DHS Seeks Comments on Plan to Review Existing Significant Regulations

DHS is also seeking views from the public on specific existing significant DHS rules that the Department should consider as candidates for modification, streamlining, expansion, or repeal.

Comments are due by April 13, 2011.

(DHS’ mission is to ensure a homeland that is safe, secure, and resilient against terrorism and other hazards. The Department carries out its mission through the Office of the Secretary and 28 components, including U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Coast Guard, and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).)

Plan Will Include Criteria for Identifying Existing Rules That Might be Modified, Etc.

The preliminary plan will include criteria for identifying existing DHS significant rules that might be modified, streamlined, expanded, or repealed, so as to make DHS’ regulatory program more effective or less burdensome in achieving its regulatory objectives. These efforts will help DHS ensure that its regulations contain necessary, properly tailored, and up-to-date requirements that effectively achieve regulatory objectives without imposing unwarranted costs.

Review to Focus on Elimination of Significant Rules No Longer Warranted

Although this review will focus on the elimination of significant rules that are no longer warranted, DHS will also consider strengthening, complementing, or modernizing rules where necessary or appropriate - including, as relevant, undertaking new rulemakings. DHS adds that this review is for existing significant rules; the public should not use this process to submit comments on proposed rules.

DHS Seeks Answers to Specific Questions to Develop Preliminary Plan

DHS provides the following list of questions, the answers to which will assist in informing its efforts to develop a preliminary plan for the retrospective analysis of its existing regulations and to identify those regulations that may benefit from a retrospective analysis. DHS notes that the list is non-exhaustive and is meant to assist in the formulation of comments and is not intended to restrict the issues that commenters may address:

• How can the Department best promote meaningful periodic reviews of its existing significant regulations, and how can it best identify those rules that might be modified, streamlined, expanded, or repealed?
• What factors should the agency consider in selecting and prioritizing rules for review?
• 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 the Department’s regulatory programs and, if so, what are they?
• Are there rules that have become outdated and, if so, how can they be modernized to accomplish their regulatory objectives better?
• Are there rules that are still necessary, but have not operated as well as expected such that a modified, stronger, or slightly different approach is justified?
• Does the Department currently collect information that it does not need or use effectively to achieve regulatory objectives?
• Are there regulations that are unnecessarily complicated or could be streamlined to achieve regulatory objectives in more efficient ways?
• Are there rules that have been overtaken by technological developments? Can new technologies be leveraged to modify, streamline, or do away with existing regulatory requirements?
• Are there any of the Department’s regulations that are not tailored to impose the least burden on society, consistent with achieving the regulatory objectives?
• How can the Department best obtain and consider accurate, objective information and data about the costs, burdens, and benefits of existing regulations? Are there existing sources of data the Department can use to evaluate the post-promulgation effects of regulations over time?
• Are there regulations that are working well that can be expanded or used as a model to fill gaps in other DHS regulatory programs?
• Are there any regulations that create difficulty because of duplication, overlap, or inconsistency of requirements?

¹EO 13563 directs each federal agency to develop a preliminary plan, consistent with law and its resources and regulatory priorities, under which the agency will periodically review its existing significant regulations to determine whether such regulations should be modified, streamlined, expanded or repealed to make the agency’s regulatory program more effective and or less burdensome in achieving its regulatory objectives. (See ITT’s Online Archives or 01/19/11 news, 11011915, for BP summary.)