November 22, 2011 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This temporary rule extends a closure of Federal waters. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has determined that oceanographic conditions and alga sampling data suggest that the northern section of the Temporary Paralytic Shellfish Poison Closure Area remain closed to the harvest of bivalve molluscan shellfish, with the exception of sea scallop adductor muscles harvested and shucked at sea, and that the southern area remain closed to the harvest of whole or roe-on scallops. The regulations contained in the temporary rule, emergency action, first published in 2005, and have been subsequently extended several times at the request of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. NMFS is publishing the regulatory text associated with this closure in this temporary emergency rule in order to ensure that current regulations accurately reflect the codified text that has been modified and extended numerous times, so that the public is aware of the regulations being extended.

The Federal Power Act requires hydropower licensees to recompense the United States for the use, occupancy, and enjoyment of its lands. The Commission assesses annual charges for the use of Federal lands through Part 11 of its regulations. The Commission is proposing to revise the methodology used to compute these annual charges. Under the proposed rule, the Commission would create a fee schedule based on the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) methodology for calculating rental rates for linear rights of way. This methodology includes a land value per acre, an encumbrance factor, a rate of return, and an annual adjustment factor. The fee schedule would include all adjustments described in the BLM rule adopting this methodology, except the allocation of county land values into zones. In addition, the Commission proposes to eliminate its current practice of doubling the per-acre rental rate for non-transmission line lands.

This amendment adopts miscellaneous amendments to the required IFR (instrument flight rules) altitudes and changeover points for certain Federal airways, jet routes, or direct routes for which a minimum or maximum en route authorized IFR altitude is prescribed. This regulatory action is needed because of changes occurring in the National Airspace System. These changes are designed to provide for the safe and efficient use of the navigable airspace under instrument conditions in the affected areas.

We are adopting a new airworthiness directive (AD) for the products listed above. This AD results from mandatory continuing airworthiness information (MCAI) issued 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 Federal Trade Commission (``FTC'' or ``Commission'') will hold a public hearing on December 6, 2011, as part of the congressionally mandated review of its Fur Products Name Guide. The hearing will allow interested parties to present views on whether the Commission should amend the Fur Products Name Guide.

EPA (or the Agency) is taking final action to amend the date by which farms must prepare or amend, and implement their Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure Plans to May 10, 2013. The date is being amended because a large segment of the continental U.S. was affected by flooding during the spring and summer of 2011, and other areas were impacted by devastating fires and drought conditions. In addition, despite the targeted farm outreach efforts by EPA over the past ten months, the sheer number of farms throughout the U.S. makes it a challenge to reach those owners and operators of farms that may be subject to the SPCC Plan regulations. As a result, the Agency believes that farms need additional time to come into compliance with the requirements to prepare or amend and implement a SPCC Plan.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC or the Commission) is amending its regulations to make miscellaneous administrative changes, including updating the street address for its Region IV office and correcting an authority citation and typographical and spelling errors, and other edits and conforming changes. This document is necessary to inform the public of these changes to the NRC's regulations.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO or Office) amends the rules governing practice before the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (Board or BPAI) in ex parte patent appeals. The Office amends the rules to: Remove several of the briefing requirements for an appeal brief, provide for the Board to take jurisdiction over the appeal earlier in the appeal process, no longer require examiners to acknowledge receipt of reply briefs, create specified procedures under which an appellant can seek review of an undesignated new ground of rejection in either an examiner's answer or in a Board decision, provide that the Board will presume that the appeal is taken from the rejection of all claims under rejection unless cancelled by an applicant's amendment, and clarify that, for purposes of the examiner's answer, any rejection that relies upon Evidence not relied upon in the Office action from which the appeal is taken shall be designated as a new ground of rejection. The Office also withdraws a previously published final rule that never went into effect.

These special conditions are issued for the Diamond Aircraft Industries, Model DA-40NG airplane. This airplane will have a novel or unusual design feature(s) associated with an electronic engine control (EEC) also known as a Full authority Digital Engine Control (FADEC). The applicable airworthiness regulations do not contain adequate or appropriate safety standards for this design feature. These special conditions contain the additional safety standards that the Administrator considers necessary to establish a level of safety equivalent to that established by the existing airworthiness standards.