November 30, 2012 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

In accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, as amended, and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, as amended, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has prepared a Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the West Chocolate Mountains Renewable Energy Evaluation Area (REEA) and a California Desert Conservation Area (CDCA) Proposed Plan Amendment, and by this notice is announcing its availability.

This notice contains a summary of a petition seeking relief from specified requirements of 14 CFR. The purpose of this notice is to improve the public's awareness of, and participation in, this aspect of FAA's regulatory activities. Neither publication of this notice nor the inclusion or omission of information in the summary is intended to affect the legal status of the petition or its final disposition.

Under the provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act of 1972 (5 U.S.C. Appendix), 41 CFR Sec. 102-3.55, and the Government in the Sunshine Act of 1976 (5 U.S.C. 552b), effective October 5, 2012, the Department of Defense gives notice that it is terminating the Naval Research Advisory Committee.

This rule amends the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation's regulation on Allocation of Assets in Single-Employer Plans by substituting a new table for determining expected retirement ages for participants in pension plans undergoing distress or involuntary termination with valuation dates falling in 2013. This table is needed in order to compute the value of early retirement benefits and, thus, the total value of benefits under a plan.

This notice corrects the location and date of one of the public scoping meetings listed in the Notice of Intent published in the Federal Register (77 FR 58531) on Friday, September 21, 2012. The venue for the Seattle public scoping meeting previously scheduled for November 13, 2012 is no longer available. The Seattle public scoping meeting will be held at the Washington State Convention Center, Rooms 6A, 6B, 6C, and 6D, 800 Convention Place, Seattle, WA 98101 on Monday, December 17, 2012, from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is correcting a final rule that appeared in the Federal Register of May 24, 2012. This document corrects rules adopted to help consumers prevent and detect the placement of unauthorized charges on their telephone bills, an unlawful and fraudulent practice commonly referred to as ``cramming.''

On February 16, 2012, pursuant to sections 111 and 112 of the Clean Air Act (CAA), the EPA published the final rules titled ``National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants from Coal- and Oil-fired Electric Utility Steam Generating Units and Standards of Performance for Fossil-Fuel-Fired Electric Utility, Industrial- Commercial-Institutional, and Small Industrial-Commercial-Institutional Steam Generating Units.'' The National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) rule issued pursuant to CAA section 112 is referred to as the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), and the New Source Performance Standards rule issued pursuant to CAA section 111 is referred to as the Utility NSPS. The Administrator received petitions for reconsideration of certain aspects of MATS and the Utility NSPS. In this notice, the EPA is announcing reconsideration of certain new source standards for MATS, the requirements applicable during periods of startup and shutdown for MATS, the startup and shutdown provisions related to the particulate matter (PM) standard in the Utility NSPS, and certain revisions to the definitional and monitoring provisions of the Utility NSPS. We are also proposing certain technical corrections to both MATS and the Utility NSPS. We seek comment only on the aspects of the final MATS and Utility NSPS rules specifically identified in this notice. We are not opening for reconsideration any other provisions of MATS or the Utility NSPS at this time.

Pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA), and the Council on Environmental Quality and U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) regulations implementing NEPA, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a semi-autonomous agency within DOE, announces its intention to prepare an Environmental Assessment (EA) for the transfer of the Kansas City Plant (KCP) (DOE/EA-1947), which is an NNSA-owned property at the Bannister Federal Complex (BFC). Concurrently, NNSA is canceling the Notice of Intent issued on January 23, 2012 (77 FR 3259) for the preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement for the Disposition of the Bannister Federal Complex, Kansas City, Missouri, and Notice of Wetlands Involvement (DOE/EIS-0475).

During a review of Texas' regulations, the EPA identified a variety of State-initiated changes to Texas' hazardous waste program under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, as amended (RCRA), for which the State had not previously sought authorization. The EPA proposes to authorize the State for the program changes. In addition, the EPA proposes to codify in the regulations entitled ``Approved State Hazardous Waste Management Programs'', Texas' authorized hazardous waste program. The EPA will incorporate by reference into the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) those provisions of the State regulations that are authorized and that the EPA will enforce under RCRA.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Commission) amends its regulations to change the process for filing Electric Quarterly Reports (EQR). Due to technology changes that will render the current filing process outmoded, ineffective, and unsustainable, the Commission will discontinue the use of Commission-distributed software to file an EQR. Instead, the Commission adopts a web-based approach to filing EQRs that will allow a public or non-public utility to file an EQR directly through the Commission's Web site, either through a web interface or by submitting an Extensible Mark-Up Language-formatted file. By adopting a process with two options for filing EQRs, the Commission seeks to provide the flexibility needed to accommodate a public or non-public utility's technical preference. The Commission also requires a public or non-public utility to identify itself with a company identification number rather than the existing software-based EQR identifier. The changes to the process for filing EQRs will apply to EQR filings beginning with the third quarter 2013 EQR, which will provide data for July through September 2013.