Interior starts regulation-unwinding process

By
Suzanne Downing
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0
Photo of a bald eagle in Ketchikan.
Bald Eagle in the Ketchikan rain. (Antti T. Nissinen photo, Creative Commons license via Flickr.)

The Department of the Interior today announced an initiative to involve the public in uncovering and reducing unnecessary regulatory burdens.

The initiative is in response to Executive Order 13777, “Enforcing the Regulatory Reform Agenda,” signed by President Donald Trump in February.

The department will be taking recommendations through a link at www.regulations.gov.

Interior is asking the public to comment on how they are affected by specific federal regulations and which Interior regulations are ripe for repeal, replacement, or modification.

The department singled out certain attributes that would lead to reform, including 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  • Are outdated, unnecessary, or ineffective;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;
  • Rely, in part or in whole, on data or methods that are not publicly available or insufficiently transparent to meet the standard for reproducibility; or
  • Derive from or implement E.O.s or other Presidential directives that have been subsequently rescinded or substantially modified.

The Interior Department has jursdiction over the Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Indian Education, National Park Service, Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement, Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and U.S. Geological Survey, and other agencies where thousands of regulations are applied.

For more information on Interior’s regulatory reform efforts, visit www.doi.gov/regulatory-reform/implement.

Citizens may offer ideas to reduce unnecessary regulations by:

  • Going to www.regulations.gov and following the online directions to submit your comments to Docket ID No. DOI-2017-0003.
  • Sending your comments by mail to Mark Lawyer, Office of the Executive Secretariat, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1859 C Street, NW, Mail Stop 7328, Washington, DC 20240.