This section of the FEDERAL REGISTER

contains notices to the public of the proposed

issuance of rules and regulations. The

purpose of these notices is to give interested

persons an opportunity to participate in the

rule making prior to the adoption of the final

rules.

Proposed Rules Federal Register

17888 

Vol. 78, No. 57 

Monday, March 25, 2013 

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE 

2 CFR Chapter XXVII 

5 CFR Chapter XXVIII 

8 CFR Chapter V 

21 CFR Chapter II 

27 CFR Chapter II 

28 CFR Chapters I, III, V and VI 

31 CFR Chapter IX 

40 CFR Chapter IV 

41 CFR Chapter 128 

45 CFR Chapter V 

48 CFR Chapter 28 

[Docket No. OLP 152] 

Periodic Review of Existing 

Regulations; Retrospective Review 

Under E.O. 13563 

AGENCY: Department of Justice. 

ACTION: Request for comment. 

SUMMARY: On January 18, 2011, the 

President issued Executive Order 13563, 

‘‘Improving Regulation and Regulatory 

Review,’’ which sets forth principles 

and requirements designed to promote 

public participation, improve 

integration and innovation, increase 

flexibility, ensure scientific integrity, 

and increase retrospective analysis of 

existing rules. On August 22, 2011, 

pursuant to that Executive Order, the 

Department of Justice published its 

Final Plan for Retrospective Review of 

Existing Regulations. Then, on May 10, 

2012, the President issued Executive 

Order 13610, ‘‘Identifying and Reducing 

Regulatory Burdens,’’ which requires 

agencies to ‘‘invite, on a regular basis 

* * * public suggestions about 

regulations in need of retrospective 

review and about appropriate 

modifications to such regulations. In 

accordance with Executive Orders 

13563 and 13610, and the Department’s 

Final Plan, the Department invites 

interested members of the public to 

submit suggestions as to which 

Department of Justice Regulations 

should be modified, streamlined, 

expanded or repealed. 

DATES: Written comments must be 

postmarked and electronic comments 

must be submitted on or before May 24, 

2013. Commenters should be aware that 

the electronic Federal Docket 

Management System will not accept 

comments after 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time 

on the last day of the comment period. 

ADDRESSES: Comments may be mailed to 

OLP Regulatory Docket Clerk, 

Department of Justice, 950 Pennsylvania 

Avenue NW., Room 4250, Washington, 

DC 20530. To ensure proper handling, 

please reference OLP Docket No. OLP 

152 on your correspondence. You may 

submit comments electronically or view 

an electronic version of this notice with 

request for comments at http:// 

www.regulations.gov. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Robert Hinchman, Senior Counsel, 

Office of Legal Policy, Department of 

Justice, 950 Pennsylvania Avenue NW., 

Room 4252, Washington, DC 20530; 

Telephone (202) 514–8059. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Posting of Public Comments. Please 

note that all comments received are 

considered part of the public record and 

made available for public inspection 

online at http://www.regulations.gov. If 

you wish to inspect the agency’s public 

docket file in person by appointment, 

please see the paragraph above entitled 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT. 

Such information includes personal 

identifying information (such as your 

name, address, etc.) voluntarily 

submitted by the commenter. If you do 

not wish personally identifying 

information to be posted online, you 

must include the phrase ‘‘PERSONAL 

IDENTIFYING INFORMATION’’ in the 

first paragraph of your comment. You 

must also place all the personal 

identifying information you do not want 

posted online or made available in the 

public docket in the first paragraph of 

your comment and identify what 

information you want redacted. 

Personal identifying information 

identified and located as set forth above 

will be placed in the agency’s public 

docket file, but not posted online. 

Overview 

On January 18, 2011, President Barack 

Obama issued Executive Order 13563, 

‘‘Improving Regulation and Regulatory 

Review,’’ to ensure that Federal 

regulations seek more affordable, less 

intrusive means to achieve policy goals, 

and that agencies give careful 

consideration to the benefits and costs 

of those regulations. To that end, the 

Executive Order requires agencies to 

develop a plan ‘‘under which the agency 

will periodically review its existing 

significant regulations.’’ 

