August 2011 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This document contains amendments to correct errors in final and temporary regulations (TD 9536) that were published in the Federal Register on Monday, July 18, 2011, providing guidance relating to the determination of the amount of taxes paid for purposes of the foreign tax credit. These regulations address certain highly structured arrangements that produce inappropriate foreign tax credit results. The regulations affect individuals and corporations that claim direct and indirect foreign tax credits.

This document describes corrections to final regulations (TD 9534) relating to the methods of accounting, including the inventory methods, to be used by corporations that acquire the assets of other corporations in certain corporate reorganizations and tax-free liquidations. These regulations were published in the Federal Register on Monday, August 1, 2011.

This rule prescribes final early-season frameworks from which the States, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands may select season dates, limits, and other options for the 2011-12 migratory bird hunting seasons. Early seasons are those that generally open prior to October 1, and include seasons in Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. The effect of this final rule is to facilitate the selection of hunting seasons by the States and Territories to further the annual establishment of the early-season migratory bird hunting regulations.

EPA is proposing to approve a request from the State of Louisiana to redesignate the Baton Rouge, Louisiana moderate 1997 8- hour ozone nonattainment area to attainment of the 1997 8-hour ozone standard. In proposing to approve this request, EPA also proposes to approve as a revision to the Louisiana State Implementation Plan (SIP), a 1997 8-hour ozone maintenance plan with a 2022 Motor Vehicle Emissions Budget (MVEB) for the Baton Rouge Nonattainment Area (BRNA or BR). EPA is also proposing to approve revisions to the Louisiana SIP that meets the Reasonably Available Control Technology (RACT) requirements (for nitrogen oxides (NOX) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs)) for the 1-hour and 1997 8-hour ozone standard requirements, and to approve a state rule establishing a maintenance plan contingency measure. In prior, separate rulemaking actions, EPA finalized its action to terminate the 1-hour ozone anti-backsliding section 185 penalty fee requirement. EPA has proposed to approve the Control Technique Guideline Rules (CTG Rules Update) that are necessary for redesignation. We are proposing that if the CTG Rules Update is finalized, the area will have a fully approved SIP that meets all of its applicable 1997 8-hour requirements and 1-hour anti-backsliding requirements under section 110 and Part D of the Federal Clean Air Act (CAA or Act) for purposes of redesignation.

NMFS is prohibiting directed fishing for pollock in Statistical Area 630 in the Gulf of Alaska (GOA). This action is necessary to prevent exceeding the C season allowance of the 2011 total allowable catch (TAC) of pollock for Statistical Area 630 in the GOA.

This document denies a petition for rulemaking submitted by Mr. Michael R. Schramm, to amend the Federal motor vehicle safety standard on seat belt assemblies, to include a requirement that seat belts be releasable without unbuckling. We are denying the petition because the petitioner did not demonstrate a safety need for such a requirement or show how such a requirement could be implemented without increasing inadvertent release of seat belts during normal vehicle operation and certain crash scenarios, resulting in increased risk to vehicle occupants.

This final rule amends the Federal motor vehicle safety standard (FMVSS) on occupant crash protection to remove the sunset of a requirement that a vehicle's lap belt must be lockable, without the use of special tools, to tightly secure a child restraint system (CRS). We refer to this as the ``lockability'' requirement. Under the current standard, the lockability requirement ceases to apply to seating positions that are equipped with a child restraint anchorage system (commonly referred to as a ``LATCH'' system) on vehicles manufactured on or after September 1, 2012. Because data indicate that motorists are still using lockable belts to install CRSs even in seating positions with LATCH, there is a continuing need for the lockability requirement even in seating positions with LATCH. Thus, this final rule ensures that the lockability requirement continues in effect for all seating positions past September 1, 2012.

