December 23, 2010 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Board has approved the first quarter 2011 Rail Cost Adjustment Factor (RCAF) and cost index filed by the Association of American Railroads. The first quarter 2011 RCAF (Unadjusted) is 1.093. The first quarter 2011 RCAF (Adjusted) is 0.488. The first quarter 2011 RCAF-5 is 0.462.

NMFS has received an application, pursuant to the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), from the Alaska Aerospace Corporation (AAC) for authorization to take small numbers of marine mammals incidental to launching space launch vehicles, long-range ballistic target missiles, and other smaller missile systems at the Kodiak Launch Complex (KLC) for the period of February 2011 through February 2016. Pursuant to the MMPA, NMFS is requesting comments on its proposal to issue regulations and subsequent Letters of Authorization (LOAs) to AAC to incidentally harass Steller sea lions (Eumetopias jubatus) and harbor seals (Phoca vitulina) during the specified activity.

This final rule implements addenda to add exemptions from certain Federal fishing regulations to some or all Northeast (NE) multispecies sector operations plans that were previously approved by the final sector rule published April 9, 2010. That rule approved FY 2010 sector operations plans and contracts for, and made allocations of Annual Catch Entitlements (ACE) to, 17 sectors in the NE multispecies fishery. In addition, this action approves an exemption functionally equivalent to the Gulf of Maine (GOM) Haddock Sink Gillnet Pilot Program for FY 2010 sectors (proposed in Amendment 16 to the NE Multispecies Fishery Management Plan (FMP) for both common pool and sector vessels, but disapproved by NMFS), since this program would be more controlled for sectors and unlikely to compromise efforts to eliminate overfishing and rebuild overfished stocks. The exemptions are intended to provide additional flexibility and improve profitability for sector vessels.

This is a notice of an Administrative declaration of a disaster for the U.S. Virgin Islands dated 12/15/2010. Incident: Tropical Storm Tomas. Incident Period: 11/08/2010 through 11/12/2010. Effective Date: 12/15/2010. Physical Loan Application Deadline Date: 02/14/2011. Economic Injury (EIDL) Loan Application Deadline Date: 09/15/2011.

Under the provisions of Section 3507(a)(1)(D) of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) a request to review and approve the information collection listed below. This proposed information collection was previously published in the Federal Register on October 18, 2010 (75 FR 63833) and allowed 60-days for public comment. There was one public comment received on October 18, 2010 which questioned the use of ``spending American tax dollars on this study.'' A response was sent on December 14, 2010. The purpose of this notice is to allow an additional 30 days for public comment. The National Institutes of Health may not conduct or sponsor, and the respondent is not required to respond to, an information collection that has been extended, revised, or implemented on or after October 1, 1995, unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number. Proposed Collection: Title: NIH-American Association for Retired Persons (AARP) Comprehensive Lifestyle Interview by Computer (CLIC) Study. Type of Information Collection Request: Extension. Need and Use of Information Collection: The Nutritional Epidemiology Branch of the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics of the National Cancer Institute has planned this study to evaluate the feasibility of using these three new computerized questionnaires as well as the Diet and Health Questionnaire (DHQ), a well-established food frequency questionnaire in a population of early-to-late-middle-aged men and women. Participants will be asked to complete computerized questionnaires over a 90 day period, with some questionnaires in a series being completed twice. This evaluation study comprises the necessary performance and feasibility tests for the new computerized questionnaires, which will provide an opportunity to assess the possibility of administering computerized questionnaires in future large prospective cohort studies. The computerized questionnaires will support the ongoing examination between cancer and other health outcomes with nutritional, physical activity, and lifestyle exposures. The computerized questionnaires adhere to The Public Health Service Act, Section 412 (42 U.S.C. 285a-1) and Section 413 (42 U.S.C. 285a-2), which authorizes the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to establish and support programs for the detection, diagnosis, prevention and treatment of cancer; and to collect, identify, analyze and disseminate information on cancer research, diagnosis, prevention and treatment. Frequency of Response: Either 1 or 2 times. Affected Public: Individuals. Type of Respondents: U.S. adults (aged 50 and over). The annual reporting burden is displayed in the table below. The estimated total annual burden hours being requested is 6886. The annualized cost to respondents is estimated at: $121,743. There are no Capital Costs, Operating Costs, and/or Maintenance Costs to report.

