Federal Railroad Administration December 3, 2010 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

Due to comments received from the Association of American Railroads (AAR) during the initial comment period, FRA is reopening the comment period for its proposal published on September 21, 2010. The proposal, if adopted, would amend, line by line, FRA's schedules of civil penalties issued as appendices to FRA's rail safety regulations, as well as other guidance. AAR stated in its comments on the proposal that FRA did not give the railroad industry adequate time to review all the penalties listed in the proposal to determine if they match the severity-scale criteria, which are also listed in the proposal. Therefore, FRA is reopening and extending the comment period in order to allow AAR more time to review the penalties in the severity scale and to identify and comment more fully on which individual penalties do not in its opinion satisfy the severity-scale criteria. FRA also seeks further comments from other interested parties that were unable to comment during the initial comment period. The comment period is reopened until February 1, 2011.