January 21, 2009 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This Treasury decision expands by 2,635 acres the existing 609,673-acre Paso Robles American viticultural area in San Luis Obispo County, California. The expanded Paso Robles viticultural area lies entirely within San Luis Obispo County and the multicounty Central Coast viticultural area. We designate viticultural areas to allow vintners to better describe the origin of their wines and to allow consumers to better identify wines they may purchase.

This document revises the delegations of authority from the Secretary of Agriculture and general officers of the Department of Agriculture (USDA) principally to reflect changes and additions to the delegations required by the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (FCEA), Public Law 110-246. Other additions, deletions, and changes are made as summarized below.

OSHA is proposing to add two PortaCount[supreg] quantitative fit-testing protocols to its Respiratory Protection Standard (29 CFR 1910.134); the proposed protocols would apply to employers in general industry, shipyard employment, and the construction industry. The first of the two proposed protocols consists of the eight fit-testing exercises described in Part I.A.14 of Appendix A of the Respiratory Protection Standard, except each exercise would last 30 seconds instead of the currently required 60 seconds.\1\ The second proposed protocol would eliminate two of the eight fit-testing exercises, and each of the remaining six exercises would last 40 seconds; in addition, this proposed protocol would increase the current minimum pass-fail fit- testing criterion from a fit factor of 100 to 200 for half masks, and from 500 to 1,000 for full facepieces.

This document contains final rules under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, and parallel provisions in the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, relating to the provision of investment advice by a fiduciary adviser to participants and beneficiaries in participant- directed individual account plans, such as 401(k) plans, and beneficiaries of individual retirement accounts (and certain similar plans). These rules affect sponsors, fiduciaries, participants and beneficiaries of participant-directed individual account plans, as well as providers of investment and investment advice-related services to such plans.

This final rule establishes a new official updated daily online-only publication entitled the ``Daily Compilation of Presidential Documents.'' The paper edition of the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents will no longer be issued. The annual edition of the Public Papers of the President will be based on the text of the Daily Compilation of Presidential Documents. The price for subscription to the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents has also been removed from the regulations, as this publication will no longer exist and the online Daily Compilation is available free of charge on the Internet. This rule also revises the regulatory text to make it more readable and consistent with plain language principles.

This final rule amends existing EEOC regulations by changing two office addresses and one post office box.

Currently, during passenger boarding and deplaning, all flight attendants are required to be on board the airplane. This rulemaking would allow one required flight attendant to deplane during passenger boarding, and conduct safety-related duties, as long as certain conditions are met. In addition, this rulemaking would allow a reduction of flight attendants remaining on board the airplane during passenger deplaning, as long as certain conditions are met. The FAA has determined that these revisions to current regulations can be made as a result of recent safety enhancements to airplane equipment and procedures. These changes have mitigated the risks to passengers during ground operations that previously required all flight attendants on board the airplane during passenger boarding and deplaning.

In this document, we correct an inadvertent error by adding the text of two previously removed rules concerning attachment of charges and payment of charges, and correcting the typographical errors previously published.

OSHA is requesting data, information, and comment on issues related to occupational exposure to diacetyl and food flavorings containing diacetyl, including current employee exposures to diacetyl; the relationship between exposure to diacetyl and the development of adverse health effects; exposure assessment and monitoring methods; exposure control methods; employee training; medical surveillance for adverse health effects related to diacetyl exposure; and other pertinent subjects. In this notice, OSHA intends the term ``diacetyl and food flavorings containing diacetyl'' to encompass other constituents of food flavorings containing diacetyl. In addition to information on diacetyl, OSHA seeks information on acetoin, acetaldehyde, acetic acid, furfural, and other compounds present in food flavorings that may cause or contribute to flavoring-related lung disease. The Agency is also interested in and seeks information about diacetyl present in substances other than food flavorings (e.g., naturally occurring diacetyl or diacetyl in fragrances) as well as substitutes used in place of diacetyl (e.g., diacetyl trimer). The information received in response to this document will assist the Agency in developing a proposed standard addressing occupational exposure to diacetyl and food flavorings containing diacetyl.