EPA is approving a State Implementation Plan (SIP) revision submitted by the State of Delaware on September 16, 2009, as supplemented on April 27, 2011. The revision satisfies the Clean Air Act (CAA) infrastructure requirement that each State's plan contain adequate provisions prohibiting its emissions from contributing significantly to nonattainment in, or interfering with maintenance by, any other state with respect to the 2006 24-hour fine particulate matter (PM2.5) national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS). EPA is approving this revision in accordance with the requirements of the CAA.

We are superseding an existing airworthiness directive (AD) for all Viking Air Limited (type certificate No. A-815 formerly held by Bombardier Inc. and de Havilland, Inc.) Model DHC-3 airplanes. That AD currently requires repetitively inspecting the elevator control tabs for discrepancies, taking necessary corrective actions to bring all discrepancies within acceptable tolerances, and reporting certain inspection results to the FAA. This new AD retains the actions currently required in AD 2011-05-02 and removes the Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) SA01059SE condition in the Applicability section. This AD was prompted by our determination that we inadvertently omitted certain airplanes from the Applicability section. We are issuing this AD to correct the unsafe condition on these products.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is taking direct final action to relocate the BioPreferred Program, established under the authority of section 9002 of the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (FSRIA), as amended by the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (FCEA), 7 U.S.C. 81027, from chapter XXIX of title 7 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) to chapter XXXII of title 7 of the CFR.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is amending its regulations to enable U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to migrate from a paper file-based, non-integrated systems environment to an electronic customer-focused, centralized case management environment for benefit processing. This transformation process will allow USCIS to streamline benefit processing, eliminate the capture and processing of redundant data, and reduce the number of and automate its forms. This transformation process will be a phased multi-year initiative to restructure USCIS business processes and related information technology systems. DHS is removing references to form numbers, form titles, expired regulatory provisions, and descriptions of internal procedures, many of which will change during transformation. DHS is also finalizing interim rules that permitted submission of benefit requests with an electronic signature when such requests are submitted in an electronic format rather than on a paper form and that removed references to filing locations for immigration benefits. In addition, in this rule DHS is publishing the final rule for six other interim rules published during the past several years, most of which received no public comments.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or the Agency) is announcing an extension to the comment period for the proposed rule on the definition of solid waste published in the Federal Register on July 22, 2011. EPA is proposing to revise certain exclusions from the definition of solid waste for hazardous secondary materials intended for reclamation that would otherwise be regulated under subtitle C of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. The purpose of these proposed revisions is to ensure that the recycling regulations, as implemented, encourage reclamation in a way that does not result in increased risk to human health and the environment from discarded hazardous secondary material. The comment period is being extended to October 20, 2011.

This action proposes to amend Class E airspace at Greenfield, IA. Decommissioning of the Greenfield non-directional beacon (NDB) at Greenfield Municipal Airport, Greenfield, IA, has made this action necessary for the safety and management of Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) operations at Greenfield Municipal Airport.

This action proposes to establish Class E airspace at Stuart, IA. Controlled airspace is necessary to accommodate new Copter RNAV Standard Instrument Approach Procedures (SIAP) at the city of Stuart Helistop. The FAA is taking this action to enhance the safety and management of Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) operations for SIAPs at the heliport.

This action proposes to remove Class E airspace designated as an extension to Class D, and amend Class E airspace at Olathe, KS. Decommissioning of the Johnson County VHF Omni-directional Range/ Distance Measuring Equipment (VOR/DME) at Johnson County Executive Airport, Olathe, KS, has made this action necessary for the safety and management of Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) operations at Johnson County Executive Airport.

This action proposes to establish Class E airspace at Nashville, AR. Controlled airspace is necessary to accommodate new Standard Instrument Approach Procedures (SIAP) at Howard County Airport. The FAA is taking this action to enhance the safety and management of Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) operations for SIAPs at the airport.

The Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP), Cost Accounting Standards (CAS) Board, is providing public notification of the decision to discontinue the rulemaking on the development of an amendment to Cost Accounting Standard (CAS) 416 regarding the use of the term ``catastrophic losses'' at 48 CFR 9904.416-50(b)(1).

