Waste Prevention, Production Subject to Royalties, and Resource Conservation; Extension of Phase-In Requirements

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Bureau of Land Management</SUBAGY> <CFR>43 CFR Part 3170</CFR> <DEPDOC>[A2407-014-004-065516; #O2509-014-004-125222]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1004-AF51</RIN> <SUBJECT>Waste Prevention, Production Subject to Royalties, and Resource Conservation; Extension of Phase-In Requirements</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Bureau of Land Management, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Direct final rule; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Bureau of Land Management (BLM, we) is promulgating this direct final rule (DFR) to amend its regulations to extend the phase-in dates for compliance with regulations related to both measurement-and-sampling requirements for high-pressure flares and the submission of Leak Detection and Repair (LDAR) programs. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This DFR is effective on February 13, 2026, unless significant adverse comments are received by January 14, 2026. 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 any significant adverse comments. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> John Ajak, Deputy Division Chief, BLM HQ-310 Division of Fluid Minerals, email: <E T="03">jajak@blm.gov;</E> telephone: 505-549-9654; or Amanda Fox, Petroleum Engineer, email: <E T="03">afox@blm.gov;</E> telephone: 907-538-2300. 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. For a summary of the final rule, please see the abstract description of the document in Docket Number BLM-2025-0268 on <E T="03">www.regulations.gov.</E> </FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments by one of the following methods: • <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal: https://www.regulations.gov.</E> In the Search box, enter the Docket Number “BLM-2025-0268” and click the “Search” button. Follow the instructions at this website. • <E T="03">Mail, personal, or messenger delivery:</E> U.S. Department of the Interior, Director (630), Bureau of Land Management, 1849 C St. NW, Room 5646, Washington, DC 20240, Attention: 1004-AF51. <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> The BLM is responsible for managing over 245 million surface acres of land, primarily located in 12 Western States, and 700 million acres of subsurface mineral estate, located throughout the United States. The BLM maintains a program for leasing these lands for oil and gas development and regulates oil and gas production on Federal leases. While the BLM does not manage the leasing of Indian lands for oil and gas production, it does regulate oil and gas operations on many Indian leases under the Secretary's statutory and Tribal trust responsibilities. Venting and flaring of natural gas on Federal and Indian lands managed by the BLM, as well as determinations of royalties due on lost gas, are currently governed by 43 CFR subpart 3179 in all States except North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Utah and Texas, where the rule has been enjoined by the District Court for the District of North Dakota. <E T="03">See North Dakota</E> v. <E T="03">Interior,</E> 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 164665 (Sep. 12, 2024). The BLM published a final rule on April 10, 2024 (89 FR 25378) that, among other topics, updated the measurement-and sampling requirements for flares, and created Leak Detection and Repair (LDAR) program requirements. The BLM seeks to delay the following requirements as we are pursuing a separate but related proposed rulemaking in the coming months that could significantly change the timelines for these requirements. This delay will provide operators with relief while the BLM pursues these changes. The enforcement deadlines being extended are currently as follows: <E T="03">43 CFR 3179.71(f)—for monthly flaring volumes less than 6,000 Mcf and greater than or equal to 1,050 Mcf.</E> These regulations require operators to have measurement devices and sampling in place for flares with monthly flaring volumes within the noted range by December 10, 2025. <E T="03">43 CFR 3179.100(d)—submission of statewide LDAR program.</E> This regulation requires operators on Federal or Indian leases to maintain and submit an “administrative statewide LDAR program” for applicable leases to the appropriate BLM state office(s). For leases that were in effect on June 10, 2024, § 3179.100(d) requires operators to submit the required LDAR program to the applicable BLM state office no later than December 10, 2025. This DFR will extend the deadline to comply with these two requirements to December 10, 2026. Other compliance deadlines for high-pressure flares with monthly flaring volumes greater than or equal to 6,000 Mcf and less than 30,000 Mcf (in effect since June 10, 2025), and flares with monthly flaring volumes greater than 30,000 Mcf (in effect since December 10, 2024) remain in effect and, to the best of the BLM's knowledge, operators are in compliance. This rule is consistent with broader energy policy goals, as reflected in Executive Order (E.O.) 14154, “Unleashing American Energy,” 90 FR 8353 (Jan. 20, 2025), and E.O. 14156, “Declaring a National Energy Emergency,” 90 FR 8433 (Jan. 20, 2025), which emphasize: • Reducing regulatory burdens on domestic energy producers; • Streamlining compliance timelines to avoid unnecessary disruptions to operations; and • Encouraging capital investment in exploration and production by minimizing near-term financial strain. This action reflects the Department of the Interior's commitment to regulatory certainty, economic growth, and responsible resource development. It does not alter the requirements of the rule, only the compliance deadlines. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Procedural Matters</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Executive Order (E.O.) 12866—Regulatory Planning and Review and E.O. 13563—Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review</HD> 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 rule is not significant. E.O. 13563 reaffirms the principles of E.O. 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. 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. E.O. 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">Regulatory Flexibility Act</HD> The Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA, 5 U.S.C. 601 through 612) requires an agency to prepare a regulatory flexibility analysis for all rules unless the agency certifies that 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. <E T="03">See</E> 5 U.S.C. 603(a) and 604(a). As the Department is not required to publish a notice of proposed rulemaking for this DFR, the RFA does not apply. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Congressional Review Act</HD> This rule is not a major rule under the Congressional Review Act, 5 U.S.C. 804(2). Specifically, the DFR: (a) Will not have an annual effect on the economy of $100 million or more; (b) Will not cause a major increase in costs or prices for consumers, individual industries, Federal, State, or local government agencies, or geographic regions; and (c) Will not have significant adverse effects on competition, employment, investment, productivity, innovation, or on the ability of United States-based enterprises to compete with foreign-based enterprises in domestic and export markets. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Unfunded Mandates Reform Act</HD> This rule does not impose an unfunded mandate on State, local, or Tribal governments, or the private sector, of more than $100 million per year. The rule does not have a significant or unique effect on State, local, or Tribal governments, or the private sector. The rule merely extends the deadlines for complying with requirements related to measurement-and-sampling requirements for high-pressure flares and to the submission of LDAR programs. Therefore, a statement containing the information required by the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (2 U.S.C. 1531 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) is not required. <HD SOURCE="HD2">E.O. 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 E.O. 12630. The rule extends the deadlines for complying with requirements related to measurement-and-sampling requirements for high-pressure flares and to the submission of LDAR programs; therefore, the rule will not result in private property being taken for public use without just compensation. A takings implication assessment is therefore not required. <HD SOURCE="HD2">E.O. 13132—Federalism</HD> Under the criteria of section 1 of E.O. 13132, this rule does not ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 15k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━