Prior Balance Replacement Funds

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement</SUBAGY> <CFR>30 CFR Parts 872, 874, 875, 879, 886, and 887</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. OSM-2025-0016; S1D1S SS08011000 SX064A000 256S180110; S2D2S SS08011000 SX064A000 25XS501520]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1029-AD00</RIN> <SUBJECT>Prior Balance Replacement Funds</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Direct final rule; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This direct final rule revises the Federal regulations to rescind references to prior balance replacement funds, which are moneys from the United States Treasury's General Fund that replaced State or Tribal share funds that were allocated before October 1, 2007, but never appropriated by Congress, and to make minor conforming language changes. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The final rule is effective January 23, 2026, unless significant adverse comments are received by December 24, 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 by one of the following methods: • <E T="03">Electronically:</E> Go to the Federal eRulemaking Portal: <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and search for Docket Number OSM-2025-0016. Follow the instructions for submitting comments. • <E T="03">By hard copy:</E> Submit by U.S. mail to Division of Regulatory Support, Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, Department of the Interior, Attn: James Tyree, 1849 C Street NW, Mail Stop 4557, Washington, DC 20240. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> James Tyree, Chief, Division of Regulatory Support, (202) 208-4479, <E T="03">jtyree@osmre.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 Federal regulations at 30 CFR chapter VII, subchapter R contain various references to prior balance replacement funds, which are moneys from the United States Treasury's General Fund that replaced State or Tribal share funds that were allocated before October 1, 2007, but never appropriated by Congress. Section 411(h)(1) of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMCRA) required the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE) to distribute prior balance replacement funds to eligible States and Tribes for seven years, beginning October 1, 2008. As the distribution of prior balance replacement funds is complete, the Department of the Interior (Department) and OSMRE have determined that all remaining references to prior balance replacement funds in 30 CFR chapter VII, subchapter R should be rescinded and that the remaining language in 30 CFR 872.21(b) should be lightly edited to improve clarity and ensure correct grammar and punctuation. To the extent States or Tribes may have any unspent prior balance replacement funds, those funds will be governed by the regulations that were in place at the time of the initial grant award. In addition, the Federal regulations at 30 CFR 872.35(a) currently refer to a $490 million cap on the amount of funds available each fiscal year to be transferred by the Secretary of the Treasury to the Secretary of the Interior for payments under section 402(i) of SMCRA. However, the Bipartisan American Miners Act of 2019 amended section 402(i) of SMCRA to raise the cap on the amount of Treasury funds available for transfer from $490 million to $750 million. The Department and OSMRE have determined that 30 CFR 872.35(a) should be amended to be consistent with SMCRA and accurately reflect the $750 million cap. The Department has determined that these reasons, independently and alone, justify amending the regulatory language and rescinding all remaining references to prior balance replacement funds in 30 CFR chapter VII, subchapter R. The Department has no interest in maintaining rules that are obsolete or inconsistent with applicable law. 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; involves little agency discretion; and is unlikely to receive any significant adverse comments. Significant adverse comments are those that oppose the amendment or rescission of the regulatory language and raise, alone or in combination, (1) reasons why the amendment or recission of the regulatory language is inappropriate, including challenges to the amendment's or recission's underlying premise, or (2) serious unintended consequences of the amendment or recission. 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. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Procedural Determinations</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Executive Order 12630—Governmental Actions and Interference With Constitutionally Protected Property Rights</HD> This rule does not result in a taking of private property or otherwise have regulatory takings implications under Executive Order 12630. The rule amends and rescinds obsolete regulatory language; therefore, the rule will not result in private property being taken for public use without just compensation. A takings implication assessment is not required. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Executive Order 12866—Regulatory Planning and Review and Executive Order 13563—Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review</HD> Executive Order 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 rule is not significant. Executive Order 13563 reaffirms the principles of Executive Order 12866, while calling for improvements in the Nation's regulatory system to promote predictability, reduce uncertainty, and use the best, most innovative, and least burdensome tools for achieving regulatory ends. Executive Order 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. Executive Order 13563 emphasizes further that agencies must base regulations on the best available science and that the rulemaking process must allow for public participation and an open exchange of ideas. The Department developed this rule in a manner consistent with these requirements. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Executive Order 12988—Civil Justice Reform</HD> This direct final rule complies with the requirements of Executive Order 12988. Among other things, this rule: (a) Meets the criteria of section 3(a) requiring that all regulations be reviewed to eliminate errors and ambiguity and be written to minimize litigation; (b) Meets the criteria of section 3(b)(2) requiring that all regulations be written in clear language and contain clear legal standards. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Executive Order 13132—Federalism</HD> Under the criteria of section 1 of Executive Order 13132, this rule does not have sufficient federalism implications to warrant the preparation of a federalism summary impact statement. This rule will not have substantial direct effects 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. A federalism summary impact statement is not required. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Executive Order 13175—Consultation and Coordination With Indian Tribal Governments</HD> The Department of the Interior strives to strengthen its government-to-government relationship with Indian tribes through a commitment to consultation with Tribes and recognition of their right to self-governance and Tribal sovereignty. The Department evaluated this direct final rule under Executive Order 13175 and the Department's consultation policies and determined that it has no substantial direct effects on federally recognized Indian tribes and that consultation under the Department's Tribal consultation policies is not required. The rule merely revises the Federal regulations to remove or amend obsolete regulatory language. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Executive Order 13211—Actions Concerning Regulations That Significantly Affect Energy Supply, Distribution, or Use</HD> This direct final rule is not a significant energy action as defined in Executive Order 13211. Therefore, a Statement of Energy Effects is not required. <HD SOURCE="HD2">National Environmental Policy Act</HD> This direct final rule does not constitute a major Federal action significantly affecting the quality of the human environment. A detailed statement under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA, 42 U.S.C. 4321 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) is not required because this rule is cover ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 22k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━