[Federal Register Volume 87, Number 46 (Wednesday, March 9, 2022)]
[Notices]
[Pages 13368-13369]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2022-04728]


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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

Office of the Secretary

[Docket No. DOT-OST-2022-0016]


Non-Traditional and Emerging Transportation Technology (NETT) 
Council; Request for Comment

AGENCY: Office of the Secretary (OST), Department of Transportation 
(DOT).

ACTION: Notice; request for comment.

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SUMMARY: The Office of the Secretary of Transportation (OST) invites 
public comment on projects, issues, or topics that DOT should consider 
through the Non-Traditional and Emerging Transportation Technology 
(NETT) Council. Public comments will inform the Department's future 
efforts with the NETT Council.

DATES: Comments are requested by April 8, 2022. See the SUPPLEMENTARY 
INFORMATION section on ``Public Participation,'' below, for more 
information about written comments.

ADDRESSES: 
    Written Comments: Comments should refer to the docket number above 
and be submitted by one of the following methods:
     Federal Rulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov. 
Follow the online instructions for submitting comments.
     Mail: Docket Management Facility, U.S. Department of 
Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building Ground Floor, 
Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590-0001.
     Hand Delivery: 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building 
Ground Floor, Room W12-140, Washington, DC, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. 
ET, Monday through Friday, except Federal Holidays.
    Instructions: For detailed instructions on submitting comments and 
additional information on the rulemaking process, see the Public 
Participation heading of the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section of this 
document. Note that all comments received will be posted without change 
to http://www.regulations.gov, including any personal information 
provided.
    Privacy Act: Except as provided below, all comments received into 
the docket will be made public in their entirety. The comments will be 
searchable by the name of the individual submitting the comment (or 
signing the comment, if submitted on behalf of an association, 
business, labor union, etc.). You should not include information in 
your comment that you do not want to be made public. You may review 
DOT's complete Privacy Act Statement in the Federal Register published 
on April 11, 2000 (65 FR 19477-78) or at https://www.transportation.gov/privacy.
    Docket: For access to the docket to read background documents or 
comments received, go to http://www.regulations.gov or to the street 
address listed above. Follow the online instructions for accessing the 
dockets.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Please contact us at 
[email protected] or David Carter ([email protected], 202-366-
4813) for questions. Office hours are from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., EST, 
Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Section 25008 of the Infrastructure 
Investment and Jobs Act (Pub. L. 117-58) authorizes the NETT Council to 
address coordination on emerging technology issues across all modes of 
transportation. The NETT Council shall (1) identify and resolve 
jurisdictional and regulatory gaps or inconsistencies associated with 
nontraditional and emerging transportation technologies, modes, or 
projects pending or brought before the Department of Transportation to 
reduce, to the maximum extent practicable, impediments to the prompt 
and safe deployment of new and innovative transportation technology, 
including with respect to safety oversight, environmental review, and 
funding and financing issues; (2) coordinate the response of the 
Department of Transportation to nontraditional and emerging 
transportation technology projects; (3) engage with stakeholders in 
nontraditional and emerging transportation technology projects; and (4) 
develop and establish Department of Transportation-wide processes, 
solutions, and best practices for identifying and managing 
nontraditional and emerging transportation technology projects.
    DOT is focused on improving safety, economic strength and creating 
good-paying jobs with the choice of a union, equity, climate, and 
resilience. DOT is also modernizing a transportation system of the 
future through research and innovation--all while maintaining the 
highest standards in organizational excellence. DOT is seeking public 
comments to help inform the future work and direction of the NETT 
Council. The questions below are meant to guide commenters; however, 
commenters are invited to provide their views or general comments 
related to how the Council evaluates transportation innovation, and 
relevant innovations for it to focus on. If relevant, please provide 
technical information, regulatory citations, data, or other evidence to 
support your comments.

The NETT Council's Work

    1. How can the NETT Council most effectively serve as an entry 
point for nontraditional and emerging innovation and technologies ready 
for integration into the transportation system?
    2. What has worked well, and not well, about the current structure 
and activities of the NETT Council?

