Brian Ferrasci-O’Malley Comments on New Interior Department Rule Concerning Environmental Damage Assessments

Brian Ferrasci-O’Malley was interviewed on The Federal Drive with Tom Temin for a segment called “New Interior Department rule expands an old one by thousands of miles.” The show appears on the Federal News Network.

The segment explores the Interior Department's efforts to revive an outdated process to assess environmental damage that occurs from spills of hazardous materials. The rule is part of Interior’s natural resource damage assessment and restoration procedures (known as NRDAR). In the interview, Brian talks about how “Interior proposes to greatly expand the size of the cases covered by the simple procedure and to apply it everywhere.”

At the top of the interview, Brian provided an overview of the rule and its expansion. He explained that Interior’s NRDAR regulations are the “process by which government agencies, [the] federal trustees, assess and restore natural resources that are injured as a result…of hazardous substances or oil getting into the environment and damaging the public resources.” The new rule aims to revamp the “Type A” pathway by which the trustees determine what natural resources were injured and how they can be restored. Brian and Tom discuss how the proposed rule would greatly expand the number and size of cases that can use this more streamlined, simplified assessment process and what that means for getting restoration on the ground faster.

Interior is accepting public comments on the proposed rule until April 5, 2024.