January 14, 2013 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

In compliance with the Paperwork Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.), this notice announces that the Information Collection Request (ICR) abstracted below has been forwarded to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and comment. The ICR describes the nature of the information collection and its expected costs and burden.

The Coast Guard is establishing a temporary safety zone on the Indiana Harbor Canal in East Chicago, Indiana. This safety zone is intended to restrict vessels from a portion of the Indiana Harbor Canal due to the demolition Project on the Cline Avenue Bridge. This temporary safety zone is necessary to protect the surrounding public and vessels from the hazards associated with the demolition project.

The Coast Guard announces the implementation date of carriage standards for Bridge Navigational Watch Alarm Systems (BNWAS), in accordance with the Articles of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) Chapter V, Regulation 19, for U.S. flagged vessels engaged on international voyages. The purpose of a BNWAS is to detect operator disability that could lead to marine accidents.

This notice announces an open public meeting of the Board of the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet).

Under 49 U.S.C. 10502, the Board is granting a petition for exemption from the prior approval requirements of 49 U.S.C. 11323-25 for BNSF Railway Company (BNSF) to lease from Norfolk Southern Railway Company approximately 1.2 miles of rail line (the Line) located between W. 23 Street on the northern end and a point approximately 600 feet north of the Chicago SAG Canal on the southern end in Chicago, Ill. Under the lease, BNSF proposes to rehabilitate the currently inoperable Line to provide a new connection between major freight yards and main line tracks, thereby reducing congestion and delays and adding capacity to the Chicago area freight rail infrastructure. The lease exemption is subject to standard labor protective conditions.

This is a Notice of the Presidential declaration of a major disaster for Public Assistance Only for the State of Ohio (FEMA4098 DR), dated 01/03/2013. Incident: Severe Storms and Flooding due to the Remnants of Hurricane Sandy. Incident Period: 10/29/2012 through 10/30/2012. Effective Date: 01/03/2013. Physical Loan Application Deadline Date: 03/04/2013. Economic Injury (EIDL) Loan Application Deadline Date: 10/03/2013.

The Federal Trade Commission announces the revised thresholds for interlocking directorates required by the 1990 amendment of Section 8 of the Clayton Act. Section 8 prohibits, with certain exceptions, one person from serving as a director or officer of two competing corporations if two thresholds are met. Competitor corporations are covered by Section 8 if each one has capital, surplus, and undivided profits aggregating more than $10,000,000, with the exception that no corporation is covered if the competitive sales of either corporation are less than $1,000,000. Section 8(a)(5) requires the Federal Trade Commission to revise those thresholds annually, based on the change in gross national product. The new thresholds, which take effect immediately, are $28,883,000 for Section 8(a)(1), and $2,888,300 for Section 8(a)(2)(A).

The United States Postal Service[supreg] is proposing to modify a General Privacy Act System of Records. These changes are being made to accommodate new data elements used in the Workplace Environment Tracking System (WETS), a new electronic national database for workplace related inquiries and complaints.

The Department of Agriculture (USDA), Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) is proposing several changes to the fee schedule for official inspection and weighing services performed under the United States Grain Standards Act (USGSA), as amended. The USGSA provides GIPSA's Federal Grain Inspection Service (FGIS) with the authority to charge and collect reasonable fees to cover the cost of performing official services. These fees also cover the costs associated with managing the program. After a financial review of GIPSA's Fees for Official Inspection and Weighing Services, including a comparison of the costs and revenues associated with official inspection and weighing services, GIPSA is proposing to revise local and national tonnage fees (assessed in addition to all other applicable fees) for all export grain shipments serviced by GIPSA field offices.

On June 25, 2012, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published a notice of proposed rulemaking proposing to update respirator approval standards in response to a petition to amend our regulations, current requirements for self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) remaining service-life indicators or warning devices. These indicators are built into a respirator to alert the user that the breathing air provided by the respirator is close to depletion. In this final rule, HHS responds to public comment on the proposed rule and revises the current standard, employed by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) located within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to allow greater flexibility in the setting of the indicator alarm to ensure that the alarm more effectively meets the different worker protection needs of different work operations. This final rule sets a minimum alarm point at 25 percent of the rated service time and allows the manufacturer to offer remaining service life set point at a higher value or values appropriate to the purchaser's use scenario.

As required by the Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act (PSEA) of 2010 this rule proposes to establish a Federal motor vehicle safety standard (FMVSS) setting minimum sound requirements for hybrid and electric vehicles. This new standard would require hybrid and electric passenger cars, light trucks and vans (LTVs), medium and heavy duty, trucks, and buses, low speed vehicles (LSVs), and motorcycles to produce sounds meeting the requirements of this standard. This proposed standard applies to electric vehicles (EVs) and to those hybrid vehicles (HVs) that are capable of propulsion in any forward or reverse gear without the vehicle's internal combustion engine (ICE) operating. This standard would ensure that blind, visually-impaired, and other pedestrians are able to detect and recognize nearby hybrid and electric vehicles, as required by the PSEA, by requiring that hybrid and electric vehicles emit sound that pedestrians would be able to hear in a range of ambient environments and contain acoustic signal content that pedestrians will recognize as being emitted from a vehicle. The benefit of reducing the pedestrian injury rate per registered vehicle of HVs to ICE vehicles when 4.1% of the fleet is HV and EV would be 2790 fewer pedestrian and pedalcyclist injuries. We also estimate that this proposal will result in 10 fewer pedestrian and pedalcyclist injuries caused by LSVs. Thus, 2800 total injured pedestrians are expected to be avoided due to this proposal representing 35 equivalent lives saved. We do not estimate any quantifiable benefits for EVs because it is our view that EV manufacturers would have installed alert sounds in their cars without passage of the PSEA and this proposed rule. Comparison of costs and benefits expected due to this rule provides a cost of $0.83 to $0.99 million per equivalent life saved across the 3 and 7 percent discount levels for the light EV and HV and LSV fleet. According to our present model, a countermeasure that allows a vehicle to meet the proposed minimum sound requirements would be cost effective compared to our comprehensive cost estimate of the value of a statistical life of $6.3 million.