Procurement Roles and Responsibilities for Job Corps Contracts, 45449-45452 [2019-18496]

Agencies

• Employment and Training Administration
• DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

[Federal Register Volume 84, Number 168 (Thursday, August 29, 2019)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 45449-45452]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2019-18496]


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DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

Employment and Training Administration

20 CFR Part 686

[DOL Docket No. ETA-2019-0006]
RIN 1205-AB96


Procurement Roles and Responsibilities for Job Corps Contracts

AGENCY: Employment and Training Administration, Labor.

ACTION: Notice of proposed rulemaking.

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SUMMARY: The Department of Labor (Department) proposes two procedural 
changes to its Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) Job 
Corps regulations to enable the Secretary to delegate procurement 
authority as it relates to the development and issuance of requests for 
proposals for the operation of Job Corps centers, outreach and 
admissions, career transitional services, and other operational support 
services. The Department proposes to take this procedural action to 
align regulatory provisions with the relevant WIOA statutory language 
and to provide greater flexibility for internal operations and 
management of the Job Corps program.

DATES: Comments to this proposal and other information must be 
submitted (transmitted, postmarked, or delivered) by September 30, 
2019. All submissions must bear a postmark or provide other evidence of 
the submission date.

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments, identified by Regulatory 
Information Number (RIN) 1205-AB96, by one of the following methods:
    Federal e-Rulemaking Portal: https://www.regulations.gov. Follow the 
website instructions for submitting comments.
    Mail and Hand Delivery/Courier: Written comments, disk, and CD-ROM 
submissions may be mailed to Heidi Casta, Deputy Administrator, Office 
of Policy Development and Research, U.S. Department of Labor, 200 
Constitution Avenue NW, Room N-5641, Washington, DC 20210.
    Instructions: Label all submissions with ``RIN 1205-AB96.''

[[Page 45450]]

    Please submit your comments by only one method. Please be advised 
that the Department will post all comments received that relate to this 
NPRM on https://www.regulations.gov without making any change to the 
comments or redacting any information. The https://www.regulations.gov 
website is the Federal e-rulemaking portal, and all comments posted 
there are available and accessible to the public. Therefore, the 
Department recommends that commenters remove personal information such 
as Social Security Numbers, personal addresses, telephone numbers, and 
email addresses included in their comments, as such information may 
become easily available to the public via the https://www.regulations.gov website. It is the responsibility of the commenter 
to safeguard personal information.
    Also, please note that, due to security concerns, postal mail 
delivery in Washington, DC may be delayed. Therefore, the Department 
encourages the public to submit comments on https://www.regulations.gov.
    Docket: All comments on this proposed rule will be available on the 
https://www.regulations.gov website, and can be found using RIN 1205-
AB96. The Department also will make all the comments it receives 
available for public inspection by appointment during normal business 
hours at the above address. If you need assistance to review the 
comments, the Department will provide appropriate aids, such as readers 
or print magnifiers. The Department will make copies of this proposed 
rule available, upon request, in large print and electronic file on 
computer disk. To schedule an appointment to review the comments and/or 
obtain the proposed rule in an alternative format, contact the Office 
of Policy Development and Research at (202) 693-3700 (this is not a 
toll-free number). You may also contact this office at the address 
listed below.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Heidi Casta, Deputy Administrator, 
Office of Policy Development and Research, U.S. Department of Labor, 
200 Constitution Avenue NW, Room N-5641, Washington, DC 20210; 
telephone (202) 693-3700 (this is not a toll-free number).
    Individuals with hearing or speech impairments may access the 
telephone number above via TTY by calling the toll-free Federal 
Information Relay Service at 1-800-877-8339.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Background

