December 9, 2014 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) is revising the regulations implementing Executive Order (EO) 11246, as amended, in accordance with Executive Order (EO) 13672, ``Further Amendments to Executive Order 11478, Equal Employment Opportunity in the Federal Government, and Executive Order 11246, Equal Employment Opportunity,'' which was signed by President Barack Obama on July 21, 2014. EO 13672 amended EO 11246, which previously only prohibited discrimination by Federal contractors and subcontractors on the bases of race, color, religion, sex, and national origin and required them to take affirmative measures to prevent discrimination on those bases from occurring. More specifically, EO 13672 amended section 202 and section 203 of EO 11246, by substituting the phrase ``sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin'' for ``sex or national origin.'' This final rule implements EO 13672 by making the same substitution wherever the phrase ``sex or national origin'' appears in the regulations implementing EO 11246.

The FAA is issuing a Final Supplemental Regulatory Impact Analysis (Final SRIA) of its final rule that amended its existing flight, duty and rest regulations applicable to certain certificate holders and their flightcrew members. A copy of the Final SRIA may be found in the docket for the rulemaking. The Final SRIA responds to comments that were made in response to the Initial Supplemental Regulatory Impact Analysis, and, where appropriate, incorporates new information provided by the commenters. In addition, the Final SRIA makes adjustments to the methodology used to estimate the costs and benefits of applying the final flight, duty, and rest rule to cargo- only operations, and includes additional sensitivity analyses. The results of the Final SRIA concludes that the base-case benefits of applying the flight, duty, and rest rule to cargo-only operations would be about $3 million, and the high-case benefits of doing so would be about $10 million. Conversely, the costs of applying the flight, duty, and rest rule to cargo-only operations would be about $452 million. Because the results of the analysis continue to indicate that the costs of mandating all-cargo operation compliance with the new flight, duty, and rest rule significantly outweigh the benefits, the FAA has determined that no revisions to the final rule are warranted.

The Department of Agriculture (USDA) is adopting, as a final rule, without change, an interim rule that decreased the assessment rate established for the California Date Administrative Committee (committee) for the 2014-15 and subsequent crop years from $0.40 to $0.20 per hundredweight of dates handled. The committee locally administers the marketing order, which regulates the handling of dates grown or packed in Riverside County, California. The interim rule decreased the assessment rate due to a significant decrease in the committee's budgeted expenses. The interim rule was necessary to allow the committee to reduce the assessment rate for the 2014-15 crop year.

On December 3, 2014, we, NMFS, published in the Federal Register a proposal to designate critical habitat for the Arctic subspecies (Phoca hispida hispida) of the ringed seal (Phoca hispida) under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Due to a clerical error, that document contained numerous errors. To avoid confusion, we are withdrawing that proposed rule and reproposing the correct document through this action. Specifically, we propose to designate one specific area of marine habitat in the northern Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort seas. We are soliciting comments from the public on all aspects of the proposal, including our identification and consideration of the economic, national security, and other relevant impacts of the proposed designation.

This action proposes to establish Class E airspace at the Tucumcari VHF Omni-Directional Radio Range Tactical Air Navigation Aid (VORTAC), Tucumcari, NM, to facilitate vectoring of Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) aircraft under control of Albuquerque Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC). The FAA is proposing this action to enhance the safety and efficiency of aircraft operations within the National Airspace System (NAS).

In this document, the Commission extends the deadline for filing comments and reply comments in response to the Notice of Inquiry (NOI) on use of spectrum bands above 24 GHz for mobile radio services. This proceeding will allow parties to more thoroughly address the complex technical, legal, and policy issues raised in the NOI.

On February 24, 2014, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) submitted revisions to the limits found in its nitrogen oxides (NOX) combustion turbine rule for the Milwaukee-Racine area formerly nonattainment for the 1997 ozone standard. This revision is contained in ``2013 Wisconsin Act 91Senate Bill 371,'' which provides for alternative NOX requirements, subject to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approval on a case-by- case basis, to determine whether these alternative limits satisfy the reasonably available control technology (RACT) requirements of the Clean Air Act (CAA). EPA proposed to approve this rule as a revision to the State Implementation Plan (SIP) on April 30, 2014, and received adverse comments. EPA subsequently issued a supplemental proposal on October 9, 2014, to address the issue of whether the SIP revision satisfies certain anti-backsliding requirements of the CAA. EPA received an adverse comment on this supplemental proposal on October 23, 2014. After duly considering both this comment and the adverse comments received in response to the April 30, 2014, proposal, EPA is approving this rule because the process established will ensure that modified sources meet RACT and the revision meets the anti-backsliding requirements of the CAA. This final action addresses all of these adverse comments.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is issuing a proposed rule that would abolish the Portland, ME, appropriated fund Federal Wage System (FWS) wage area and redefine Androscoggin, Cumberland, and Sagadahoc Counties, ME, to the Portsmouth, NH survey area and Franklin and Oxford Counties, ME, and Coos County, NH, to the Portsmouth area of application. These changes are necessary because the closure of the Naval Air Station (NAS) Brunswick left the Portland wage area without an activity having the capability to conduct a local wage survey.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is announcing that it will not be finalizing 2014 applicable percentage standards under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program before the end of 2014. In light of this delay in issuing the 2014 RFS standards, the compliance demonstration deadline for the 2013 RFS standards will take place in 2015. EPA will be making modifications to the EPA-Moderated Transaction System (EMTS) to ensure that Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs) generated in 2012 are valid for demonstrating compliance with the 2013 applicable standards.