Document ID: USCG-2017-0480-0001
Agency: uscg
Document Type: Proposed Rule
Title: Evaluation of Existing Coast Guard Regulations, Guidance Documents, Interpretative Documents, and Collections of Information
Posted Date: 2017-06-08T04:00Z

[Federal Register Volume 82, Number 109 (Thursday, June 8, 2017)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 26632-26634]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2017-11930]

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DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

Coast Guard

33 CFR Chapter I

46 CFR Chapters I and III

49 CFR Chapter IV

[Docket No. USCG-2017-0480]

Evaluation of Existing Coast Guard Regulations, Guidance 
Documents, Interpretative Documents, and Collections of Information

AGENCY: Coast Guard, DHS.

ACTION: Request for comments.

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SUMMARY: We are seeking comments on Coast Guard regulations, guidance 
documents, and interpretative documents that you believe should be 
repealed, replaced, or modified. Also, we welcome your comments on our 
approved collections of information, regardless of whether the 
collection is associated with a regulation. We are taking this action 
in response to Executive Orders 13771, Reducing Regulation and 
Controlling Regulatory Costs; 13777, Enforcing the Regulatory Reform 
Agenda; and 13783, Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth. 
We plan to use your comments to assist us in our work with the 
Department of Homeland Security's Regulatory Reform Task Force.

DATES: Comments and related material must be received by the Coast 
Guard on or before July 10, 2017.

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments identified by docket number USCG-
2017-0480 using the Federal eRulemaking Portal at http://www.regulations.gov. See the ``Public Participation and Request for 
Comments'' portion of the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section for further 
instructions on submitting comments.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For information about this document 
call or email Mr. Adam Sydnor, Coast Guard; telephone 202-372-1490, 
email Adam.B.Sydnor@uscg.mil.

[[Page 26633]]

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On January 30, 2017, President Trump issued 
Executive Order 13771, Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory 
Costs. Under that Executive Order, for every one new regulation issued, 
at least two prior regulations must be identified for elimination, and 
the cost of planned regulations must be prudently managed and 
controlled through a budgeting process. On February 24, 2017, the 
President issued Executive Order 13777, Enforcing the Regulatory Reform 
Agenda. That Executive Order directs agencies to take specific steps to 
identify and alleviate unnecessary regulatory burdens placed on the 
American people. On March 28, 2017, the President issued Executive 
Order 13783, Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth. 
Executive Order 13783 promotes the clean and safe development of our 
Nation's vast energy resources, while at the same time avoiding agency 
actions that unnecessarily encumber energy production.
    We are seeking comments on Coast Guard regulations, guidance 
documents, interpretative documents, and collections of information 
that you believe should be removed or modified to alleviate unnecessary 
burdens because we believe your comments will assist the Coast Guard in 
its role within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in responding 
to these Executive Orders. The Coast Guard is looking for new 
information and new economic data to support any proposed changes.

Regulatory Reform Task Force

    Executive Order 13777 directs agencies to designate a Regulatory 
Reform Officer and to establish a Regulatory Reform Task Force (Task 
Force). The Deputy Secretary of DHS is the agency Regulatory Reform 
Officer, and the Coast Guard's Senior Accountable Regulatory Official, 
who is our Director of Commercial Regulations and Standards, is a 
member of the DHS Task Force.
    One of the duties of the Task Force is to evaluate existing 
regulations and make recommendations to the agency head regarding their 
repeal, replacement, or modification. Executive Order 13777 further 
directs that each Task Force attempt to identify regulations that:
     Eliminate jobs, or inhibit job creation;
     Are outdated, unnecessary, or ineffective;
     Impose costs that exceed benefits;
     Create a serious inconsistency or otherwise interfere with 
regulatory reform initiatives and policies;
     Are inconsistent with the requirements of section 515 of 
the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act, 2001 (44 U.S.C. 
3516 note), or the guidance issued pursuant to that provision, in 
particular those regulations that rely in whole or in part on data, 
information, or methods that are not publicly available or that are 
insufficiently transparent to meet the standard of reproducibility; or
     Derive from or implement Executive Orders or other 
Presidential directives that have been subsequently rescinded or 
substantially modified.
    Section 3(e) of the Executive Order calls on the Task Force to 
``seek input and other assistance, as permitted by law, from entities 
significantly affected by Federal regulations, including State, local, 
and tribal governments, small businesses, consumers, non-governmental 
organizations, and trade associations'' on regulations that meet some 
or all of the criteria above.
    Also, when implementing the regulatory offsets required by 
Executive Order 13771, which may include guidance documents, 
interpretative documents, and collections of information, in addition 
to regulations in the Code of Federal Regulations, Executive Order 
13777 states that each agency head should prioritize, to the extent 
permitted by law, those regulations that the agency's Regulatory Reform 
Task Force has identified as being outdated, unnecessary, or 
ineffective.
    Executive Order 13783 calls for agencies to submit reports to the 
Vice President, the Office of Management and Budget, and others in the 
Executive Office of the President, with ``specific recommendations 
that, to the extent permitted by law, could alleviate or eliminate 
aspects of agency actions that burden domestic energy production.'' 
These agency actions include all existing regulations, orders, guidance 
documents, policies, and any other similar agency actions that 
potentially burden the development or use of domestically produced 
energy resources, with particular attention to oil, natural gas, coal, 
and nuclear energy resources.
    We ask that you keep these specific elements we have identified 
from these three Executive Orders in mind as you consider Coast Guard 
regulations or collections of information for removal or modification 
to alleviate unnecessary burdens.