    The Department is proposing to amend two provisions of 20 CFR part 
686, which implements subtitle C of title I of WIOA. Through these 
amendments, the Department proposes to align these regulatory 
provisions with the language in WIOA by broadening the authority to 
issue contract solicitations from the Employment and Training 
Administration (ETA) to the Secretary of Labor. The Department proposes 
to make this procedural change to the WIOA regulation to provide 
greater flexibility in the management and operation of the Job Corps 
program by allowing the Secretary of Labor to designate the component 
of the Department that is authorized to issue requests for proposals 
(RFPs) for the operation of Job Corps centers, outreach and admissions, 
career transitional services, and other operational support services. 
This change will provide the Department with the flexibility to more 
efficiently manage the Job Corps procurement process, which will in 
turn allow greater economies of scale and operational efficiencies. 
This proposed rule is consistent with the President's Management Agenda 
with respect to Cross-Agency Priority (CAP) Goal Number 5--Sharing 
Quality Services. The Department is implementing this CAP goal in part, 
via the Department's Enterprise-Wide Shared Services Initiatives whose 
primary goals are as follows:
    1. Improve human resources efficiency, effectiveness, and 
accountability;
    2. Provide modern technology solutions that empower the DOL mission 
and serve the American public through collaboration and innovation;
    3. Maximize DOL's federal buying power through effective 
procurement management; and
    4. Safeguard fiscal integrity, and promote the effective and 
efficient use of resources.
    This proposal will assist the Department's implementation of its 
Enterprise-Wide Shared Services Initiative.
    This proposed rule is not an Executive Order 13771 regulatory 
action because this proposed rule is not significant under Executive 
Order 12866.

II. Consideration of Comments

    ETA requests comment on all issues related to this proposed rule. 
As discussed more fully below, this proposed rule is the companion 
document to a direct final rule (DFR) published in the ``Rules'' 
section of this issue of the Federal Register. If ETA receives no 
significant adverse comment on the proposal or DFR, ETA will publish a 
Federal Register document confirming the effective date of the DFR and 
withdrawing this companion NPRM. Such confirmation may include minor 
stylistic or technical changes to the DFR. For the purpose of judicial 
review, ETA views the date of confirmation of the effective date of the 
DFR as the date of promulgation. If, however, ETA receives a 
significant adverse comment on the DFR or proposal, the Agency will 
publish a timely withdrawal of the DFR and proceed with the proposed 
rule, which addresses the same revisions to procurement authority for 
the Job Corps program in the development and issuance of requests for 
proposals for the operation of Job Corps centers, and for outreach and 
admissions, career transitional services, and other operational support 
services.

III. Direct Final Rulemaking

    As noted above, in addition to publishing this NPRM, ETA is 
concurrently publishing a companion DFR in the Federal Register. In 
direct final rulemaking, an agency publishes a DFR in the Federal 
Register, with a statement that the rule will go into effect unless the 
agency receives significant adverse comment within a specified period. 
The agency may publish an identical concurrent NPRM. If the agency 
receives no significant adverse comment in response to the DFR, the 
rule goes into effect. ETA plans to confirm the effective date of a DFR 
through a separate Federal Register document. If the agency receives a 
significant adverse comment, the agency will withdraw the DFR and treat 
such comment as a response to the NPRM. An agency typically uses direct 
final rulemaking when an agency anticipates that a rule will not be 
controversial.
    For purposes of the DFR, a significant adverse comment is one that 
explains why the amendments to the regulatory provisions identified 
below would be inappropriate. In determining whether a comment 
necessitates withdrawal of the DFR, ETA will consider whether the 
comment raises an issue serious enough to warrant a substantive 
response. ETA will not consider a comment recommending an additional 
amendment to this regulation to be a significant adverse comment unless 
the comment states why the DFR would be ineffective without the 
addition.
    The comment period for this NPRM runs concurrently with that of the 
DFR. ETA will treat comments received on the NPRM as comments also 
regarding the companion DFR. Similarly, ETA will consider comments 
submitted to the companion DFR as comment to the

[[Page 45451]]

NPRM. Therefore, if ETA receives a significant adverse comment on 
either the DFR or this NPRM, it will withdraw the companion DFR and 
proceed with the NPRM. In the event ETA withdraws the DFR because of 
significant adverse comment, ETA will consider all timely comments 
received in response to the DFR when it continues with the NPRM. After 
carefully considering all comments to the DFR and the NPRM, ETA will 
decide whether to publish a new final rule.
    ETA determined that the subject of this rulemaking is suitable for 
direct final rulemaking. This proposed amendment is procedural in 
nature and does not impact the operation of Job Corps centers, the 
operational support services, or the delivery of career transitional 
services and other operation, the process by which offerors respond to 
solicitations, the substance of their responses, or the criteria upon 
which the solicitation will be evaluated. Finally, the revisions would 
not impose any new costs or burdens. For these reasons, ETA does not 
anticipate objections from the public to this rulemaking action.

