July 2, 2015 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

EPA published a proposed rule in the Federal Register of April 6, 2015 at 80 FR 18330, concerning proposing reporting and recordkeeping requirements for certain chemical substances when they are manufactured or processed at the nanoscale. This document extends the comment period for 30 days, from July 6, 2015 to August 5, 2015. A commenter requested additional time to submit written comments for the proposed rule. EPA is therefore extending the comment period in order to give all interested persons the opportunity to comment fully.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or the Agency) is taking action to amend the final rule regulating the disposal of coal combustion residuals (CCR) as solid waste under subtitle D of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). After publication in the Federal Register, inconsistencies resulting from typographical errors established two different effective dates in the regulatory text for the final CCR rule. This action corrects these inconsistencies and revises the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) so that it accurately reflects the statutory effective date of six months from the publication date of the rule, coinciding with a date of October 19, 2015. Consistent with Federal requirements, the EPA is also correcting dates for certain provisions that fall on January 18, 2016, which is a Federal holiday, to the next succeeding Federal business day, which is January 19, 2016.

On December 3, 2014, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) issued a supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking (SNOPR) to amend the test procedures for conventional cooking products. The oven-related procedures proposed in that rulemaking serve as the basis for this final rule. As part of the SNOPR, DOE proposed to incorporate methods for measuring conventional oven volume, clarified that the existing oven test block must be used to test all ovens regardless of input rate, and proposed a method to measure the energy consumption of conventional ovens equipped with an oven separator. Additionally, DOE proposed technical corrections to the units of measurement in certain calculations. This final rule amends the current procedure to include the proposed changes listed above, as well as clarifications to certain definitions, that will take effect 30 days after the final rule publication date. These changes will be mandatory for product testing to demonstrate compliance with any new or amended energy conservation standards when they take effect and for representations of the energy consumption of conventional ovens starting 180 days after publication.

In accordance with the procedures governing the application for, and the processing of, special permits from the Department of Transportation's Hazardous Material Regulations (49 CFR part 107, subpart B), notice is hereby given that the Office of Hazardous Materials Safety has received the applications described herein. This notice is abbreviated to expedite docketing and public notice. Because the sections affected, modes of transportation, and the nature of application have been shown in earlier Federal Register publications, they are not repeated here. Requests for modification of special permits (e.g. to provide for additional hazardous materials, packaging design changes, additional mode of transportation, etc.) are described in footnotes to the application number. Application numbers with the suffix ``M'' denote a modification request. These applications have been separated from the new application for special permits to facilitate processing.

In this document, the Commission improves and expedites the Effective Competition process by adopting a rebuttable presumption that cable operators are subject to Competing Provider Effective Competition. This action implements section 111 of the STELA Reauthorization Act of 2014, which directs the Commission to adopt a streamlined Effective Competition process for small cable operators.

In this document, the Commission proposes to implement certain allocation changes from the World Radiocommunication Conference (Geneva, 2012) (WRC-12) and to update related service rules. The Commission took this action in order to conform its rules, to the extent practical, to the decisions that the international community made at WRC-12. This action will promote the advancement of new and expanded services and provide significant benefits to the American people. In addition, the Commission proposes to address several matters that pertain to unresolved issues from a previous Conference.