Pursuant to Executive Order 13563, 

the Department of Justice developed a 

preliminary plan for retrospective 

analysis in keeping with its resources, 

expertise, and regulatory priorities. The 

Department twice sought comment from 

regulated entities and the general 

public, and those previous public 

comments can be found online at http:// 

www.regulations.gov/#!docketDetail;

dct=PS;rpp=25;po=0;D=DOJ-OAG-2011- 

0003 for Docket No. OLP 150, and at 

http://www.regulations.gov/#!docket

Detail;dct=PS%252BSR;

rpp=25;po=0;D=DOJ-LA-2011-0016 for 

Docket No. DOJ–LA–2011–0016. 

After careful review, the Department 

incorporated many of those suggestions 

in its preliminary and final retrospective 

review plans. The Department also 

considered and incorporated best 

practices from its extensive efforts 

already underway to review existing 

regulations, respond to petitions for 

rulemaking, modernize technologies, 

and engage the public. The Department 

published its Final Plan for 

Retrospective Review of Existing 

Regulations on August 22, 2011, which 

is available online at http:// 

www.justice.gov/open/doj-rr-finalplan.pdf. 

The Final Plan identified several 

regulations for an initial round of 

retrospective review, and indicated that 

the Department expected to identify 

additional regulations for retrospective 

review in the future. As part of its 

execution of this plan, the Department 

is again seeking public comment on 

which regulations should be prioritized 

for retrospective review. 

Background 

Executive Order 13563 calls for 

‘‘periodic review of existing significant 

regulations,’’ with close reference to 

empirical evidence. Additionally, 


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Federal Register / Vol. 78, No. 57 / Monday, March 25, 2013 / Proposed Rules 17889 

Executive Order 13610 calls for regular 

participation of members of the public, 

including those directly and indirectly 

affected by regulations, as well as State, 

local, and tribal governments. Although 

the Department of Justice is primarily a 

law-enforcement agency, not a 

regulatory agency, some of its 

components have regulatory programs 

related to their responsibilities, and the 

Department is committed to the ongoing 

process of reviewing its existing 

regulations. Consistent with that 

commitment, the Department continues 

to assess its existing significant 

regulations in accordance with the 

requirements of the Executive Order 

through the implementation of its plan 

for retrospective review. As part of its 

Final Plan for Retrospective Review of 

Existing Regulations, the Department 

established a Department-wide working 

group to collaborate with rulemaking 

components to select rules for review, 

seek public comment, and recommend 

revisions as necessary. 

Since publishing the final plan, the 

working group met and discussed the 

principles underlying Executive Order 

13563 and the Departmental process for 

retrospective review. The working group 

heard presentations from the relevant 

components whose regulations had been 

selected for initial review in the Final 

Plan. After collaboration between the 

relevant components and the working 

group, the Department prepared 

rulemaking documents seeking public 

comment on particular rules identified 

for initial review. 

Pursuant to the Final Plan, the 

Department continues to identify rules 

internally and seek suggestions from 

Department components regarding 

which rules should be prioritized in the 

retrospective review process. In 

addition, the Final Plan also calls for 

periodic solicitation of suggestions from 

the public. As part of this ongoing 

process, the Department is presently 

seeking public input as to which rules 

should be prioritized under the criteria 

identified in the Final Plan and 

reproduced below. 

Request for Comments 

The Department of Justice recognizes 

that valuable information as to the 

consequences of a rule, including its 

costs and benefits, comes from practical 

real-world experience (both on the part 

of the public and on the part of the 

Department) after the rule has been 

implemented. Consistent with the 

Department’s commitment to public 

participation, the Department is seeking 

views from the public that identify 

specific rules or obligations that should 

be prioritized for review, including 

candidates for modification, 

streamlining, expansion or repeal. 

