Department of Energy May 2010 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

In compliance with the requirements of section 3506(c)(2)(A) of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, 44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(2)(A) (2006), (Pub. L. 104-13), the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Commission or FERC) is soliciting public comment on the proposed information collections described below.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is publishing this notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) to implement provisions of the Energy Conservation and Production Act, as amended by the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, that require DOE to establish revised performance standards for the construction of new Federal buildings and major renovations of Federal buildings. This

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today is issuing a notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) to amend the test procedures for refrigerators, refrigerator-freezers, and freezers. The NOPR consists of two parts. First, it proposes amending the current procedure by adding test procedures to account for refrigerator-freezers equipped with variable anti-sweat heater controls, amending the long-time automatic defrost test procedure to capture all energy use associated with the defrost cycle expended during testing, establishing test procedures for refrigerator-freezers equipped with more than two compartments, making minor adjustments to the language to eliminate any potential ambiguity regarding how to conduct tests, and requiring certain information in certification reports to clarify how some products are tested to determine their energy ratings. Second, the notice proposes amended test procedures for refrigerators, refrigerator-freezers, and freezers that would be required for measuring energy consumption once DOE promulgates new energy conservation standards for these products. These new standards are currently under development in a separate rulemaking activity. Pursuant to the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975, as amended, these new standards would apply to newly manufactured products starting on January 1, 2014. While the amended test procedures would be based largely on the test methodology used in the existing test procedures, they also include significant revisions with respect to the measurement of compartment temperatures and compartment volumes that would provide a more comprehensive accounting of energy usage by these products. Finally, the new test procedure for 2014 would incorporate into the energy use metric the energy use associated with icemaking for products with automatic icemakers. This NOPR also discusses the proposed treatment of combination wine storage-freezer products that were the subject of a recent test procedure waiver, the testing of refrigeration products with the anti-sweat heater switch turned off, the treatment of auxiliary features used in refrigeration products, the treatment of electric heaters in the current and proposed test procedures, and the incorporation of icemaking energy use in the test procedure.

In this Final Rule, the Commission revises the contract reporting requirements for those natural gas pipelines that fall under the Commission's jurisdiction pursuant to section 311 of the Natural Gas Policy Act or section 1(c) of the Natural Gas Act. The Final Rule revises Sec. 284.126(b) and replaces Form No. 549Intrastate Pipeline Annual Transportation Report with the new Form No. 549DQuarterly Transportation and Storage Report for Intrastate Natural Gas and Hinshaw Pipelines. The Final Rule makes changes so as to increase the reporting frequency from annual to quarterly, include certain additional types of information and cover storage transactions as well as transportation transactions, establish a procedure for the Form No. 549D reports to be filed in a uniform electronic format and posted on the Commission's Web site, and hold that those reports must be public and may not be filed with information redacted as privileged. The Commission is also modifying its policy concerning periodic reviews of the rates charged by section 311 and Hinshaw pipelines to extend the cycle for such reviews from 3 years to 5 years.

The Department of Energy (DOE) is amending the Department of Energy Acquisition Regulation (DEAR) Subchapters EGeneral Contracting Requirements, FSpecial Categories of Contracting, and GContract Management to make changes to conform to the FAR, remove out-of-date coverage, and to update references. Today's rule does not alter substantive rights or obligations under current law.

This notice advises the public that applications under the Funding Opportunity Announcement (DE-FOA-0000013) for the formula grants of the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) Program of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 will not be accepted after June 25, 2010.