December 14, 2009 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This rule amends the Schedule of Fees for Consular Services (Schedule) for nonimmigrant visa application and border crossing card processing fees. The rule raises from $131 to $140 the fee charged for the processing of an application for most non-petition-based nonimmigrant visas (Machine-Readable Visas or MRVs) and adult Border Crossing Cards (BCCs). The rule also provides new application fees for certain categories of petition-based nonimmigrant visas and treaty trader and investor visas (all of which are also MRVs). Finally, the rule increases the $13 BCC fee charged to Mexican citizen minors who apply in Mexico, and whose parent or guardian already has a BCC or is applying for one, by raising that fee to $14 by virtue of a congressionally mandated surcharge that goes into effect this year. The Department of State is adjusting the fees to ensure that sufficient resources are available to meet the costs of providing consular services in light of an independent cost of service study's findings that the U.S. Government is not fully covering its costs for the processing of these visas under the current cost structure.

We are requesting your comments on whether and how we should revise our rules governing payment for vocational rehabilitation (VR) services under the cost reimbursement program. Our current regulations do not reflect programmatic changes resulting from the new regulations we issued in May of 2008 for the Ticket to Work and Self-Sufficiency Program (Ticket to Work program). We are requesting your comments as part of our ongoing effort to ensure that the regulations governing cost reimbursement for VR services are current and support our other return to work programs, specifically the Ticket to Work and Work Incentive programs. If we propose specific revisions, we will publish a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in the Federal Register.

This document contains final regulations relating to the reduction in taxable income under section 302 of the Katrina Emergency Tax Relief Act of 2005. The final regulations also reflect legislation under section 702 of the Heartland Disaster Tax Relief Act of 2008. The final regulations affect taxpayers who provide housing in their principal residences to individuals displaced by certain major disasters.

Under a new law, the Postal Service must file an annual compliance report on costs, revenues, rates, and quality of service associated with its products. It recently filed documents with the Commission to change some of the methods it uses to compile a fiscal year report. In the Commission's view, these documents constitute a rulemaking petition. Therefore, this document provides notice of the Postal Service's filing and an opportunity for public comment.

The Department of the Treasury (Treasury) is issuing this final rule as part of its implementation of Title I of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002 (``TRIA'' or ``the Act''), as amended by the Terrorism Risk Insurance Extension Act of 2005 (``Extension Act'') and the Terrorism Risk Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007 (``Reauthorization Act''). The Act established a temporary Terrorism Risk Insurance Program (``TRIP'' or ``Program'') under which the Federal Government would share the risk of insured losses from certified acts of terrorism with commercial property and casualty insurers. The Reauthorization Act has now extended the Program until December 31, 2014. This rule was published in proposed form on September 17, 2008, for public comment. The final rule contains minor clarifications in response to comments. The rule incorporates and implements statutory requirements in section 103(e) of the Act, as amended by the Reauthorization Act, for the recoupment of the Federal share of compensation for insured losses. In particular, the rule describes how Treasury will determine the amounts to be recouped and establishes procedures insurers are to use for collecting Federal Terrorism Policy Surcharges and remitting them to Treasury. The rule generally builds upon previous rules issued by Treasury.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is amending the animal drug regulations to reflect approval of an original new animal drug application (NADA) filed by Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica, Inc. The NADA provides for veterinary prescription use of an injectable suspension of protamine zinc recombinant human insulin for the reduction of hyperglycemia and hyperglycemia-associated clinical signs in cats with diabetes mellitus.

We are adopting a new airworthiness directive (AD) for the products listed above. This AD results from mandatory continuing airworthiness information (MCAI) originated by an aviation authority of another country to identify and correct an unsafe condition on an aviation product. The MCAI describes the unsafe condition as:

The FAA is adopting a new airworthiness directive (AD) for General Electric Company (GE) GE90-110B1, GE90-113B, and GE90-115B series turbofan engines with stage 6 low-pressure turbine (LPT) blades, part number (P/N) 1765M37P03 or P/N 1765M37P04, installed. This AD requires initial and repetitive inspections for shroud interlock wear of the stage 6 LPT blades. This AD also requires replacing those blades with stage 6 LPT blades eligible for installation at the next engine shop visit as terminating action to the repetitive blade inspections. This AD results from eight reports of GE90-115B stage 6 LPT single-blade separation events. We are issuing this AD to prevent failure of stage 6 LPT blades, which could result in uncontained engine failure and damage to the airplane.

We are adopting a new airworthiness directive (AD) for the specified ECF helicopters. This AD results from a mandatory continuing airworthiness information (MCAI) AD issued by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), the Technical Agent for the aviation authority of France. The MCAI AD states there have been two cases of failure of the screw that secures the main rotor blade (blade) deicing system distributor retaining clamp (clamp). Analysis revealed that these failures were the result of insufficient clearance of the screw and the clamp assembly causing the screw to bend and also by some screws having nonconforming material hardness. Also, some of the screw heads were missing a lock-wiring hole preventing the use of lock-wiring between the screw head and the nut.