NMFS issues a regulatory amendment to exempt fishermen using dinglebar fishing gear in federal waters of the Gulf of Alaska from the requirement to carry a vessel monitoring system (VMS). This action is necessary because the risk of damage posed to protected corals in the Gulf of Alaska by the dinglebar gear fishery is minor and insufficient to justify the costs of VMS. This action is intended to promote the goals and objectives of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the Fishery Management Plan for Groundfish of the Gulf of Alaska, and other applicable law.

This action proposes to establish a high altitude area navigation (RNAV) route, designated Q-42, extending between the New York-Philadelphia area and the Kirksville, MO, very high frequency omnidirectional range/tactical air navigation (VORTAC) aid. The route would streamline RNAV procedures in the east-central United States by creating a route parallel to the existing Jet Route J-80. The new route would help alleviate departure delay issues for westbound aircraft flying from the New York and Philadelphia areas.

This document contains corrections to final and temporary regulations (TD 9435) that were published in the Federal Register on Monday, December 15, 2008 (73 FR 75946) providing guidance regarding the distribution of stock of a controlled corporation acquired in a transaction described in section 355(a)(3)(B) of the Internal Revenue Code. This action is necessary in light of amendments to section 355(b). These temporary regulations will affect corporations and their shareholders.

EPA is finding that California has failed to submit, for the San Joaquin Valley extreme 1-hour ozone nonattainment area, a State Implementation Plan (SIP) revision required by Clean Air Act (CAA) sections 172(c)(1), 182(b)(2) and 182(f). These CAA sections require that SIPs provide for the implementation of reasonably available control technology on major stationary sources of volatile organic compounds (VOC) and oxides of nitrogen (NOX) as well as certain other sources. Under the CAA, this finding triggers the 18- month time clock for mandatory application of sanctions and 2-year time clock for a federal implementation plan.

This document withdraws proposed regulations relating to the treatment of transactions between a partnership and its partners as disguised sales of partnership interests between the partners under section 707(a)(2)(B) of the Internal Revenue Code. The withdrawal affects partnerships and their partners.

This document contains corrections to final and temporary regulations (TD 9440) that were published in the Federal Register on Monday, December 29, 2008, relating to the annual filing of Federal employment tax returns and requirements for employment tax deposits. These temporary regulations relate to sections 6011 and 6302 of the Internal Revenue Code concerning reporting and paying income taxes withheld from wages and reporting and paying taxes under the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) (collectively, ``employment taxes'').

This document contains corrections to compliance dates for the final rule published in the Federal Register on December 31, 2008 for Flame-Resistant Conveyor Belt, Fire Prevention and Detection, and Use of Air from the Belt Entry (73 FR 80580). In addition, minor typographical errors in the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section, Compliance dates, are also corrected.

NMFS, upon application from the U.S. Navy (Navy), is issuing regulations to govern the unintentional taking of marine mammals incidental to training, maintenance, and research, development, testing and evaluation (RDT&E) activities conducted in the Southern California Range Complex (SOCAL Range Complex), which extends south and southwest off the southern California coast, for the period of January 2009 through January 2014. The Navy's activities are considered military readiness activities pursuant to the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), as amended by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004 (NDAA). These regulations, which allow for the issuance of ``Letters of Authorization'' (LOAs) for the incidental take of marine mammals during the described activities and specified timeframes, prescribe the permissible methods of taking and other means of affecting the least practicable adverse impact on marine mammal species and their habitat, as well as requirements pertaining to the monitoring and reporting of such taking.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) published a document in the Federal Register of December 30, 2008, amending its regulations to reflect increases effective for fiscal years 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009. The document contained an error in an amendatory instruction. We inadvertently omitted instruction to the editor to add two new paragraphs to the section. This document corrects that error.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) proposes to amend its regulations regarding enrollment in the VA health care system. In particular, it proposes to establish additional subpriorities within enrollment priority category 8 and provide that beginning on the effective date of the rule, VA would enroll priority category 8 veterans whose income exceeds the current means test and geographic means test income thresholds by 10 percent or less.