2015 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has announced appointments to the NRC Performance Review Board (PRB) responsible for making recommendations on performance appraisal ratings and performance awards for NRC Senior Executives and Senior Level System employees and appointments to the NRC PRB Panel responsible for making recommendations to the appointing and awarding authorities for NRC PRB members.

The Department of State is seeking Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approval for the information collection described below. In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, we are requesting comments on this collection from all interested individuals and organizations. The purpose of this notice is to allow 60 days for public comment preceding submission of the collection to OMB.

The Office of Personnel Management is issuing final regulations on behalf of the President's Pay Agent. These final regulations link the definitions of General Schedule (GS) locality pay area boundaries to updated metropolitan area definitions established by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in February 2013. These final regulations also establish 13 new locality pay areas, which the Federal Salary Council recommended after reviewing pay levels in all ``Rest of U.S.'' metropolitan statistical areas and combined statistical areas with 2,500 or more GS employees.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will accept requests, from December 1, 2015 through January 31, 2016, for grants to establish and enhance State and Tribal Response Programs. This notice provides guidance on eligibility for funding, use of funding, grant mechanisms and process for awarding funding, the allocation system for distribution of funding, and terms and reporting under these grants. EPA has consulted with state and tribal officials in developing this guidance. The primary goal of this funding is to ensure that state and tribal response programs include, or are taking reasonable steps to include, certain elements of a response program and establishing a public record. Another goal is to provide funding for other activities that increase the number of response actions conducted or overseen by a state or tribal response program. This funding is not intended to supplant current state or tribal funding for their response programs. Instead, it is to supplement their funding to increase their response capacity. For fiscal year 2016, EPA will consider funding requests up to a maximum of $1.0 million per state or tribe. Subject to the availability of funds, EPA regional personnel will be available to provide technical assistance to states and tribes as they apply for and carry out these grants.

The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) is reopening the comment period for Notice No. 149, which concerned the proposed establishment of the approximately 306,650-acre ``Lewis-Clark Valley'' viticultural area in portions of Nez Perce, Lewis, Clearwater and Latah Counties in Idaho and Asotin, Garfield, and Whitman Counties in Washington. Notice No. 149 also proposed to modify the boundary of the existing Columbia Valley viticultural area to eliminate a potential overlap with the proposed Lewis-Clark Valley viticultural area. This reopening of the comment period solicits comments from the public on issues that were raised in public comments received in response to Notice No. 149.

The electronic sharing of information and documents between intellectual property (IP) offices is critical for increasing the efficiency and quality of patent examination worldwide. Current examples of this sharing include the priority document exchange (PDX) program and the program by which U.S. search results are delivered to the European Patent Office (EPO). In support of electronic file sharing, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (Office) is revising its rules of practice to include a specific provision by which an applicant can authorize the Office to give a foreign IP office that is a party to an agreement with the Office access to all or part of the file contents of an unpublished U.S. patent application in order to satisfy a requirement for information imposed on a counterpart application filed with the foreign IP office. Previously, for unpublished U.S. patent applications, applicants followed one regulatory provision to provide the Office with authorization for a foreign IP office to access an application-as-filed and followed another regulatory provision to provide the Office with authorization to share the file contents with a foreign IP office. The final rule changes consolidate the specific provisions of the regulations by which applicants give the Office authority to provide a foreign IP office with access to an application in order to satisfy a requirement for information of the foreign IP office. The Office is also revising the rules of practice to indicate there is no fee for providing a foreign IP office with an electronic copy of an application-as-filed or an electronic copy of file contents pursuant to a bilateral or multilateral agreement. Additionally, along with changes to the application data sheet (ADS) form, the final rule changes simplify the process for how applicants provide the Office with the required authorization, thereby reducing the resources applicants must expend to comply with these foreign IP office requirements, and enhance the quality of patent examination.

The Department of Labor (Department) previously announced that it would not bring enforcement actions against any employer for violations of Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) obligations resulting from amendments to its domestic service regulations for 30 days after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued a mandate making effective its opinion affirming the validity of the regulatory changes. The Court issued its mandate on October 13, 2015; the Department's 30-day non-enforcement period will therefore conclude on November 12, 2015. From November 12, 2015 through December 31, 2015, the Department will exercise prosecutorial discretion pursuant to its previously announced time-limited non-enforcement policy.

This document contains final regulations on allocation and accounting, and certain remedial actions, for purposes of the private activity bond restrictions under section 141 of the Internal Revenue Code that apply to tax-exempt bonds issued by State and local governments. The final regulations provide State and local governmental issuers of tax-exempt bonds with guidance for applying the private activity bond restrictions.

The Department of Defense has submitted to OMB for clearance, the following proposal for collection of information under the provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act.

The Environmental Protection Agency has submitted an information collection request (ICR), ``NSPS for Stationary Compression Ignition Internal Combustion Engines (40 CFR part 60, subpart IIII) (Renewal)'' (EPA ICR No. 2196.05, OMB Control No. 2060-0590) to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and approval in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.). This is a proposed extension of the ICR, which is currently approved through October 31, 2015. Public comments were previously requested via the Federal Register (80 FR 32116) on June 5, 2015 during a 60-day comment period. This notice allows for an additional 30 days for public comments. A fuller description of the ICR is given below, including its estimated burden and cost to the public. An Agency may not conduct or sponsor and a person is not required to respond to a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number.

The Environmental Protection Agency has submitted an information collection request (ICR), ``NESHAP for Integrated Iron and Steel Manufacturing Facilities (40 CFR part 63, subpart FFFFF) (Renewal)'' (EPA ICR No. 2003.06, OMB Control No. 2060-0517), to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and approval in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.). This is a proposed extension of the ICR, which is currently approved through October 31, 2015. Public comments were requested previously via the Federal Register (80 FR 32116) on June 5, 2015, during a 60-day comment period. This notice allows for an additional 30 days for public comments. A fuller description of the ICR is given below, including its estimated burden and cost to the public. An Agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has submitted an Information Collection Request (ICR) for the Public Water System Supervision Program (EPA ICR No. 0270.46, OMB Control No. 2040-0090) to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and approval in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA; 44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.). This is a proposed extension of the ICR, which is currently approved through October 31, 2015. Public comments were previously requested via the Federal Register (80 FR 17040) on March 31, 2015, during a 60-day comment period. This notice allows for an additional 30 days for public comments. A fuller description of the ICR is provided in this renewal notice, including its estimated burden and cost to the public. An Agency may not conduct or sponsor and a person is not required to respond to a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number.

The Department of Justice (DOJ), Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), will submit the following information collection request to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and approval in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. The proposed information collection was previously published in the Federal Register at 80 FR 51310, on August 24, 2015, allowing for a 60-day comment period.

The Department of Justice (DOJ), Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), will submit the following information collection request to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and approval in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. The proposed information collection was previously published in the Federal Register at 80 FR 51311, on August 24, 2015, allowing for a 60-day comment period.

The Department of Justice (DOJ), Office on Violence Against Women, will be submitting the following information collection request to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and approval in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. The proposed information collection was previously published in the Federal Register at 80 FR 50873, on August 21, 2015, allowing for a 60-day comment period.