Comments should specifically describe 

how existing rules may be outmoded, 

ineffective, insufficient, or excessively 

burdensome. 

The Department’s internal working 

group, formed pursuant to its Final Plan 

for Retrospective Review of Existing 

Regulations, will evaluate suggestions of 

candidate rules. The Department has 

identified criteria that will guide the 

working group in prioritizing rules for 

retrospective review. The most 

important candidate rules for review are 

those that: 

• Could result in greater net benefits 

to the public if modified; or 

• Could be replaced by other, less 

burdensome regulatory alternatives 

without compromising regulatory 

objectives. 

In identifying rules that may meet 

those criteria, the Department will focus 

on rules that: 

• Have been overtaken by new 

circumstances or technologies; or 

• Require outdated reporting 

practices, such as paper-based processes 

without an electronic alternative; or 

• Have been in place for long periods 

of time without revision so that 

updating may be appropriate; or 

• Overlap, duplicate, or conflict with 

other federal rules or with State and 

local rules; or 

• Have been the subject of petitions 

for rulemaking suggesting ways to 

enhance net benefits or improve the 

efficacy of regulatory programs. 

Finally, in selecting rules for review, 

the Department will prioritize rules that 

meet these criteria and: 

• Impose high costs or burdens on the 

public; or 

• Affect a large number of entities or 

have disproportionate distributional 

impacts on certain entities, such as 

small businesses. 

In addition to the above criteria, 

where relevant, feasible, and consistent 

with regulatory objectives, and to the 

extent permitted by law, the Department 

will consider regulatory approaches that 

reduce burdens and maintain flexibility 

and freedom of choice for the public. 

The Department of Justice is soliciting 

concrete reasons why particular rules 

should be prioritized according to the 

above criteria in its ongoing 

retrospective review of existing rules. 

Comments should focus on regulations 

that have demonstrated deficiencies and 

clearly reflect the criteria set forth 

above. Comments that reiterate 

previously submitted arguments relating 

to recently issued rules will be less 

useful. Furthermore, commenters are 

encouraged to focus on regulatory 

changes that will achieve a broad public 

impact, rather than an individual 

personal or corporate benefit. Comments 

should reference a specific regulation by 

the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 

cite, and provide specific information 

on what needs fixing and why. Lastly, 

the Department stresses that this review 

is for published final rules; the public 

should not use this process to submit 

comments on proposed rules. 

The most useful comments will 

identify which specific regulations need 

to be changed, strengthened or clarified, 

or revoked. It will be most helpful to 

explain why the particular suggested 

change or revocation is necessary or 

desired, and to provide specific ways to 

improve the regulation, particularly any 

specific language modifications. 

As part of its ongoing retrospective 

analysis, the Department’s working 

group will again review the comments 

and suggestions previously submitted in 

response to the initial Requests for 

Comment in 2011, and it will consider 

whether to prioritize any regulations 

that had previously been the subject of 

public comments in the next round of 

retrospective analysis under Executive 

Order 13563. Thus, it is unnecessary for 

commenters to resubmit or reiterate 

previously-filed comments. Comments 

addressing more recent developments or 

offering a different or more thorough 

analysis relating to regulations that had 

previously been the subject of public 

comment for retrospective review would 

be welcome. 

The Department notes that this 

Request for Comment is issued solely 

for information and program-planning 

purposes. The Department will give 

careful consideration to the responses, 

and may use them as appropriate during 

the retrospective review, but we do not 

anticipate providing a point-by-point 

response to each comment submitted. 

While responses to this Request for 

Comment do not bind the Department to 

any further actions related to the 

response, all submissions will be made 

publicly available on http:// 

www.regulations.gov. 

Dated: March 19, 2013. 

Elana Tyrangiel, 

Acting Assistant Attorney General, Office of 

Legal Policy. 

[FR Doc. 2013–06729 Filed 3–22–13; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4410–18–P 


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