September 26, 2012 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Critical Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council (CIPAC) Plenary Meeting will be held on Wednesday, October 3, 2012, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, 801 Mount Vernon Place NW., Washington, DC 20001. The meeting will be open to the public.

This notice lists the projects rescinded by the Susquehanna River Basin Commission during the period set forth in DATES.

We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, propose to approve copper-clad iron shot and fluoropolymer coatings for hunting waterfowl and coots. We published a notice of application for nontoxic shot approval for copper-clad iron shot in the Federal Register on June 20, 2012 (77 FR 36980), and one for the fluoropolymer shot coatings on July 6, 2012 (77 FR 39983). Having completed our review of the application materials for both, we have concluded that neither the shot nor the coatings are likely to adversely affect fish, wildlife, or their habitats.

As required by 43 CFR 2650.7(d), notice is hereby given that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will issue an appealable decision to Council Native Corporation. The decision approves only the surface estate in the lands described below for conveyance pursuant to the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (43 U.S.C. 1601, et seq). The subsurface estate in these lands will be conveyed to Bering Straits Native Corporation when the surface estate is conveyed to Council Native Corporation. The lands are in the vicinity of Council, Alaska, and are located in: Lot 1, U.S. Survey No. 9993, Alaska. Containing 129.97 acres.

The Coast Guard is establishing a temporary safety zone around vessels involved in a Coast Guard Ready for Operations exercise in Hood Canal, WA that will take place between Oct 16, 2012 and Oct 18, 2012. A safety zone is necessary to ensure the safety of the maritime public during the exercise and will do so by prohibiting any person or vessel from entering or remaining in the safety zone unless authorized by the Captain of the Port (COTP) or his Designated Representative.

In compliance with the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 3501-3521), this notice announces that the Veterans Benefits Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs, will submit the collection of information abstracted below to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and comment. The PRA submission describes the nature of the information collection and its expected cost and burden; it includes the actual data collection instrument.

Under section 215 of the Federal Power Act (FPA),\1\ the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Commission) proposes to approve regional Reliability Standard PRC-006-NPCC-1 (Automatic Underfrequency Load Shedding). The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) submitted the proposed regional Reliability Standard to the Commission for approval. The proposed regional Reliability Standard applies to generator owners, planning coordinators, distribution providers, and transmission owners in the Northeast Power Coordinating Council Region and is designed to ensure the development of an effective automatic underfrequency load shedding (UFLS) program to preserve the security and integrity of the Bulk-Power System during declining system frequency events, in coordination with the NERC continent-wide UFLS Reliability Standard PRC-006-1. The Commission also proposes to approve the associated violation risk factors and violation severity levels, implementation plan, and effective dates proposed by NERC.

The NCUA Board (Board) proposes to amend its investment regulation to allow federal credit unions (FCUs) to purchase Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS). This proposed amendment adds TIPS to the list of permissible investments for FCUs in part 703. The Board believes TIPS will provide FCUs with an additional investment portfolio risk management tool that can be useful in an inflationary economic environment.

We propose to adopt a new airworthiness directive (AD) for certain Cessna Aircraft Company Model 500, 501, 550, 551, S550, 560, 560XL, and 650 airplanes. This proposed AD was prompted by multiple reports of smoke and/or fire in the tailcone caused by sparking due to excessive wear of the brushes in the air conditioning (A/C) motor. This proposed AD would require an inspection to determine the accumulated hours on certain A/C drive motor assemblies; repetitive replacement of the brushes in the drive motor assembly, or as an option to the brush replacement, deactivation of the air conditioner; and return of replaced brushes to Cessna. We are proposing this AD to prevent the brushes in the A/C motor from wearing down beyond their limits, which could result in the rivet in the brush contacting the commutator causing sparks and consequent fire and/or smoke in the tailcone with no means to detect or extinguish the fire and/or smoke.

Public Law 112-163 modified the rules of origin for certain textile and apparel goods of Parties to the CAFTA-DR Agreement. While these modifications were incorporated into the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (the ``HTS'') through the law, those modifications are not yet in effect. This notice announces that the United States Trade Representative (USTR) has determined that the date on which the equivalent amendments to the rules of origin to the CAFTA-DR have entered into force in all other CAFTA-DR Parties is October 13, 2012, and that the modifications to the HTS pursuant to section 2 of Public Law 112-163 enter into force on that date.

The Rural Utilities Service (RUS) has issued a Record of Decision (ROD) for the adoption of the Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the proposed participation of South Mississippi Electric Power Association (SMEPA) in Plant Ratcliffe, an Integrated Gasification Combined-Cycle Facility located in Kemper County, Mississippi (the Project). The Acting Administrator of RUS has signed the ROD, which is effective on the publication of this notice. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) prepared an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Project in cooperation with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). The purpose of the EIS was to evaluate the potential environmental impacts of the Project so that the DOE could assess potential cost-shared financing under the Clean Coal Power Initiative (CCPI) and issuance of a loan guarantee under the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct05), and the USACE could consider potential issuance of permits under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act. The DOE/USACE Final EIS was issued in May 2010, and DOE issued their Record of Decision (ROD) in August 2010. RUS is considering providing a $480 million loan guarantee to SMEPA that would provide for the acquisition of a 15% undivided ownership interest in the Project. RUS adopted the Final EIS pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) (U.S.C. 4231 et seq.), and in accordance with the Council on Environmental Quality's (CEQ) regulations for implementing the procedural provisions of NEPA (40 CFR Parts 1500-1508) and RUS's Environmental Policies and Procedures (7 CFR Part 1794). RUS determined that the actions covered by the DOE/USACE Final EIS and RUS's proposed action were substantially the same, given that no new infrastructure would be required for SMEPA's participation (40 CFR 1506.3(b)). RUS conducted an independent evaluation of the DOE/USACE Final EIS, the associated Mitigation Action Plan (MAP) and Record of Decision (ROD), determined the documentation met the standards of an adequate statement (40 CFR 1506.3(a)), and adopted the documentation (Subpart H, 7 CFR Part 1794).