Society News Archive

10 June 2017
DOE Requests Input for Regulatory Reduction and Controlling Regulatory Costs

The Department of Energy (DOE), as part of its implementation of Executive Order 13771, is asking for input on "Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs."  

DOE has published a series of questions to which it would like responses:

  1. How can DOE best promote meaningful regulatory cost reduction while achieving its regulatory objectives, and how can it best identify those rules that might be modified, streamlined, or repealed?
  2. What factors should DOE consider in selecting and prioritizing rules and reporting requirements for reform?
  3. How can DOE best obtain and consider accurate, objective information and data about the costs, burdens, and benefits of existing regulations? Are there existing sources of data DOE can use to evaluate the post-promulgation effects of regulations over time? We invite interested parties to provide data that may be in their possession that documents the costs, burdens, and benefits of existing requirements.
  4. Are there regulations that simply make no sense or have become unnecessary, ineffective, or ill-advised and, if so, what are they? Are there rules that can simply be repealed without impairing DOE's statutory obligations and, if so, what are they?
  5. Are there rules or reporting requirements that have become outdated and, if so, how can they be modernized to better accomplish their objective?
  6. Are there rules that are still necessary, but have not operated as well as expected such that a modified, or slightly different, approach at lower cost is justified?
  7. Are there rules of the DOE that unnecessarily obstruct, delay, curtail, or otherwise impose significant costs on the siting, permitting, production, utilization, transmission, or delivery of energy resources?
  8. Does DOE currently collect information that it does not need or use effectively?
  9. Are there regulations, reporting requirements, or regulatory processes that are unnecessarily complicated or that could be streamlined to achieve statutory obligations in more efficient ways?
  10. Are there rules or reporting requirements that have been overtaken by technological developments? Can new technologies be leveraged to modify, streamline, or do away with existing regulatory or reporting requirements?
  11. Does the methodology and data used in analyses supporting DOE's regulations meet the requirements of the Information Quality Act?
Information is requested on or before 14 July 2017.
 
Interested persons are encouraged to submit comments, identified by "Regulatory Burden Reduction RFI," by any of the following methods: 
For further information, contact Daniel Cohen, U.S. Department of Energy, Office of the General Counsel, 1000 Independence Avenue SW., Washington, DC 20585. Phone: 202-586–5000. Email: