April 28, 2006 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

FMCSA withdraws a July 30, 1998, Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that would have prohibited the driver of a commercial motor vehicle (CMV) from driving onto a highway-railroad grade crossing without sufficient space to drive completely through the crossing without stopping. The NPRM was issued in response to section 112 of the Hazardous Materials Transportation Authorization Act of 1994. After careful analysis and review of the comments, FMCSA has concluded that the NPRM gave a misleading impression of the statutory mandate and the cost and complexity of complying with an implementing regulation. FMCSA is therefore withdrawing the 1998 NPRM in order to eliminate the confusion associated with this rulemaking. The agency, however, will issue a simpler and more clearly written new NPRM addressing the requirements of section 112.

We are proposing to amend the Animal Welfare Act regulations concerning the handling of animals to require that shift cages be used for handling certain species. One of the largest risk factors for animal escape and employee and animal injury occurs when it is necessary to move, or shift, certain animals between enclosures. Requiring shift cages for certain species would mitigate the risk of injuries to people and animals as well as ensure safe transport of animals between enclosures and exhibits.

The FAA proposes to adopt a new airworthiness directive (AD) for certain Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) MU-2B series airplanes. This proposed AD would require you to incorporate power assurance charts into the Limitations Section of the Airplane Flight Manual (AFM), inspect the engine torque indication system, and recalibrate the torque pressure transducers as required. This proposed AD results from a recent safety evaluation that used a data-driven approach to analyze the design, operation, and maintenance of the MU-2B series airplanes in order to determine their safety and define what steps, if any, are necessary for their safe operation. Part of that evaluation was the identification of unsafe conditions that exist or could develop on the affected type design airplanes. We are issuing this proposed AD to detect and correct torque transducers that are out of calibration. The above issue, if uncorrected, could result in degraded performance and poor handling qualities with consequent loss of control of the airplane in certain situations.

The following 2006 fishing year (FY) Total Allowable Catches (TACs) are implemented for the Northeast (NE) Multispecies Fishery Management Plan (FMP). Hard (i.e., the fishery or area closes when a TAC is reached) TACs for Eastern Georges Bank (GB) cod, Eastern GB haddock, and GB yellowtail flounder in the U.S./Canada Management Area; target TACs for all NE regulated multispecies; and hard Incidental Catch TACs for groundfish stocks of concern. The intent of this action is to provide for the conservation and management of groundfish management under the NE Multispecies Fishery Management Plan (FMP).

This document informs the public that the Commandant of the Coast Guard is directing Coast Guard Captains of the Port to prevent access to waterfront facilities to persons that do not have appropriate identification credentials as defined under Coast Guard regulations. This document also identifies additional identification documents that have been approved by the Commandant as identification credentials.

Missouri has applied to EPA for Final authorization of the changes to its hazardous waste program under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). EPA proposes to grant final authorization to Missouri.

EPA is proposing to approve two State Implementation Plan (SIP) revisions to the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation's Nitrogen Oxides (NOX) Budget Trading Program (Trading Program) submitted October 27, 2003, and December 10, 2003, by the State of Tennessee. The first revision corrects a miscalculation in Tennessee's NOX trading budget for non-electric generating units (non-EGUs) resulting from the use of an incorrect control efficiency percentage for one of the Trading Program's non-EGU sourcesan Eastman Chemical Company boiler. The correction of this miscalculation results in a 147 tons per season (tps) increase in Tennessee's NOX trading budget for non-EGUsmaking its non- EGU trading budget 5,666 tps, instead of 5,519 tps, and increasing Tennessee's total State-wide NOX budget from 163,928 tpy to 164,075 tpy. Based on this correction, Tennessee's second revision reallocates trading allowances to Eastman Chemical Companyincreasing the NOX trading allowances from 416 tps to 549 tps for the Eastman Chemical Company boiler. In the Final Rules section of this Federal Register, EPA is approving the State's SIP revisions as a direct final rule without prior proposal because the Agency views these as noncontroversial submittals and anticipates no adverse comments. A detailed rationale for the approval is set forth in the direct final rule. If no significant, material, and adverse comments are received in response to this rule, no further activity is contemplated. If EPA receives adverse comments, the direct final rule will be withdrawn and all public comments received will be addressed in a subsequent final rule based on this proposed rule. EPA will not institute a second comment period on this document. Any parties interested in commenting on this document should do so at this time.

