November 26, 2012 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This final rule amends the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance (SGLI) regulations in order to provide that, if a stillborn child is otherwise eligible to be insured by the SGLI coverage of more than one servicemember under SGLI dependent child coverage, the child would be insured by the coverage of the child's SGLI-insured biological mother. This final rule will provide consistency in payment determinations involving SGLI stillborn child coverage.

On behalf of the President's Pay Agent, the Office of Personnel Management is issuing proposed regulations to tie the metropolitan area portion of locality pay area boundaries to the geographic scope of Metropolitan Statistical Area and Combined Statistical Area definitions that are contained in the attachments to Office of Management and Budget Bulletin 10-02 of December 1, 2009.

In this document, the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau (Bureau) seeks updated comment on the operation and effectiveness of the Commission's rules relating to hearing aid compatibility of wireless handsets. The Bureau seeks updated comment on whether, in light of technological and market developments, the Commission's deployment benchmarks continue to ensure that hearing aid-compatible handsets are available to all consumers. Additionally, the Bureau asks for current information on whether the rules have succeeded in making hearing aid-compatible phones available to consumers with a full range of different feature sets, and whether the rules appropriately account for the challenges facing smaller service providers.

In a document published in the Federal Register on November 5, 2012 (77 FR 66419), the Department of Veterans Affairs amended its adjudication regulations regarding a certificate of eligibility for financial assistance in the purchase of an automobile or other conveyance and adaptive equipment. The document contained several grammatical errors in the preamble and regulatory text. This document corrects the errors and does not make any substantive change to the content of the proposed rule.

This proposed rule would implement the Affordable Care Act's policies related to fair health insurance premiums, guaranteed availability, guaranteed renewability, risk pools, and catastrophic plans. The proposed rule would clarify the approach used to enforce the applicable requirements of the Affordable Care Act with respect to health insurance issuers and group health plans that are non-federal governmental plans. This proposed rule would also amend the standards for health insurance issuers and states regarding reporting, utilization, and collection of data under section 2794 of the Public Health Service Act (PHS Act). It also revises the timeline for states to propose state-specific thresholds for review and approval by CMS.

This action proposes special conditions for the Embraer S.A. Model EMB-550 airplane. This airplane will have a novel or unusual design feature(s) associated with the design roll maneuver for electronic flight controls, specifically an electronic flight control system that provides control of the aircraft through pilot inputs to the flight computer. The applicable airworthiness regulations do not contain adequate or appropriate safety standards for this design feature. These proposed 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.

This document proposes amendments to regulations, consistent with the Affordable Care Act, regarding nondiscriminatory wellness programs in group health coverage. Specifically, these proposed regulations would increase the maximum permissible reward under a health-contingent wellness program offered in connection with a group health plan (and any related health insurance coverage) from 20 percent to 30 percent of the cost of coverage. The proposed regulations would further increase the maximum permissible reward to 50 percent for wellness programs designed to prevent or reduce tobacco use. These regulations also include other proposed clarifications regarding the reasonable design of health-contingent wellness programs and the reasonable alternatives they must offer in order to avoid prohibited discrimination.

In this document, the Commission is proposing to make changes to the criteria under which it considers applications and notifications from foreign carriers or affiliates of foreign carriers for entry into the U.S. market for international telecommunications services and facilities under section 214 of Communications Act of 1934, as amended (the ``Act'') and section 2 of the Cable Landing License Act. By this document, the Commission seeks to eliminate outdated or unnecessary rules, simplify rules that it may retain, reduce regulatory costs and burdens imposed on applicants, and improve transparency with respect to filing requirements of the ECO Test. It also seeks to promote competition to achieve greater decisional flexibility in evaluating applications and notifications, and continue to protect important interests related to national security, law enforcement, foreign policy, and trade policy.

We are adopting a new airworthiness directive (AD) for all Airbus Model A318, A319, A320, and A321 series airplanes. This AD was prompted by reports of the escape slide of the raft inflation system not deploying when activated due to the rotation of the cable guide in a direction which resulted in jamming of the inflation control cable. This AD requires modifying the affected slide rafts. We are issuing this AD to prevent non-deployment of the inflation system of the escape slide raft, which could result in delayed evacuation from the airplane during an emergency, and consequent injury to the passengers.

NMFS is amending the 2006 Consolidated Atlantic Highly Migratory Species Fishery Management Plan based on several shark stock assessments that were completed from 2009 to 2012. The assessments for Atlantic blacknose, dusky, and scalloped hammerhead sharks indicated that these species are overfished and experiencing overfishing. The assessment for sandbar sharks indicated that this species is overfished, but not experiencing overfishing. The assessment for Gulf of Mexico blacktip sharks, adopted in this rulemaking, indicated that the stock is not overfished and not experiencing overfishing. The assessment for Gulf of Mexico blacknose sharks was not accepted; therefore, the overfished and overfishing statuses have been determined to be unknown. The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Reauthorization Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act) requires the Agency to implement management measures that prevent overfishing and rebuild overfished stocks, as necessary. Based on the new stock assessments, and after considering public comments received during scoping and on a predraft document, we are proposing measures that would reduce fishing mortality and effort in order to rebuild overfished Atlantic shark species while ensuring that a limited sustainable shark fishery can be maintained consistent with our legal obligations. The proposed measures include changes to commercial quotas and species groups, the creation of several time/area closures, a change to an existing time/area closure, an increase in the recreational minimum size restrictions, and the establishment of recreational reporting for certain species of sharks. The proposed measures could affect U.S. commercial or recreational fishermen who harvest sharks within the Atlantic Ocean, including the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea.

We are superseding an existing airworthiness directive (AD) for certain The Boeing Company Model 737-600, -700, -700C, -800, and - 900 series airplanes. That AD currently requires replacing the drain tube assemblies and support clamps on the aft fairing of the engine struts. This new AD requires replacing the drain tube assembly of the left and right engine strut aft fairings with a new one, which includes an integral support clamp made of nickel alloy 625. This AD also adds airplanes to the applicability. This AD was prompted by a report of a broken drain tube assembly on the left engine strut at the clamp support location under the aft fairing compartment, inside the heat shield cavity of the aft fairing. There have also been reports of tube wear at this clamp location on additional airplanes. We are issuing this AD to prevent failure of the drain tube assemblies and clamps on the aft fairings of the engine struts. Such failure could allow leaked flammable fluids in the drain systems to discharge onto the heat shields of the aft fairings of the engine struts, which could result in an undetected and uncontrollable fire.

We are adopting a new airworthiness directive (AD) for all The Boeing Company Model 747-100, 747-100B, 747-100B SUD, 747-200B, 747- 200C, 747-200F, 747-300, 747-400, 747-400D, 747-400F, 747SR, and 747SP series airplanes. This AD was prompted by reports of cracks in the main entry door number 1 upper main sill outer chord, along the bend radius of the chord on several airplanes. This AD requires a general visual inspection to identify any existing structural repair manual (SRM) repairs of the upper main sill outer chord of the left and right side main entry door number 1, repetitive detailed inspections for cracks in the upper main sill of the door(s); and related investigative and corrective actions, if necessary. This AD also requires repetitive inspections for airplanes on which a certain repair is done, and corrective actions if necessary, and reduces certain compliance times. We are issuing this AD to detect and correct cracks in the main entry door number 1 upper main sill outer chord, along the bend radius of the chord, which could result in loss of structural integrity of the airplane.