On Wednesday, April 8, 2009 [74 FR 15985], the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), announced in the Federal Register plans to evaluate the scientific data on carbon nanotubes and to issue its findings on the potential health risks. A draft Current Intelligence Bulletin entitled ``Occupational Exposure to Carbon Nanotubes and Nanofibers'' has been developed which contains an assessment of the toxicological data and provides recommendations for the safe handling of these materials. NIOSH is seeking comments on the draft document and plans to have a public meeting to discuss the document. The draft document and instructions for submitting comments can be found at https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docket/review/docket161A/ default.html. This guidance publication does not have the force or effect of the law. Public Comment Period: Comments must be received by February 18, 2011. Public Meeting Time and Date: 9 a.m.-4 p.m., February 3, 2011. Place: Millennium Hotel Cincinnati, Grand Ballroom A, 150 West 5th Street, Cincinnati, OH 45202. Purpose of Meeting: To discuss and obtain comments on the draft document, ``Occupational Exposure to Carbon Nanotubes and Nanofibers''. Special emphasis will be placed on discussion of the following: (1) Whether the hazard identification, risk estimation, and discussion of health effects for carbon nanotubes and nanofibers are a reasonable reflection of the current understanding of the evidence in the scientific literature; (2) Workplaces and occupations where exposure to carbon nanotubes and nanofibers occur; (3) Current strategies for controlling occupational exposure to carbon nanotubes and nanofibers (e.g., engineering controls, work practices, personal protective equipment; (4) Current exposure measurement methods and challenges in measuring workplace exposures to carbon nanotubes and nanofibers; (5) Areas for future collaborative efforts (e.g., research, communication, development of exposure measurement and control strategies). Status: The forum will include scientists and representatives from various government agencies, industry, labor, and other stakeholders, and is open to the public. Attendance is limited only by the space available. The meeting room accommodates 100 people. Interested parties should contact the NIOSH Docket Office at nioshdocket@cdc.gov, (513) 533-8611, or fax (513) 533-8285, for information about how to register for the meeting. Due to limited space, notification of intent to attend the meeting must be made to the NIOSH Docket Office no later than January 28, 2011. Priority for attendance will be given to those providing oral comments. Other requests to attend the meeting will then be accommodated on a first-come basis. Persons wanting to provide oral comments will be permitted 15 minutes. If additional time becomes available, presenters will be notified. All requests to present should contain the name, address, telephone number, and relevant business affiliations of the presenter, topic of the presentation, and the approximate time requested for the presentation. Oral comments made at the public meeting must also be submitted to the NIOSH Docket Office in writing in order to be considered by the Agency. Request for Information: NIOSH seeks to obtain materials, including published and unpublished reports and research findings, to evaluate the possible health risks of occupational exposure to carbon nanotubes and nanofibers. Examples of requested information include, but are not to be limited to: (1) Identification of industries or occupations in which exposures to carbon nanotubes and nanofibers can occur; (2) Trends in the production and use of carbon nanotubes and nanofibers; (3) Exposure measurement data; (4) Case reports or other health information demonstrating possible health effects in workers exposed to carbon nanotubes or nanofibers; (5) Reports of experimental in vivo and in vitro studies that provide evidence of a dose-relationship between exposure to carbon nanotubes and nanofibers and biological activity; (6) Reports of experimental data on the airborne characteristics of carbon nanotubes or nanofibers, including information on the amounts that are inhalable and respirable; (7) Criteria and rationale for including workers in a medical surveillance and screening program; (8) Description of work practices and engineering controls used to reduce or prevent workplace exposure to carbon nanotubes and nanofibers; and (9) Educational materials for worker safety and training on the safe handling of carbon nanotubes and nanofibers.

As required by 43 CFR 2650.7(d), notice is hereby given that the Bureau of Land Management will issue an appealable decision to The Aleut Corporation. The decision will approve the conveyance of only the surface estate in certain lands pursuant to the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. The lands are located on the Near Islands, west of Adak, Alaska, and aggregate 66.01 acres. Notice of the decision will also be published four times in the Anchorage Daily News.

