October 25, 2012 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC or the Commission) is updating its Waste Confidence Decision and Rule. The NRC intends to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to support the rulemaking to update the Commission's Waste Confidence Decision and Rule, and is conducting a scoping process to gather information necessary to prepare the EIS. As part of the scoping process the NRC is planning to hold two public meetings on November 14, 2012, and two webinars on December 5 and 6, 2012.

On January 30, 2012, the EPA published in the Federal Register a proposed rule reconsidering certain provisions in the final National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants for Chemical Manufacturing Area Sources (CMAS) that was promulgated on October 29, 2009. The compliance date for the final CMAS rule is October 29, 2012. However, the EPA is still in the process of finalizing the reconsideration action. For this reason, a short stay of the final CMAS rule pending completion of the reconsideration action is warranted. Pursuant to the Clean Air Act, the EPA is staying until December 24, 2012 the final CMAS rule.

This document corrects a direct final rule that made nonsubstantive changes by removing a regulation that is obsolete and no longer used. The revisions to the direct final rule are part of NASA's retrospective plan under Executive Order (EO) 13563 completed in August 2011. NASA's full plan can be accessed on the Agency's open government Web site at https://www.nasa.gov/open/.

We propose to adopt a new airworthiness directive (AD) for all Airbus Model A330-200 Freighter, -200, and -300 series airplanes; and Model A340-200, -300, -500, and -600 series airplanes. This proposed AD was prompted by a report that erroneous height indication by one radio altimeter with engaged flare and retard mode, in case of go-around, might lead to a temporary loss of airplane longitudinal control. This proposed AD would require revising the airplane flight manual. We are proposing this AD to ensure that the flightcrew applies the appropriate operational procedures in the event of an erroneous indication of the radio altimeter, which could result in temporary loss of airplane longitudinal control.

The Farm Credit Administration (FCA), as part of its annual public notification process, is publishing for notice an index of the 18 Board policy statements currently in existence. Most of the policy statements remain unchanged since our last Federal Register notice on September 1, 2011 (76 FR 54638), except for one with minor technical updates on September 17, 2012, and another on Ethics, Independence, Arm's-Length Role, Ex Parte Communications and Open Government.

The final rule entitled Community Forest and Open Space Conservation Program was published on October 20, 2011. The Office of Management and Budget approved and cleared the associated information collection requirements (ICR) on August 22, 2012. This document announces approval of the ICR.

NMFS announces that the 2012 black sea bass recreational harvest limit has been exceeded. No one may fish for or possess black sea bass in Federal waters for the remainder of calendar year 2012, unless issued a Federal moratorium permit and fishing commercially. Regulations governing the black sea bass fishery require publication of this notification to advise that the recreational quota has been harvested and to advise vessel permit holders that no Federal recreational quota is available for fishing black sea bass.

EPA is proposing to approve: the State of New Hampshire's request to redesignate the Boston-Manchester-Portsmouth (SE), New Hampshire moderate 8-hour ozone nonattainment area to attainment for the 1997 8-hour ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS); a State Implementation Plan (SIP) revision containing a 10-year maintenance plan for this area; a 2008 comprehensive emissions inventory for the area; and new motor vehicle emissions budgets (MVEBs) for the years 2008 and 2022 that are contained in the 10-year ozone maintenance plan for this area. Finally, EPA is proposing to withdraw the SIP-approved 2009 MVEBs and replace them with the 2008 MVEBs included in the maintenance plan.

The Department is correcting a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) published in the Federal Register. In that document, the Department proposed, among other modifications, to change the Uniform Report of DBE Commitments/Awards and Payments form found in our regulations. As this is an information collection covered by the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA), the Department should have included a discussion of this collection in the ``Paperwork Reduction Act'' section of the NPRM in order to comply with the PRA's procedural requirements. Today, the Department is correcting this omission by including discussion of the Uniform Report collection and providing the public with 60 days from today to comment both on this collection and all other aspects of the NPRM. Thus, the original end of the comment period, November 5, 2012, has been extended until December 24, 2012.

The NCUA Board proposes to amend its low-income credit unions regulation by extending the time credit unions have to accept a low- income designation. Under the current rule, an FCU that has received notification from NCUA that it qualifies for a low-income designation has 30 days to notify NCUA that it wishes to receive the designation. Some FCUs may find it difficult to respond this quickly, so the proposed rule extends the response period to 90 days. The proposed rule also makes minor, nonsubstantive technical amendments to NCUA's insurance regulation to reflect current agency practice in this regard.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (Commission) is amending its rule that governs the maximum amount of civil monetary penalties, to adjust for inflation. This rule sets forth the maximum, inflation-adjusted dollar amount for civil monetary penalties (CMPs) assessable for violations of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) and Commission rules, regulations and orders thereunder. The rule, as amended, implements the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 1990, as amended by the Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996.

EPA is taking final action to approve the State Implementation Plan (SIP) submissions, submitted by the State of Georgia, through the Georgia Department of Natural Resources' Environmental Protection Division (EPD), as demonstrating that the State meets the SIP requirements of sections 110(a)(1) and (2) of the Clean Air Act (CAA or the Act) for the 1997 annual and 2006 24-hour fine particulate matter (PM2.5) national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS), with noted exceptions. Section 110(a) of the CAA requires that each state adopt and submit a SIP for the implementation, maintenance, and enforcement of each NAAQS promulgated by the EPA, which is commonly referred to as an ``infrastructure'' SIP. Georgia certified that the Georgia SIP contains provisions that ensure the 1997 annual and 2006 24-hour PM2 NAAQS are implemented, enforced, and maintained in Georgia (hereafter referred to as ``infrastructure submission''). Georgia's infrastructure submissions, provided to EPA on July 23, 2008, and supplemented on September 9, 2008 and October 21, 2009, address all the required infrastructure elements for the 1997 annual and 2006 24- hour PM2 NAAQS. In addition, EPA is clarifying an inadvertent error included in the proposed approval for this rule.