January 13, 2010 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This proposed rule would implement the provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) (Pub. L. 111-5) that provide incentive payments to eligible professionals (EPs) and eligible hospitals participating in Medicare and Medicaid programs that adopt and meaningfully use certified electronic health record (EHR) technology. The proposed rule would specify theinitial criteria an EP and eligible hospital must meet in order to qualify for the incentive payment; calculation of the incentive payment amounts; payment adjustments under Medicare for covered professional services and inpatient hospital services provided by EPs and eligible hospitals failing to meaningfully use certified EHR technology; and other program participation requirements. Also, as required by ARRA the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) will be issuing a closely related interim final rule that specifies the Secretary's adoption of an initial set of standards, implementation, specifications, and certification criteria for electronic health records. ONC will also be issuing a notice of proposed rulemaking on the process for organizations to conduct the certification of EHR technology.

The Acting Director, Information Collection Clearance Division, Regulatory Information Management Services, Office of Management, invites comments on the proposed information collection requests as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995.

NMFS proposes a regulation to implement the annual harvest guideline (HG) and seasonal allocations for Pacific sardine in the U.S. exclusive economic zone (EEZ) off the Pacific coast for the fishing season of January 1, 2010, through December 31, 2010. This rule is proposed according to the Coastal Pelagic Species (CPS) Fishery Management Plan (FMP). The proposed 2010 acceptable biological catch (ABC) or maximum HG is 72,039 mt. 5,000 mt of this 72,039 mt would initially be set aside for use under an Exempted Fishing Permit (EFP), if issued, leaving the remaining 65,732 mt as the initial commercial fishing HG. That HG would be divided across the seasonal allocation periods in the following way: January 1-June 30, 22,463 mt would be allocated for directed harvest with an incidental set-aside of 1,000 mt; July 1-September 14, 25,861 mt would be allocated for directed harvest with an incidental set-aside of 1,000 mt; September 15-December 31, 11,760 mt would be allocated for directed harvest with an incidental set-aside of 1,000 mt with an additional 4,000 mt set aside to buffer against reaching the ABC. This rule is intended to conserve and manage Pacific sardine off the West Coast.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) seeks qualified candidates for the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS). Submit resumes to Ms. Kendra Freeland, Analyst, ACRS, Mail Stop T2E-26, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, or e- mail Kendra.Freeland@NRC.GOV.

In accordance with section 113(g) of the Clean Air Act, as amended (``Act''), 42 U.S.C. 7413(g), notice is hereby given of a

On December 28, 2009, we published a final rule in the Federal Register to add the Republic of Korea to the list of regions that are considered free of rinderpest and foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) and the list of regions that are subject to certain import restrictions on meat and meat products because of their proximity to or trading relationships with rinderpest- or FMD-affected countries. The final rule was scheduled to become effective on January 12, 2010. However, due to an outbreak of FMD reported by the Republic of Korea on January 6, 2010, we are delaying indefinitely the effective date of the final rule. This delay will allow the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to consider the issues raised by this development and decide what subsequent actions to take.

Effective with publication of this Notice in the Federal Register, agencies will be able to utilize a new uniform format for reporting performance progress on Federally-funded research projects. The Research Performance Progress Report (RPPR) will directly benefit award recipients by making it easier for them to administer Federal grant and cooperative agreement programs through standardization of the types of information required in interim performance reportsthereby reducing their administrative effort and costs. The RPPR will also make it easier to compare the outputs, outcomes, etc. of research programs across the government.

The SEDAR assessment review of the Atlantic stocks of croaker and menhaden will be conducted at a Review Workshop. This is the twentieth SEDAR. See SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) of the Department of Homeland Security has submitted the following information collection request to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and approval in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act: Accreditation of Commercial Laboratories and Approval of Commercial Gaugers. This is a proposed extension of an information collection that was previously approved. CBP is proposing that this information collection be extended with no change to the burden hours. This document is published to obtain comments from the public and affected agencies. This proposed information collection was previously published in the Federal Register (74 FR 58036) on November 10, 2009, allowing for a 60-day comment period. This notice allows for an additional 30 days for public comments. This process is conducted in accordance with 5 CFR 1320.10.