All interested qualified parties are hereby invited to participate with PacifiCorp on a pro rata cost sharing basis in its program for the exploration of coal deposits owned by the United States of America in Emery County, Utah.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has examined a 1.51 acre parcel of public land in Blachley, Oregon, and has found it suitable for disposal using direct (non-competitive) sale procedures.

Under the provisions of the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920, as amended, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) received a petition for reinstatement from Energy West Corporation for competitive oil and gas lease WYW163285 for land in Sweetwater County, Wyoming. The petition was filed on-time and was accompanied by all the rentals due since the date the lease terminated under the law.

NCUA is issuing final amendments to revise the definition of the phrase ``Regional Director'' in NCUA's rule on credit union to mutual savings bank conversions and to add the same revised definition of that phrase to NCUA's rule on conversions to nonfederal deposit insurance.

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. chapter 35), the Railroad Retirement Board (RRB) is submitting five (5) Information Collection Requests (ICR) to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Our ICR(s) describe the information we seek to collect from the public. Review and approval by OIRA ensures that we impose appropriate paperwork burdens. The RRB invites comments on the proposed collections of information to determine (1) the practical utility of the collections; (2) the accuracy of the estimated burden of the collections; (3) ways to enhance the quality, utility and clarity of the information that is the subject of collection; and (4) ways to minimize the burden of collections on respondents, including the use of automated collection techniques or other forms of information technology. Comments to RRB or OIRA must contain the OMB control number of the ICR. For proper consideration of your comments, it is best if RRB and OIRA receive them within 30 days of publication date. 1. Title and Purpose of Information Collection: 3220-0005, Employer Reporting. Under Section 9 of the Railroad Retirement Act (RRA), and Section 6 of the Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act (RUIA), railroad employers are required to submit reports of employee service and compensation to the RRB as needed for administering the RRA and RUIA. To pay benefits due on a deceased employee's earnings records or determine entitlement to, and amount of annuity applied for, it is necessary at times to obtain from railroad employers current (lag) service and compensation not yet reported to the RRB through the annual reporting process. The reporting requirements are specified in 20 CFR 209.6 and 209.7. The RRB utilizes Form G-88a.1, Notice of Retirement and Verification of Date Last Worked, Form G-88a.2, Notice of Retirement and Request for Service Needed for Eligibility, and Form AA-12, Notice of Death and Compensation, to obtain the required lag service and related information from railroad employers. Form G-88a.1 is a computer-generated listing sent by the RRB to railroad employers and used for the specific purpose of verifying information previously provided to the RRB regarding the date last worked by an employee. Form G-88a.2 is used by the RRB to secure lag service and compensation information when it is needed to determine benefit eligibility. Form AA-12 obtains a report of lag service and compensation from the last railroad employer of a deceased employee. This report covers the lag period between the date of the latest record of employment processed by the RRB and the date an employee last worked, the date of death or the date the employee may have been entitled to benefits under the Social Security Act. The information is used by the RRB to determine benefits due on the deceased employee's earnings record. The RRB proposes no changes to Form AA-12, Form G-88a.1 and Form G-88a.2. In addition, 20 CFR 209.12(b) requires all railroad employers to furnish the RRB with the home addresses of all employees hired within the last year (new-hires). Form BA-6a, Form BA-6 Address Report, is used by the RRB to obtain home address information of employees from railroad employers that do not have the home address information computerized and who submit the information in a paper format. The form also serves as an instruction sheet to railroad employers who can also submit the information electronically by magnetic tape cartridge, CD- ROM, secure e-mail, or via the Internet utilizing the RRB's Employer Reporting System (ERS). Completion of the forms is mandatory. One response is requested of each respondent. The RRB proposes no changes to Form BA-6a.