Location of Coast Guard Regulations

    Coast Guard regulations fall within three general categories in the 
Code of Federal Regulations--navigation and navigable waters, shipping, 
and transportation. Here are the three corresponding titles in the CFR 
(and the parts in those titles) where you will find our regulations:
     33 CFR Chapter I (parts 1 through 199),
     46 CFR Chapters I (parts 1 through 199) and III (parts 400 
through 499), and
     49 CFR Chapter IV (parts 400 through 499).
    You may view these regulations on www.fdsys.gov or www.ecfr.gov.
    In the CFR you will find bracketed references to rules published in 
the Federal Register (for example, xx FR xxxx, date) that provide our 
reasoning for establishing the regulations in that CFR part or section, 
and our estimates of the costs and benefits of those regulations. Rules 
published since 1990 will be available in the Federal Register library 
on www.fdsys.gov.
    Our rulemaking documents include a number that denotes our online 
docket. On www.regulations.gov, using that docket number, you should be 
able to find supporting and related material we provided for that rule, 
including a cost-benefit analysis. In our dockets, you will also find 
notices of proposed rulemaking and submissions from interested persons 
who commented on our initial proposal for the regulations that appear 
in the final rule. The preamble of the final rule contains our 
responses to those comments.

Location of Coast Guard Guidance Documents and Interpretative Documents

    Coast Guard guidance documents and interpretative rules may be 
found in a number of online locations. You may find many of these 
documents on the Coast Guard's homeport Web page, http://homeport.uscg.mil. In addition, we sometimes publish a notice in the 
Federal Register announcing the release of a guidance document or 
interpretative rule and the document may be found in the docket for 
that notice in addition to a Coast Guard Web page. You can find these 
notices using the search function on www.fdsys.gov or the Federal 
Register browse function if you know the date the notice was published. 
Some of these documents take the form of a Navigation and Vessel 
Inspection Circular, frequently abbreviated as ``NVIC,'' and the 
Federal Register notices will often have an action line of ``Notice of 
policy'' or ``Notice of availability.''

Location of Approved Collections of Information

    If a regulation has a collection of information associated with it, 
you

[[Page 26634]]

should find a reference to that collection of information in the 
rulemaking documents (normally a notice of proposed rulemaking and a 
final rule) we published to establish the regulation. But whether a 
collection is associated with a regulation or not, you will be able to 
find our approved collections of information in www.reginfo.gov. Our 
collections have approval numbers in the 1625-series and are listed 
with other Department of Homeland Security collections.

Public Participation and Comments

    If you submit a comment, please include the docket number for this 
notice requesting comments (USCG-2017-0480), indicate the specific 
regulation, guidance document, interpretative document, or collection 
of information you are commenting on, and provide a reason for each 
suggestion or recommendation. Please make your comments as specific as 
possible, and include any supporting data or other information, such as 
cost information, you may have. Also, if you are commenting on a 
regulation, please provide a Federal Register (FR) or Code of Federal 
Regulations (CFR) citation when referencing a specific regulation, and 
provide specific suggestions regarding repeal, replacement or 
modification.
    We encourage you to submit comments through the Federal eRulemaking 
Portal at http://www.regulations.gov. If your material cannot be 
submitted using http://www.regulations.gov, contact the person in the 
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section of this document for alternate 
instructions. Copies of Executive Orders 13771, 13777, and 13783, and 
all public comments are available in our online docket at http://www.regulations.gov.
    We accept anonymous comments. All comments received will be posted 
without change to http://www.regulations.gov and will include any 
personal information you have provided. For more about privacy and the 
docket, visit http://www.regulations.gov/privacyNotice.
    Although the Coast Guard will not respond to individual comments, 
we value your comments and will give careful consideration to them.

    Dated: June 1, 2017.
J.G. Lantz,
Senior Accountable Regulatory Official, Director of Commercial 
Regulations and Standards.
[FR Doc. 2017-11930 Filed 6-7-17; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 9110-04-P