November 10, 2014 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Coast Guard is establishing safety zones for all waters of the Upper Mississippi River (UMR) from mile 38.0 to 46.0 and from mile 78.0 to 81.0. These safety zones are needed to protect persons, property, and infrastructure from potential damage and safety hazards associated with subsurface rock removal in the Upper Mississippi River. Any deviation from the conditions and requirements put into place are prohibited unless specifically authorized by the cognizant Captain of the Port (COTP) Ohio Valley or his designated representatives.

The Department of State is revising the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) to reflect a change in its policy on exports to Vietnam.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing approval of State Implementation Plan (SIP) revisions submitted by the State of Utah. The revisions involve amendments to Section X, Part A, Vehicle Inspection and Maintenance Program, General Requirements and Applicability; the addition of Section X, Part F, Cache County Vehicle Inspection and Maintenance Program; and revisions to Utah Administrative Rules R307-110-1, R307-110-31, and R307-110-36. EPA is proposing approval of these SIP revisions in accordance with the requirements of section 110 of the Clean Air Act (CAA).

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is amending its regulations to make miscellaneous corrections. These changes include updating the address for the NRC's Public Document Room (PDR), updating a footnote, correcting mathematical errors, correcting references, correcting typographical and grammatical errors, and revising language for clarity and consistency. This final rule also makes changes to the time period by which a Federal agency must refer a debt for collection through offset, and makes conforming changes to the regulations to reflect the transfer of Mississippi to NRC Region IV.

We are adopting as a final rule, with changes, an interim rule that amended the brucellosis regulations to, among other things, reduce the amount of testing required to maintain Class Free status for States that have been Class Free for 5 or more years and have no Brucella abortus in wildlife. This document amends the interim rule to change the age at which cattle and domestic bison are included in herd blood tests from 6 months to 18 months of age for all sexually intact cattle and domestic bison, except when conducting herd blood tests as part of affected herd investigations or other epidemiological investigations. In addition, the rule allows certain States the option of either conducting brucellosis ring tests and participating in the slaughter surveillance program or developing an alternative surveillance plan that would have to meet or exceed the level of disease detection provided by combined brucellosis ring testing and slaughter surveillance testing. The rule also makes several minor changes in order to clarify the regulations. These changes are necessary to create flexibility in the brucellosis program, to refocus resources to control and prevent the spread of brucellosis, and to protect and maintain the economic viability of the domestic livestock industry.

The Coast Guard has issued a temporary deviation from the operating schedule that governs the Louisiana State Route 23 (SR 23) vertical lift span bridge, also known as the Judge Perez Bridge, across the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (Algiers Alternate Route), mile 3.8, at Belle Chasse, Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana. This deviation is necessary to provide for the safe movement of vehicular traffic during major plant reconstruction on one side of the waterway and the resulting change in work schedule and increase in workforce transiting the bridge. This deviation allows the bridge to remain temporarily closed to navigation for an additional one hour in the evening during weekdays for two months.

The EPA is approving the Alaska State Implementation Plan (SIP) as meeting specific infrastructure requirements of the Clean Air Act (CAA) for the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) promulgated for fine particulate matter (PM2.5) on July 18, 1997 and October 17, 2006, and for ozone on March 12, 2008. Whenever a new or revised NAAQS is promulgated, the CAA requires states to submit a plan for the implementation, maintenance and enforcement of such NAAQS. The plan is required to address basic program elements, including but not limited to regulatory structure, monitoring, modeling, legal authority, and adequate resources necessary to implement, maintain, and enforce the standards. These elements are referred to as infrastructure requirements.

We are making technical corrections to rules that were published in the Federal Register on September 24, 2014 (79 FR 57184). The Commission adopted revisions to Regulation AB and other rules governing the offering process, disclosure, and reporting for asset- backed securities.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is taking final action to rescind a Federal Implementation Plan (FIP) for Texas for greenhouse gas (GHG) Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) permitting, with three limited circumstances for retained federal permitting authority. We are removing the majority of the GHG PSD FIP because in a separate but simultaneous action being published elsewhere in this issue of the Federal Register, we are finalizing approval of the majority of revisions to the Texas State Implementation Plan (SIP) submitted by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) to the EPA on October 5, 2010, and April 16, 2014, that address the state's authority to regulate GHGs and establish an approvable GHG PSD permitting program. The EPA is finalizing this action under Section 110 and Part C of the Clean Air Act (CAA).

This final rule with comment period revises the Medicare hospital outpatient prospective payment system (OPPS) and the Medicare ambulatory surgical center (ASC) payment system for CY 2015 to implement applicable statutory requirements and changes arising from our continuing experience with these systems. In this final rule with comment period, we describe the changes to the amounts and factors used to determine the payment rates for Medicare services paid under the OPPS and those paid under the ASC payment system. In addition, this final rule with comment period updates and refines the requirements for the Hospital Outpatient Quality Reporting (OQR) Program and the ASC Quality Reporting (ASCQR) Program. In this document, we also are making changes to the data sources permitted for expansion requests for physician-owned hospitals under the physician self-referral regulations; changes to the underlying authority for the requirement of an admission order for all hospital inpatient admissions and changes to require physician certification for hospital inpatient admissions only for long-stay cases and outlier cases; and changes to establish a formal process, including a three- level appeals process, to recoup overpayments that result from the submission of erroneous payment data by Medicare Advantage (MA) organizations and Part D sponsors in the limited circumstances in which the organization or sponsor fails to correct these data.