Rescission of Expired 1-Year Grace Period for Data Extensions

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Bureau of Ocean Energy Management</SUBAGY> <CFR>30 CFR Part 551</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket ID: BOEM-2025-0038]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1010-AE34</RIN> <SUBJECT>Rescission of Expired 1-Year Grace Period for Data Extensions</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> 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 the portion of a section, describing a grace period for release of geophysical data, that expired in 2010. This portion of the section is not necessary because it has expired. DOI is also making minor modifications effecting this rescission to another portion of the section. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective on August 12, 2025. </EFFDATE> <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 final rule revises the Department's regulations, which are administered by BOEM, that contain a provision which mentions that there was a 1-year grace period expiring September 14, 2010, for releasing reprocessed geophysical data in sections 551.14 (b)(5) and (6), and a cross reference to the 1-year grace period in section 551.14 (b)(2) of title 30 of the Code of Federal Regulations. Upon reviewing this regulation, the Department has determined that it should be rescinded because this grace period has expired and is no longer needed. The Department has determined that this reason, independently and alone, justifies revision of 30 CFR 551.14 (b)(2) and rescission of sections 551.14 (b)(5) and (6). The Department has no interest in maintaining a rule that is unnecessary. The Department has determined that this rule is not subject to the notice and comment requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). Additionally, the Department has determined that there is good cause for making this administrative amendment final without prior proposal and opportunity for comment because the revisions are not substantive and have no impact on the regulatory requirements of the affected parts. The Department has determined that public comment on such administrative changes is unnecessary and that there is good cause under the APA for proceeding with a final rule. Furthermore, because a notice of proposed rulemaking and opportunity for public comment are not required to be given for this rule under the APA or any other law, the analytical requirements of the Regulatory Flexibility Act are not applicable. Accordingly, this rule is issued in final form. There is good cause to make this rule effective in fewer than 30 days after publication in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> because the revisions are administrative in nature. Therefore, this final rule is effective upon publication. <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. Executive Order 13211: Actions Concerning Regulations That Significantly Affect Energy Supply, Distribution, or Use</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">L. 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 551.14 (b)(5) and (6) refer to a grace period between September 14, 2009, and September 14, 2010, during which BOEM did not release eligible reprocessed geophysical data if an extension was filed and approved. Geophysical data that was reprocessed 20 or more years after a permit was issued is subject to multiple requirements in 551.14, and subject to release to the public following the timeline table in 551.14 (b)(1). Section 551.14 (b)(2) contains a cross reference to the 1-year grace period mentioned in section 551.14 (b)(5). After this grace period expired in 2010, BOEM resumed releasing eligible reprocessed information under the original 25-year proprietary term, unless an extension was granted. This grace period has expired, and the section does not regulate the public. BOEM does not wish to maintain unnecessary rules, and this section will be removed. This final action revises 30 CFR 551.14 (b)(2) and removes sections 551.14(b)(5) and (6). <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Does this action apply to me?</HD> 30 CFR 551.14 (b)(5), and (6) and a portion of (b)(2) do not regulate the public and no longer applies, given expiration of the 1-year grace period at issue. 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 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 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) (43 U.S.C. 1334) authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to issue regulations to administer leasing for mineral development 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. This rule only makes administrative changes to remove a section 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 E.O. 12866. 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 interagency 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 APA unless the rule will not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. The RFA applies only to rules for which an agency is required to first publish a proposed rule. See 5 U.S.C. 603(a) and 604(a). Because no proposed rule was published for this recission, no RFA analysis is required. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA)</HD> The SBREFA, 5 U.S.C. 804(2), requires BOEM to perform a regulatory flexibility ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 21k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━