IV. Discussion of Proposed Changes

    Sec. 147(a) of WIOA authorizes the Secretary of Labor to enter into 
agreements with eligible entities to operate Job Corps centers and to 
provide activities to a Job Corps center. Two provisions in the 
regulation implementing subtitle C of Title I of WIOA implement section 
147(a). 20 CFR 686.310(a) broadly states that the Secretary selects 
eligible entities to operate contract centers on a competitive basis in 
accordance with applicable statutes and regulations and 20 CFR 
686.340(a) states that the Secretary selects eligible entities to 
provide outreach and admission, career transition, and operational 
support services on a competitive basis in accordance with applicable 
statutes and regulations. However, both provisions also specifically 
require ETA to develop and issue RFPs for these Job Corps contracts. 
These provisions are narrower than section 147(a) and constrain the 
Department's authority to assign the authority to develop and issue 
RFPs to whichever component of the agency it determines appropriate.
    This proposed rule amends Sec. Sec.  686.310(a) and 686.340(a) by 
replacing ``ETA'' with ``the Secretary.'' Through this proposed rule, 
the Department is aligning the text of sections 686.310(a) and 
686.340(a) with the statutory language in section 147(a) of WIOA and 
eliminating the inconsistency between the regulation and the statute. 
This change also affords the Department greater flexibility to manage 
and oversee the Job Corps procurement process in a manner that it 
determines appropriate, which in turn will aid in the implementation of 
the Department's Enterprise-Wide Shared Services Initiative described 
above.

V. Rulemaking Analyses and Notices

Executive Orders 12866 (Regulatory Planning and Review), 13563 
(Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review), and 13771 (Reducing 
Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs)

    Executive Order 12866 requires that regulatory agencies assess both 
the costs and benefits of significant regulatory actions. Under the 
Executive Order, a ``significant regulatory action'' is one meeting any 
of a number of specified conditions, including the following: Having an 
annual effect on the economy of $100 million or more; creating a 
serious inconsistency or interfering with an action of another agency; 
materially altering the budgetary impact of entitlements or the rights 
of entitlement recipients, or raising novel legal or policy issues. The 
Department has determined that this proposed rulemaking is not a 
``significant'' regulatory action and a cost-benefit and economic 
analysis is not required. This regulation merely makes a procedural 
change to allow flexibility to manage and oversee the Job Corps 
procurement process in a manner that the Department determines 
appropriate. This rule is not an Executive Order 13771 regulatory 
action because this rule is not significant under Executive Order 
12866.
    Executive Order 13563 directs agencies to assess all costs and 
benefits of available regulatory alternatives and, if regulation is 
necessary, to select regulatory approaches that maximize net benefits 
(including potential economic, environmental, public health and safety 
effects, distributive impacts, and equity). Executive Order 13563 
emphasizes the importance of quantifying both costs and benefits, 
reducing costs, harmonizing rules, and promoting flexibility to 
minimize burden.
    This rule makes only a procedural change to allow flexibility to 
manage and oversee the Job Corps procurement process in a manner that 
the Department determines appropriate; thus this rule is not expected 
to have any regulatory impacts.

Regulatory Flexibility Act/Small Business Regulatory Enforcement 
Fairness Act

    The Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA), at 5 U.S.C. 603(a), requires 
agencies to prepare and make available for public comment an initial 
regulatory flexibility analysis, which describes the impact of the 
proposed rule on small entities. Section 605 of the RFA allows an 
agency to certify a rule, in lieu of preparing an analysis, if the 
proposed rulemaking is not expected to have a significant economic 
impact on a substantial number of small entities. This proposed rule 
does not affect small entities as defined in the RFA. Therefore, the 
proposed rule will not have a significant economic impact on a 
substantial number of these small entities. Therefore, the Department 
certifies that the proposed rule will not have a significant economic 
impacts on a substantial number of small entities.

Paperwork Reduction Act

    The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 3507(d)) requires 
that the Department consider the impact of paperwork and other 
information collection burdens imposed on the public. The Department 
has determined that this rule does not alter any information collection 
burdens.