We are amending the gypsy moth regulations by adding one county in Ohio, one county in West Virginia, and two counties in Wisconsin to the list of generally infested areas based on the detection of infestations of gypsy moth in those counties. As a result of this action, the interstate movement of regulated articles from those areas will be restricted. This action is necessary to prevent the artificial spread of the gypsy moth to noninfested States.

EPA is taking final action to approve revisions to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania State Implementation Plan (SIP). The revisions were submitted by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP) to establish and require reasonably available control technology (RACT) for five major sources and nitrogen oxides (NOX) pursuant to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's SIP-approved generic RACT regulations. EPA is approving these revisions in accordance with the Clean Air Act (CAA).

This interim final rule with comment period sets forth the methodology and process used to compute and issue each State's allotment for fiscal year (FY) 2006 and FY 2007 that is available to pay Medicare Part B premiums for qualifying individuals. It also provides the preliminary FY 2006 allotments determined under this methodology.

This document amends the interim final regulation that implements the Mental Health Parity Act of 1996 (MHPA) to conform the sunset date of the regulation to the sunset date of the statute under legislation passed on December 30, 2005.

In today's action, we are finalizing regulations to include Delaware and New Jersey in the Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) for fine particles (PM2.5), based on our assessment that they contribute significantly to a downwind State's nonattainment. In the CAIR, we determined that upwind States that contribute 0.2 [mu]g/ m3 or more to a downwind PM2.5 nonattainment area are potentially deemed to be contributing significantly to nonattainment in the downwind State. The EPA proposed to augment the analytical approach used in the CAIR by supplementing the air quality step of the contribution analysis. Based on the results of this augmented analytical approach, we proposed that Delaware and New Jersey should be covered by the CAIR for annual sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOX) requirements and are finalizing the regulation to include these States in the CAIR for PM2.5.

Today, EPA is taking actions to address the interstate transport of emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOX) and sulfur dioxide (SO2) that contribute significantly to nonattainment and maintenance problems with respect to the national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and 8-hour ozone. As one part of today's action, EPA is providing its final response to a petition submitted to EPA by the State of North Carolina under section 126 of the Clean Air Act (CAA). The petition requests that EPA find that SO2 and/or NOX emissions from electric generating units (EGUs) in 13 States are significantly contributing to PM2.5 and/or 8-hour ozone nonattainment and maintenance problems in North Carolina, and requested that EPA establish control requirements to prohibit such significant contribution. The EPA is denying the petition because, in today's action, EPA is promulgating Federal implementation plans (FIPs) for all jurisdictions covered by the Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) to address interstate transport. The FIPs will regulate EGUs in the affected States and achieve the emissions reductions requirements established by the CAIR until States have approved State implementation plans (SIPs) to achieve the reductions. As the control requirement for the FIPs, EPA is adopting the model trading rules that EPA provided in CAIR as a control option for States, with minor changes to account for Federal rather than State implementation. Today's action also revises CAIR SIP model trading rules in order to address the interaction between the EPA-administered CAIR FIP trading programs being promulgated today and the EPA-administered CAIR State trading programs that will be created by any State that elects to submit a SIP establishing such a trading program to meet the requirements of the CAIR. In addition, EPA is taking final action on our reconsideration of the definition of ``EGU'' as it relates to solid waste incinerators. Today's action also makes revisions to the Acid Rain Program in order to make the administrative appeals procedures, which currently apply to final determinations by the Administrator under the EPA- administered CAIR State trading programs, also apply to the EPA- administered trading programs under the FIP action. In addition, we are making certain minor revisions to the Acid Rain Program that will apply to all affected units.