September 21, 2016 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), propose to list the Pearl darter (Percina aurora), a fish from Mississippi, as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (Act). If we finalize this rule as proposed, it would extend the Act's protections to this species. The effect of this proposed regulation will be to add this species to the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife.

This proposed rule would implement a recommendation from the Washington Cherry Marketing Committee (Committee) to increase the assessment rate established for the 2016-2017 and subsequent fiscal periods from $0.15 to $0.25 per ton of Washington cherries handled. The Committee locally administers the marketing order and is comprised of growers and handlers of cherries operating within the production area. Assessments upon cherry handlers are used by the Committee to fund reasonable and necessary expenses of the marketing order. The fiscal period begins April 1 and ends March 31. The assessment rate would remain in effect indefinitely unless modified, suspended or terminated.

In this document the Commission opens a new proceeding relating to the National Public Safety Broadband Network being implemented by the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet). The proceeding seeks comment on proposed procedures for administering the Commission's role in the State opt-out process from the FirstNet radio access network as provided under the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012, as well as on the Commission's implementation of the specific statutory standards by which it is obligated to evaluate State opt-out applications.

NMFS is exchanging unused flathead sole and rock sole Community Development Quota (CDQ) for yellowfin sole CDQ acceptable biological catch (ABC) reserves in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands management area. This action is necessary to allow the 2016 total allowable catch of yellowfin sole in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands management area to be harvested.

Through this final rule, HUD ensures equal access for individuals in accordance with their gender identity in programs and shelter funded under programs administered by HUD's Office of Community Planning and Development (CPD). This rule builds upon HUD's February 2012 final rule entitled ``Equal Access to Housing in HUD Programs Regardless of Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity'' (2012 Equal Access Rule), which aimed to ensure that HUD's housing programs would be open to all eligible individuals and families regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or marital status. The 2012 Equal Access Rule, however, did not address how transgender and gender non- conforming individuals should be accommodated in temporary, emergency shelters, and other buildings and facilities used for shelter, that have physical limitations or configurations that require and that are permitted to have shared sleeping quarters or shared bathing facilities. This final rule follows HUD's November 2015 proposed rule, which addressed this issue and solicited public comment on measures to ensure that recipients and subrecipients of CPD fundingas well as owners, operators, and managers of shelters and other buildings and facilities and providers of services funded by CPDgrant equal access to such facilities and services to individuals in accordance with an individual's gender identity. This rule amends HUD's definition of ``gender identity'' to more clearly reflect the difference between actual and perceived gender identity and eliminates the prohibition on inquiries related to sexual orientation or gender identity, so that service providers can ensure compliance with this rule. The removal of the prohibition on inquiries related to sexual orientation or gender identity does not alter the requirement to make housing assisted by HUD and housing insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) available without regard to actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. Lastly, without changing the scope of the requirement to provide equal access without regard to sexual orientation, this rule makes a technical amendment to the definition of ``sexual orientation,'' which HUD adopted from the Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) definition of the term in 2012, to conform to OPM's current definition. In order to ensure that individuals are aware of their rights to equal access, HUD is publishing elsewhere in this issue of the Federal Register for public comment, in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, a document entitled ``Equal Access Regardless of Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, or Marital Status'' for owners or operators of CPD-funded shelters, housing, facilities, and other buildings to post on bulletin boards and in other public spaces where information is typically made available.

We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), announce 12- month findings on petitions to list nine species as endangered or threatened species under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (Act). After a review of the best available scientific and commercial information, we find that listing the angular dwarf crayfish, Guadalupe murrelet, Huachuca springsnail, two Kentucky cave beetles (Clifton Cave and Icebox Cave beetles), Artemisia campestris var. wormskioldii (northern wormwood), Scripps's murrelet, Virgin Islands coqu[iacute], and Washington ground squirrel is not warranted at this time. However, we ask the public to submit to us at any time any new information that becomes available concerning the stressors to any of the nine species listed above or their habitats.

Through this notice of proposed rulemaking (``NPRM''), the Economic Development Administration (``EDA,'' or ``the Agency''), U.S. Department of Commerce (``DOC''), proposes and requests comments on the Agency's implementation of section 26 of the Stevenson-Wydler Technology Innovation Act of 1980 (the ``Stevenson-Wydler Act''), enacted as part of the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010 (``COMPETES Act''). The Stevenson-Wydler Act authorizes EDA to provide loan guarantees for obligations to small- and medium-sized manufacturers for the use or production of innovative technologies. These guarantees will enable innovative technology manufacturers to obtain capital otherwise unavailable to them.