Executive Order 13132 (Federalism)

    Section 6 of E.O. 13132 requires Federal agencies to consult with 
State entities when a regulation or policy may have a substantial 
direct effect on the States, the relationship between the National 
Government and the States, or the distribution of power and 
responsibilities among the various levels of government, within the 
meaning of the E.O. Section 3(b) of the E.O. further provides that 
Federal agencies must implement regulations that have a substantial 
direct effect only if statutory authority permits the regulation and it 
is of national significance.
    This proposed rule does not have a substantial direct effect on the 
States, the relationship between the National Government and the 
States, or the distribution of power and responsibilities among the 
various levels of Government, within the meaning of the E.O. This 
proposed rule merely makes a procedural change for internal 
Departmental operations and management for Job Corps procurement.

Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995

    This regulatory action has been reviewed in accordance with the 
Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 (the Reform Act). Under the Reform 
Act,

[[Page 45452]]

a Federal agency must determine whether a regulation proposes a Federal 
mandate that would result in the increased expenditures by State, 
local, or tribal governments, in the aggregate, or by the private 
sector, of $100 million or more in any single year. This proposed rule 
merely makes an administrative change to the name of the Departmental 
entity authorized for Job Corps procurement responsibilities. The 
requirements of Title II of the Act, therefore, do not apply, and the 
Department has not prepared a statement under the Act.

Executive Order 13175 (Indian Tribal Governments)

    The Department has reviewed the NPRM under the terms of E.O. 13175 
and DOL's Tribal Consultation Policy, and have concluded that the 
changes to regulatory text which are the focus of the NPRM would not 
have tribal implications, as these changes do not have substantial 
direct effects on one or more Indian tribes, the relationship between 
the Federal government and Indian tribes, nor the distribution of power 
and responsibilities between the Federal government and Indian tribes. 
Therefore, no consultations with tribal governments, officials, or 
other tribal institutions were necessary.

List of Subjects in 20 CFR Part 686

    Employment, Grant programs--labor, Job Corps.

    For the reasons stated in the preamble, the Department proposes to 
amend 20 CFR part 686 as follows:

PART 686--THE JOBS CORPS UNDER TITLE I OF THE WORKFORCE INNOVATION 
AND OPPORTUNITY ACT

0
1. The authority citation for part 686 continues to read as follows:

    Authority: Secs. 142, 144, 146, 147, 159, 189, 503, Pub. L. 113-
128, 128 Stat. 1425 (Jul. 22, 2014).

0
2. Amend Sec.  686.310 by revising paragraph (a) to read as follows:


Sec.  686.310   How are entities selected to receive funding to operate 
centers?

    (a) The Secretary selects eligible entities to operate contract 
centers on a competitive basis in accordance with applicable statutes 
and regulations. In selecting an entity, the Secretary issues requests 
for proposals (RFPs) for the operation of all contract centers 
according to the Federal Acquisition Regulation (48 CFR chapter 1) and 
Department of Labor Acquisition Regulation (48 CFR chapter 29). The 
Secretary develops RFPs for center operators in consultation with the 
Governor, the center workforce council (if established), and the Local 
WDB for the workforce development area in which the center is located.
* * * * *
0
3. Amend Sec.  686.340 by revising paragraph (a) to read as follows:


Sec.  686.340   How are entities selected to receive funding to provide 
outreach and admission, career transition and other operations support 
services?

    (a) The Secretary selects eligible entities to provide outreach and 
admission, career transition, and operational services on a competitive 
basis in accordance with applicable statutes and regulations. In 
selecting an entity, the Secretary issues requests for proposals (RFP) 
for operational support services according to the Federal Acquisition 
Regulation (48 CFR chapter 1) and Department of Labor Acquisition 
Regulation (48 CFR chapter 29). The Secretary develops RFPs for 
operational support services in consultation with the Governor, the 
center workforce council (if established), and the Local WDB for the 
workforce development area in which the center is located.
* * * * *

John P. Pallasch,
Assistant Secretary for Employment and Training, Labor.
[FR Doc. 2019-18496 Filed 8-28-19; 8:45 am]
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