January 13, 2006 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This notice announces a two-day session of the negotiated rulemaking committee that developed HUD's February 25, 2005, proposed rule for public comment to revise the Indian Housing Block Grant (IHBG) program allocation formula. Through the IHBG program, HUD makes assistance available to eligible Indian tribes for affordable housing activities. The public comment period on the proposed rule closed on April 26, 2005. The purpose of the two-day session is to provide the negotiated rulemaking committee members with the opportunity to review and consider responses to the public comments received on the February 25, 2005, proposed rule.

The Coast Guard will hold a public meeting to provide a forum for citizens to provide oral comments relating to the drawbridge operation regulations for the Dominion Boulevard (US 17) Bridge; Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, South Branch of the Elizabeth River, Chesapeake, VA. The meeting will be open to the public.

This action establishes Restricted Area 2507E (R-2507E), Chocolate Mountains, CA, as part of a U.S Marine Corps (USMC) training initiative. The USMC requested the establishment of this airspace to support its Close Air Support Mission (CAS) within the Chocolate Mountains Range. The new restricted airspace will be used to conduct realistic aircrew training and to maintain the level of proficiency in modern tactics that is required for combat readiness.

The Coast Guard is reopening the period for public comment concerning drawbridge operation regulations; Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, South Branch of the Elizabeth River, Chesapeake, VA, because the Dominion Boulevard (U.S. 17) Bridge is utilized frequently and members of the public have communicated to the Coast Guard that they would like to make additional comments.

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation published in the Federal Register of December 15, 2005, a final rule amending its regulation on Allocation of Assets in Single-Employer Plans to adopt interest assumptions for plans with valuation dates in January 2006. This document corrects an inadvertent error in that final rule.

The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is changing the fees that it charges meat and poultry establishments, egg products plants, importers, and exporters for providing voluntary inspection, identification, and certification services; overtime and holiday inspection services; and laboratory services. The Agency is raising these fees to reflect, among other factors, national and locality pay increases for Federal employees and inflation. In the past, FSIS has amended its regulations on an annual basis. With this regulation, FSIS is providing for three annual fee increases. This will provide the meat, poultry, and egg industries with more timely cost information. The Agency is also increasing the annual fee for its Accredited Laboratory Program.

This rule amends the Department of Housing and Urban Development Acquisition Regulation (HUDAR) to implement miscellaneous changes. The changes include corrections to provisions and the removal of obsolete text and clauses. This final rule reflects organizational changes within HUD and is limited to provisions that involve internal agency procedures.

In an interim rule published in the Federal Register on December 21, 1998, the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC) amended the General Administrative Regulations by adding a new subpart X to implement the statutory mandates of section 533 of the Agricultural Research, Extension, and Education Reform Act of 1998 (1998 Research Act). The rule provided procedures for responding to requests for final agency determinations regarding any provision of the Federal Crop Insurance Act (Act) or any regulation promulgated thereunder. The interim rule was made final on September 16, 1999. This correction is needed to correct the facsimile number and electronic mail address provided for requester submissions for final agency determinations.

We propose to revise the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Acquisition Regulation (VAAR). We have rewritten much of the VAAR to conform to plain language principles. We are changing many delegations of authority for the purpose of becoming more efficient. We are removing non-regulatory material. We are making changes in format, arrangement, and numbering to make the VAAR parallel to the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) as required by the FAR. We are removing provisions that simply restate FAR provisions that are already applicable. This document also proposes to set forth or revise procedures for providing notice and hearing to resolve issues regarding possible violations of the Gratuities clause, establishing qualified products lists, suspending or debarring a contractor, for expediting payments to small businesses, and for reducing or suspending payments upon a finding of contract fraud. We propose to expand the coverage of the VAAR clause on Organizational Conflicts of Interest to cover a broader range of services that may be subject to organizational conflicts of interest. We propose to clarify the scope of certain regulations and to allow use of additional VAAR clauses in commercial item solicitations and contracts, to remove requirements for setting aside construction and architect-engineer solicitations for small businesses that are in conflict with current statute, to remove a requirement to conduct an audit of section 8(a) price proposals that is contrary to current FAR requirements, and to remove a VAAR provision that requested data from offerors on veteran-owned small businesses that has been replaced by a FAR provision. The rule would provide guidance to contracting officers on the types of data that should be requested from a contractor when evaluating the contractor's financial condition. The rule would require the use of the clause on Assignment of Claims in purchase orders, would provide guidance to contracting officers on the criteria for revising the payment due dates for invoices, and would require the use of Alternate I to the clause on Disputes.

We are revising the criteria in the Listing of Impairments (the listings) that we use to evaluate claims involving cardiovascular impairments. We apply these criteria when you claim benefits based on disability under title II and title XVI of the Social Security Act (the Act). The revisions reflect advances in medical knowledge, treatment, and methods of evaluating cardiovascular impairments.