Department of the Interior September 7, 2016 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

We, the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE), are announcing our final decision on a petition for rulemaking that was submitted by WildEarth Guardians. The petition requested that we revise our current regulations to better ensure that self-bonded companies provide sufficient information to guarantee that reclamation obligations are adequately met and that the self-bonded entity is financially solvent. The Director has decided to grant the petition, although we do not intend to propose the specific rule changes requested in the petition. We will initiate a rulemaking to address this issue as discussed more fully below.

Under the Endangered Species Act, as amended (Act), we, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, invite the public to comment on an incidental take permit application for take of the federally listed American burying beetle resulting from activities associated with the geophysical exploration (seismic) and construction, maintenance, operation, repair, and decommissioning of oil and gas well field infrastructure within Oklahoma. If approved, the permit would be issued under the approved Amended Oil and Gas Industry Conservation Plan Associated with Issuance of Endangered Species Act Section 10(a)(1)(B) Permits for the American Burying Beetle in Oklahoma (ICP).

We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), announce the reopening of the public comment period on our March 11, 2016, proposed rule to revise the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife, under the authority of the Endangered Species Act, by removing the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem population of grizzly bears (Ursus arctos horribilis). In our proposed rule, we emphasized that the governments of Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho needed to promulgate regulations managing human-caused mortality of grizzly bears before we would proceed with a final rule. Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho recently finalized such mechanisms. We are also announcing the receipt of five independent peer reviews of the proposed rule. We are reopening the comment period for the proposed rule to allow all interested parties an additional opportunity to comment on the proposed rule in light of these documents. If you submitted comments previously, you do not need to resubmit them because we have already incorporated them into the public record and will fully consider them in preparing the final rule.

The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) is amending and updating the regulations regarding oil and natural gas production safety on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) by addressing issues such as: Safety and pollution prevention equipment design and maintenance, production safety systems, subsurface safety devices, and safety device testing. The rule differentiates the requirements for operating dry tree and subsea tree production systems and divides the current BSEE regulations regarding oil and gas production safety systems into multiple sections to make the regulations easier to read and understand. The changes in this rule are necessary to improve human safety, environmental protection, and regulatory oversight of critical equipment involving production safety systems.