Gulf Coast Restoration Trust Fund, 44325-44326 [2014-18131]

Agencies

• DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY

[Federal Register Volume 79, Number 147 (Thursday, July 31, 2014)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 44325-44326]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2014-18131]


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DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY

31 CFR Part 34

RIN 1505-AC49


Gulf Coast Restoration Trust Fund

AGENCY: Office of the Fiscal Assistant Secretary, Treasury.

ACTION: Proposed rulemaking.

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SUMMARY: The Department of the Treasury proposes regulations for the 
Resources and Ecosystem Sustainability, Tourist Opportunities, and 
Revived Economies of the Gulf Coast States Act of 2012 (RESTORE Act). 
The proposed regulations concern amounts available to eligible 
Louisiana parishes from the Gulf Coast Restoration Trust Fund, a fund 
established in the Treasury of the United States by the RESTORE Act. 
Treasury published other proposed regulations for the RESTORE Act on 
September 6, 2013.

DATES: Comment due date: September 2, 2014.

ADDRESSES: Treasury invites comments on the allocation to Louisiana 
parishes contained in this proposed rule. Comments may be submitted 
through one of these methods:
    Electronic Submission of Comments: Interested persons may submit 
comments electronically through the Federal eRulemaking Portal at 
https://www.regulations.gov. Electronic submission of comments allows 
the commenter maximum time to prepare and submit a comment, ensures 
timely receipt, and enables the Department to make them available to 
the public. Comments submitted electronically through the https://www.regulations.gov Web site can be viewed by other commenters and 
interested members of the public.
    Mail: Send to Department of the Treasury, Attention Janet Vail, 
Room 1132; 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue NW., Washington, DC 20220.
    Email: Send to RESTORErule@treasury.gov.
    In general, Treasury will post all comments to www.regulations.gov 
without change, including any business or personal information 
provided, such as names, addresses, email addresses, or telephone 
numbers. Treasury will also make such comments available for public 
inspection and copying in Treasury's Library, Department of the 
Treasury, 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue NW., Washington, DC 20220, on 
official business days between the hours of 10:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. 
Eastern Time. You can make an appointment to inspect comments by 
telephoning (202) 622-0990. All comments received, including 
attachments and other supporting materials, will be part of the public 
record and subject to public disclosure. You should only submit 
information that you wish to make publicly available.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Please send questions by email to 
RESTORErule@treasury.gov or contact Janet Vail, 202-622-6873.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. Background

    The RESTORE Act makes funds available for the restoration and 
protection of the Gulf Coast region through a new trust fund in the 
Treasury of the United States, known as the Gulf Coast Restoration 
Trust Fund. The trust fund will contain 80 percent of the 
administrative and civil penalties paid after July 6, 2012, under the 
Federal Water Pollution Control Act in connection with the Deepwater 
Horizon oil spill. One component of the Act, the Direct Component, sets 
aside 35 percent of the penalties paid into the trust fund for grants 
to the State of Alabama, the State of Mississippi, the State of Texas, 
the State of Louisiana and 20 Louisiana parishes, and 23 Florida 
counties. The Direct Component provides an equal amount to each of the 
five Gulf Coast States, and allocates 30 percent of Louisiana's share 
to the 20 eligible parishes.
    On September 6, 2013, Treasury published a proposed rule to 
implement the Act (78 FR 54801). The proposed rule identified the 20 
Louisiana parishes eligible to receive funds under the Direct 
Component, but not the share of each parish. The Act provides a 
weighted formula for determining each parish's share. In the notice 
accompanying the proposed rule, Treasury requested comments on the 
information and methodology necessary for determining each parish's 
share. As discussed below, Treasury has considered these comments and 
other information, and now proposes regulations that allocate a 
percentage to each eligible Louisiana parish under the Direct 
Component.

