The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has recently issued Final Rules (FRs) for 49 CFR Part 578 - Civil Penalties (July 26, 2019, F.R. Vol. 84 No. 144, Docket No. NHTSA-2018-0017 and July 31, 2019, F.R. Vol. 84 No. 147).
The first FR confirms the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) determination that the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015 does not apply to the civil penalty rate applicable to automobile manufacturers that fail to meet applicable Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards and are unable to offset such a deficit with compliance credits.
The FR is finalizing the NHTSA's current CAFE civil penalty rate of $5.50 should be retained, instead of increasing to $14 in model year 2019. This FR is effective September 24, 2019 and Petitions for Reconsideration for this FR are due by September 9, 2019.
The second FR provides the 2019 inflation adjustment to civil penalty amounts that may be imposed for violations of certain Department of Transportation (DOT) regulations. This FR is published without an NPRM, provides no opportunity for comment and has a July 31, 2019 effective date.
The DOT emphasizes that this FR adjusts penalties prospectively, and therefore the penalty adjustments made by this rule will apply only to violations that take place after the FR effective date. This rule also does not change previously assessed or enforced penalties that DOT is actively collecting or has collected.
These FR's and the Preambles are available on InterRegs.NET for our US Federal subscribers and are also available at www.selectregs.com.