In accordance with section 10(a)(2) of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (Pub. L. 92-463), notice is hereby given of the following meeting of the Negotiated Rulemaking Committee on Designation of Medically Underserved Populations and Health Professional Shortage Areas.

The Commander, Fifth Coast Guard District, has issued a temporary deviation from the regulations governing the operation of the US 70 (Alfred C. Cunningham) Bridge across Trent River, mile 0.0, at New Bern, NC, to accommodate a bike race. This deviation allows the drawbridge to be maintained in the closed position to vessels at specific dates and times.

The Coast Guard is updating and consolidating the list of marine events occurring annually within the Eleventh Coast Guard District. These amendments standardize the special local regulations language, update listed events, delete events that are no longer occurring, add new unlisted annual events to the regulation, and standardize the format for all tables in these four sections. When these special local regulations are activated, and thus subject to enforcement, this rule would enable vessel movement restrictions in the regulated area.

We propose to adopt a new airworthiness directive (AD) for the products listed above. This proposed AD would require repetitive high frequency eddy current (HFEC) inspections for cracking of the left and right rib hinge bearing lugs of the aft face of the center section of the horizontal stabilizer; measuring crack length and blending out cracks; and replacing the horizontal stabilizer center section rib, if necessary. This proposed AD was prompted by reports of cracks of the hinge bearing lugs of the center section ribs of the horizontal stabilizer. We are proposing this AD to detect and correct cracking in the hinge bearing lugs of the horizontal stabilizer center section ribs, which would result in failure of the lugs, and consequent inability of the horizontal stabilizer to sustain the required limit loads and loss of control of the airplane.

On May 5, 2011, we, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), published a proposed rule to reevaluate the listing of the Minnesota population of gray wolves (Canis lupus) and revise the listing to conform to current statutory and policy requirements (76 FR 26086). In that proposed rule, we recognized recent taxonomic information indicating that the gray wolf subspecies Canis lupus lycaon should be elevated to the full species C. lycaon. We proposed to identify the Minnesota population as a Western Great Lakes (WGL) Distinct Population Segment (DPS) of the gray wolf and to remove this DPS from the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife. We also proposed to revise the range of the gray wolf (the species C. lupus) by removing all or parts of 29 eastern States, which, based in part on recognition of C. lycaon, were not part of the historical range of the gray wolf. We announce the reopening of the comment period for our May 5, 2011, proposed rule to provide for public review and comment of additional information regarding our recognition of C. lycaon as a separate species. We seek information, data, and comments from the public with respect to new information relevant to the taxonomy of wolves in North America. In addition we are making a correction to our May 5, 2011, proposed rule and notifying the public that we are considering concluding that proposed rule with two or more final rules.

This action proposes to amend Class E airspace at Ardmore, OK, to accommodate new Standard Instrument Approach Procedures (SIAP) created by the decommissioning of the Arbuckle non-directional radio beacon (NDB) and cancellation of the NDB approach at Ardmore Municipal Airport. The FAA is taking this action to enhance the safety and management of Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) operations for SIAPs at the airport. This action also would update the geographic coordinates to coincide with the FAA's aeronautical database.

The EPA published in the Federal Register on August 23, 2011, the proposed rule, ``Oil and Natural Gas Sector: New Source Performance Standards and National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants Reviews.'' The EPA is announcing three public hearings to be held for the proposed rule.

Farm Credit Administration (FCA or Agency) regulations on the capital adequacy of Farm Credit System (FCS or System) institutions include various references to and requirements of reliance on credit ratings of a security or money-market instrument. Section 939A of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank or DFA), enacted on July 21, 2010, requires Federal agencies to remove any reference to or requirement of reliance upon such credit ratings, and substitute in their place standards of creditworthiness that they deem appropriate for such regulations. The FCA seeks public comment on alternatives to the use of credit ratings in these regulations.