II. This Proposed Rule

    Under the Direct Component, each eligible Louisiana parish receives 
a share based on a weighted formula of three elements: (a) 40 percent 
based on the weighted average of miles of parish shoreline oiled, (b) 
40 percent based on the weighted average of the population of the 
parish, and (c) 20 percent based on the weighted average of the land 
mass of the parish. 33 U.S.C. 1321(t)(1)(D)(i). In their comments on 
the proposed rule, the State of Louisiana and one parish proposed that 
Treasury include additional factors, in order to account for the degree 
of oiling, measures of re-oiling, the type of shoreline that 
experienced oiling, and other factors. They suggested that an approach 
which takes these factors into account would provide a more 
comprehensive assessment of injury and fairer allocation of funds. 
Louisiana did not describe how these additional factors should be 
weighed or provide a statutory basis for applying these new criteria, 
and noted that ``creating a consistent and fair metric based on these 
factors will be very difficult.'' \1\
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    \1\ Letter from Garret Graves, State of Louisiana, to Dep't of 
the Treasury (Nov. 5, 2013) at 6 (available at www.regulations.gov 
under number Treas-DO-2013-0005-0055).
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    Treasury is proposing regulations that base the allocation for each 
eligible parish solely on the factors listed in the Act for the Direct 
Component. The Act clearly identifies just three factors for 
determining each parish's share. If Treasury added additional factors 
and a new formula for weighing them in its regulation, the 
responsibility for allocating the trust fund would shift from Congress 
to Treasury. Nothing in the statute or the legislative history 
indicates that Congress intended Treasury to make its own determination 
about the relative harm suffered by individual parishes. The touchstone 
for Treasury's proposed regulation, therefore, is the statute itself.
    The first statutory factor is the weighted average of miles of the 
parish shoreline oiled. For this factor, Treasury used data from the 
United States Coast Guard showing the number of miles of parish 
shoreline oiled between 2010, the initial year of response to the 
Deepwater Horizon spill, and July 6, 2012, the date of enactment for 
the RESTORE Act. According to the Coast Guard, the data were gathered 
using the Shoreline Clean-up Assessment Technique (SCAT), a systematic 
method for surveying an affected shoreline after an oil spill. SCAT was 
performed under the structure of the Gulf Coast Incident Management 
Team (GC-IMT), the entity

[[Page 44326]]

in charge of the Deepwater Horizon response. The GC-IMT was led by 
representatives from the Coast Guard and the State of Louisiana. 
Treasury believes that the SCAT data are appropriate for determining 
the share of each Louisiana parish under the relevant standards of the 
Direct Component in the Act. Treasury takes no position on the data 
that may be appropriate for other uses in connection with ongoing 
litigation or natural resource damage assessments.
    The second statutory factor is the weighted average of the 
population of the parish. Treasury used 2012 population estimates for 
each parish published by the United States Census Bureau. These 
estimates are available at https://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/22000.html.
    The third statutory factor is the weighted average of the land mass 
of each parish. Treasury used data from 2010, the most recent available 
from the United States Census Bureau. The data are available at https://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/22000.html.
    The Act does not specify which year's data Treasury should use for 
oiled shoreline or population. Treasury believes it is reasonable to 
use 2012 data, thereby fixing the share of each parish upon enactment 
(July 6, 2012), rather than at some unspecified time in the future. 
This view is based in part on the statutory language. The Act refers to 
``parish shoreline oiled'' in the past tense. 33 U.S.C. 
1321(t)(1)(D)(i)(II)(aa). The Act also shows that Congress expected 
that procedures for implementing the Act, including procedures 
concerning each parish's share, would be completed shortly after 
enactment. RESTORE Act, Public Law 112-141 sec. 1602(e), 126 Stat. 588. 
There is no indication in the Act or its legislative history that 
Congress intended to base each parish's share on data from future 
years, which were unforeseeable when the statute was enacted. 
Population changes and small increases in oiled shoreline for some 
parishes would both affect the size of parish shares if post-2012 data 
were used. Accordingly, Treasury interprets the Act as referring to 
shoreline oiled before July 6, 2012, and to parish populations in 2012.
    Using the data described above and the statutory factors, Treasury 
determined each parish's share with the following formula: Parish 
allocation = (40% * (parish miles oiled/sum all oiled shoreline for 
eligible parishes)) + (40% * (parish population/sum of all population 
for eligible parishes)) + (20% * parish land mass/sum of all land mass 
for eligible parishes). A detailed description of the data Treasury 
used to determine each parish's share is available in the docket for 
this proposed rule at https://www.regulations.gov, and at https://www.treasury.gov/services/restore-act/Pages/default.aspx. The shares 
resulting from this calculation are set forth in the proposed 
regulation.
    Treasury invites comments on the allocation to eligible Louisiana 
parishes for the Direct Component. Comments are due within 30 days 
after publication of this notice in the Federal Register.

