to maintain unnecessary rules, and this section will be removed. This final action removes 30 CFR 585.150. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Does this action apply to me?</HD> 30 CFR 585.150 does not regulate the public. This is an administrative change only and its removal does not affect any legal rights, obligations, or interests of any affected party. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. Where can I get a copy of this document and other related information?</HD> In addition to being available in the docket, BOEM will post an electronic copy of this direct final rule at: <E T="03">https://www.boem.gov/about-boem/regulations-guidance/published-rules.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Statutory and Regulatory Authority</HD> Section 5 of OCSLA (43 U.S.C. 1334) authorizes the Secretary to issue regulations to administer leasing on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). Section 5(a) of OCSLA (43 U.S.C. 1334(a)) authorizes the Secretary to “prescribe such rules and regulations as may be necessary to carry out [provisions of OCSLA]” related to leasing on the OCS. Also, subsection 8(p)(8) of OCSLA (43 U.S.C. 1337(p)(8)) authorizes the Secretary to “issue any necessary regulations to carry out this subsection.” This rule only makes administrative changes to remove a section from part 585 of title 30 that does not regulate the public. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Executive Order (E.O.) 12866: Regulatory Planning and Review, as Amended by Executive Order 13563: Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review</HD> E.O. 12866 gives OMB the authority to review regulatory actions that are categorized as “significant”; <E T="03">i.e.,</E> those actions that are likely to result in a rule that may: • Have an annual effect on the economy of $100 million or more or adversely affect in a material way the economy; a sector of the economy; productivity; competition; jobs; the environment; public health or safety; or state, local or tribal governments or communities; • Create a serious inconsistency or otherwise interfere with an action taken or planned by another agency; • Materially alter the budgetary impacts of entitlements, grants, user fees or loan programs or the rights and obligations of recipients thereof; or • Raise novel legal or policy issues arising out of legal mandates, the President's priorities, or the principles set forth in the Executive Order. E.O. 12866 provides that the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will review all significant rules. OIRA has determined that this action is not a significant regulatory action, and therefore, it was not submitted to OMB for review. E.O. 13563 reaffirms the principles of E.O. 12866 while calling for improvements in the Nation's regulatory system to promote predictability and reduce uncertainty, and to use the best, most innovative, and least burdensome tools for achieving regulatory ends. E.O. 13563 directs agencies to consider regulatory approaches that reduce burdens and maintain flexibility and freedom of choice for the public where these approaches are relevant, feasible, and consistent with regulatory objectives. BOEM has developed this rule in a manner consistent with these requirements. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA)</HD> The RFA, 5 U.S.C. 601-612, requires agencies to prepare a regulatory flexibility analysis for any rule subject to notice and comment rulemaking requirements under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) unless the rule will not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. The RFA generally requires agencies to analyze the ec ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 21k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━