Considering a Range of Perspectives in the NETT Council's Analyses

    3. How can the NETT Council best incorporate the perspective of and 
engage with other Federal agencies and a broad range of stakeholders 
(e.g., academia, labor unions, state, local, and tribal governments, 
private sector) to fully understand potential issues and opportunities 
related to transportation innovation?
    4. How can the NETT Council more effectively reflect inputs from a 
broad range of transportation stakeholders to assess the positive and 
negative consequences of transportation innovation?
    5. Are there additional stakeholders the NETT Council's analysis 
should reflect?
    6. Are there stakeholder groups that have been marginalized in 
transportation technology innovation that should be better represented 
in the NETT Council's analysis and work?

Priority Technologies and Innovations for the NETT Council To Review

    7. Using DOT's authorities, what nontraditional and emerging 
innovation and technologies should NETT Council prioritize for analysis 
as most impactful, positive or negative, for the transportation system? 
What emerging innovations have the most significant potential impact on 
DOT's strategic goals of safety, economic strength & global 
competitiveness, including creating good-paying jobs, equity, climate 
and sustainability, transformation, and organizational excellence?
    8. What emerging innovations face gaps in focus, support, and/or 
regulation under DOT's existing regulatory frameworks, and should be 
reviewed by the NETT Council?
    9. What emerging transportation technologies should the NETT 
Council evaluate for their potential to contribute to ensuring American 
workers and

[[Page 13369]]

domestic sourcing and supply chains are strengthened rather than 
weakened through transportation innovation, including advancing 
activities under the President's Made in America Executive Order 14005, 
dated January 25, 2021, and the President's Executive Order 14017 on 
America's Supply Chains, dated February 24, 2021?
    10. What other pressing issues, challenges, and opportunities for 
transportation innovation should be addressed through the NETT Council?

Public Participation

How do I prepare and submit comments?

    Your comments must be written in English. To ensure that your 
comments are filed correctly in the docket, please include the docket 
number of this document in your comments.
    Please submit one copy (two copies if submitting by mail or hand 
delivery) of your comments, including the attachments, to the docket 
following the instructions given above under ADDRESSES. Please note, if 
you are submitting comments electronically as a PDF (Adobe) file, we 
ask that the documents submitted be scanned using an Optical Character 
Recognition (OCR) process, thus allowing the agency to search and copy 
certain portions of your submissions.

How do I submit confidential business information?

    Any submissions containing Confidential Information must be 
delivered to OST in the following manner:
     Submitted in a sealed envelope marked ``confidential 
treatment requested'';
     Document(s) or information that the submitter would like 
withheld should be marked ``PROPIN''; Accompanied by an index listing 
the document(s) or information that the submitter would like the 
Departments to withhold. The index should include information such as 
numbers used to identify the relevant document(s) or information, 
document title and description, and relevant page numbers and/or 
section numbers within a document; and
     Submitted with a statement explaining the submitter's 
grounds for objecting to disclosure of the information to the public.
    OST will treat such marked submissions as confidential under the 
FOIA and will not include it in the public docket. OST also requests 
that submitters of Confidential Information include a non-confidential 
version (either redacted or summarized) of those confidential 
submissions in the public docket. In the event that the submitter 
cannot provide a non-confidential version of its submission, OST 
requests that the submitter post a notice in the docket stating that it 
has provided OST with Confidential Information. Should a submitter fail 
to docket either a non-confidential version of its submission or to 
post a notice that Confidential Information has been provided, we will 
note the receipt of the submission on the docket, with the submitter's 
organization or name (to the degree permitted by law) and the date of 
submission.

Will the Agency consider late comments?

    OST will consider all comments received before the close of 
business on the comment closing date indicated above under DATES. To 
the extent possible, the agency will also consider comments received 
after that date.

How can I read the comments submitted by other people?

    You may read the comments received at the address given above under 
WRITTEN COMMENTS. The hours of the docket are indicated above in the 
same location. You may also see the comments on the internet, 
identified by the docket number at the heading of this notice, at 
http://www.regulations.gov.

    Issued in Washington, DC, on March 2, 2022, under authority 
delegated at 49 CFR 1.25a.
Vincent Gerard White Jr.,
Senior Advisor for Innovation.
Michael Paris Shapiro,
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy.
[FR Doc. 2022-04728 Filed 3-8-22; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4910-9X-P