III. Procedural Requirements

A. Regulatory Flexibility Act

    The Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA) (5 U.S.C. 601 et seq.) 
generally requires agencies to prepare a regulatory flexibility 
analysis of any rule subject to notice and comment rulemaking 
requirements under the Administrative Procedure Act or any other 
statute, unless the agency certifies that the rule will not have a 
significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. 
Treasury previously certified that the proposed rule for the entire 
Act, published on September 6, 2013, will not have a significant 
economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. While that 
rule describes procedures concerning the allocation and expenditure of 
amounts from the trust fund, most of these requirements come from the 
Act itself or other Federal law, including the total allocation due to 
Louisiana parishes under the Direct Component. Treasury received no 
comments from the Louisiana parishes on this certification.
    Treasury certifies that this proposed rule will not have a 
significant impact on a substantial number of small entities. This rule 
affects only 20 Louisiana parishes, of which six meet the definition of 
a small entity under the RFA. Even if a substantial number of small 
entities was affected, any economic impact of this proposed rule would 
be minimal. The proposed rule is limited to allocating funds to 
eligible Louisiana parishes according to a statutory formula, and does 
not impose any new obligations on these parishes. Treasury invites 
comments on the impact of this rule on small entities.

B. Regulatory Planning and Review (Executive Orders 12866 and 13563)

    The proposed rule for the RESTORE Act, published on September 6, 
2013, is a significant regulatory action as defined in Executive Order 
12866, as supplemented by Executive Order 13563. The notification for 
that proposed rule includes a Regulatory Impact Assessment, which 
covers any economic impact incident to this proposed rule. This 
proposed rule has been designated a significant regulatory action, 
although not economically significant, and has been reviewed by the 
Office of Management and Budget.

List of Subjects in 31 CFR Part 34

    Coastal zone, Fisheries, Grant programs, Grants administration, 
Intergovernmental relations, Marine resources, Natural resources, Oil 
pollution, Research, Science and technology, Trusts, Wildlife.

    For the reasons set forth in the preamble, the Department of the 
Treasury further proposes to amend 31 CFR subtitle A, part 34, as 
proposed at 78 FR 54801, Sept. 26, 2013, to read as follows:

PART 34--RESOURCES AND ECOSYSTEMS SUSTAINABILITY, TOURIST 
OPPORTUNITIES, AND REVIVED ECONOMIES OF THE GULF COAST STATES

0
1. The authority citation continues to read as follows:

    Authority:  31 U.S.C. 301; 31 U.S.C. 321; 33 U.S.C. 1251 et seq.

0
2. In Sec.  34.302, revise the section heading and the second sentence 
of paragraph (e) to read as follows:


Sec.  34.302  Allocation of funds--direct component.

* * * * *
    (e) * * * The share of each coastal zone parish is as follows: 
Ascension, 2.42612%; Assumption, 0.93028%; Calcasieu, 5.07063%; 
Cameron, 2.10096%; Iberia, 2.55018%; Jefferson, 11.95309%; Lafourche, 
7.86746%; Livingston, 3.32725%; Orleans, 7.12875%; Plaquemines, 
17.99998%; St. Bernard, 9.66743%; St. Charles, 1.35717%; St. James, 
0.75600%; St. John the Baptist, 1.11915%; St. Martin, 2.06890%; St. 
Mary, 1.80223%; St. Tammany, 5.53058%; Terrebonne, 9.91281%; 
Tangipahoa, 3.40337%; and Vermilion, 3.02766%.
* * * * *

David A. Lebryk,
Fiscal Assistant Secretary.
[FR Doc. 2014-18131 Filed 7-29-14; 11:15 am]
BILLING CODE 4810-25-P