The inventions listed below are assigned to the United States Government as represented by the Secretary of the Navy and are made available for licensing by the Department of the Navy. Navy Case No. 83951Apparatus and System for Data Surveillance; Navy Case No. 84021System and Method for Improved Patient Status Monitoring; Navy Case No. 97188Software Architecture for Access Control Based on Hierarchical Characteristics; Navy Case No. 97189 System of Access Control Based on Hierarchical Characteristics; Navy Case No. 97556Preparation of SERS Substrates on Silica-Coated Magnetic Microspheres; Navy Case No. 98163Algorithm for minimum antenna size; Navy Case No. 98184MEMS-Based Multi-Channel Fabry-Perot Interferometer System with Increased Tuning Range and Resolution; Navy Case No. 98330System and Method for Geodesic Data Mining; Navy Case No. 98408Method for Determining Collision Risk for Collision Avoidance Systems; Navy Case No. 98582Electrolytic Fluid Antenna; Navy Case No. 98666Plasmonic Transistor; Navy Case No. 98721Static Wireless Data-Glove Apparatus for Gesture Processing and Recognition and Information-Coding and Input Method; Navy Case No. 98722Host- Centric Method for Automatic Collision Avoidance Decisions; Navy Case No. 98745Method of Fabricating A Micro-Electro-Mechanical Apparatus for Generating Power Responsive to Mechanical Vibration; Navy Case No. 98763Hydrostatic Actuated Flood Plug; Navy Case No. 99735Apparatus for Generating Power Responsive to Mechanical Vibration; Navy Case No. 99740Tunable Resonant Frequency MEMS Kinetic Energy Harvester; Navy Case No. 99741Improved Electro-Magnetic Kinetic Energy Harvesting Device Using Increased Magnetic Edge Area; Navy Case No. 99846Method for Fusing Overhead Imagery with Automatic Vessel Reporting Systems; Navy Case No. 99933Improved Electrolytic Fluid Antenna; Navy Case No. 100162Method for Detecting and Mapping Fires Using Features Extracted from Overhead Imagery; Navy Case No. 100190Device for Maximizing Packing Density with Cylindrical Objects in Cylindrical Cavities; Navy Case No. 100225Plasmonic Logic Device; Navy Case No. 100249 Shipboard Winch with Guide Vanes; Navy Case No. 100474A System and Method for Learning Visual Recognition through Reusable Symbolic Pattern Matching; Navy Case No. 100345Stand-Off Charging for Batteries; Navy Case No. 100447Conformal Faraday Effect Antenna; Navy Case No. 100340Shipboard Antenna Virtual Tuning System and Method; Navy Case No. 100545Method for Maximizing Packing Density with Cylindrical Objects in Cylindrical Cavities; Navy Case No. 100678 Battery Tray Holder with Electrical Conductor for Holding Cylindrical Battery Cells; Navy Case No. 100311System for Amplifying Flow-Induced Vibration Energy Using Boundary Layer and Wake Flow Control; Navy Case No. 100341Simplified System Status Advisor Providing Uniform Cross-Platform Status Information; Navy Case No. 100809Time Domain Inertial Sensor; Navy Case No. 100849Structural Design of a Mechanical Gyro with Increased Sensitivity and Reduced Quadature Error; Navy Case No. 100869Micro-Resonator with Reduced Acceleration Sensitivity and Phase Noise Using Time Domain Switch.

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, this notice invites the general public and other public agencies to comment on this proposed information collection. This collection is a revision of a currently approved collection in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and concerns Retail Store Applications (Forms FNS- 252; FNS-252-E; and FNS-252-R).

The Department of Commerce, as part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork and respondent burden, invites the general public and other Federal agencies to take this opportunity to comment on proposed and/or continuing information collections, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, Public Law 104-13 (44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(2)(A)).

The Securities and Exchange Commission is requesting public comment to help inform its study pursuant to Section 939(h) of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 on the feasibility and desirability of: Standardizing credit ratings terminology, so that all credit rating agencies issue credit ratings using identical terms; standardizing the market stress conditions under which ratings are evaluated; requiring a quantitative correspondence between credit ratings and a range of default probabilities and loss expectations under standardized conditions of economic stress; and standardizing credit rating terminology across asset classes, so that named ratings correspond to a standard range of default probabilities and expected losses independent of asset class and issuing entity.