March 26, 2019 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This final rule removes the Department of the Navy (DON) regulation concerning Non Naval Medical and Dental Care. This regulation is redundant of a Department of Defense regulation on the payment of claims to private sector health care providers for health care services furnished to active duty members of all uniformed services, and it should be repealed.

This final rule removes the DoD regulation on the Missing Persons Act because its content is internal to DoD. The corresponding internal guidance document has been updated since this rule was last amended, and it is publicly available. The rule is outdated and unnecessary.

This action informs the public that the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC) is withdrawing a final rule with request for comments published in the Federal Register on December 10, 2018, titled Common Crop Insurance Regulations; Forage Seeding Crop Insurance Provisions. FCIC updated the Forage Seeding Crop Provisions (CP) to better reflect current agricultural practices and allow for variations in insurance provisions based on regionally-specific agronomic conditions and potential future expansions. The Forage Seeding CP cover losses from insured perils during the year of planting forage and would provide continuous coverage throughout the year of planting effective for the 2020 crop year. FCIC withdraws the Forage Seeding final rule due to the need to address outstanding issues, conduct additional research, and obtain data for program expansion to ensure continuous coverage between the year of planting and after the crop has been established.

On November 28, 2018, the Administrator of the World Trade Center (WTC) Health Program received a petition (Petition 021) to add ``multiple deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism'' to the List of WTC-Related Health Conditions (List). Upon reviewing the scientific and medical literature, including information provided by the petitioner, the Administrator has determined that the available evidence does not have the potential to provide a basis for a decision on whether to add deep vein thrombosis or pulmonary embolism to the List. The Administrator also finds that insufficient evidence exists to request a recommendation of the WTC Health Program Scientific/Technical Advisory Committee (STAC), to publish a proposed rule, or to publish a determination not to publish a proposed rule.

PHMSA is announcing its exercise of enforcement discretion with respect to portions of its regulations that pertain to farm taps. Pursuant to the exercise of enforcement discretion announced in this document, PHMSA will not take enforcement action against operators who forego the new maintenance and inspection requirements established in March 2017 and instead mitigate any future risk associated with farm taps through compliance with the existing Distribution Integrity Management Program (DIMP) regulations. This will provide regulatory flexibility to pipeline operators while at the same time maintaining an equivalent level of safety.

In this document, the Commission establishes a single, comprehensive database that will contain the most recent permanent disconnection date for toll free numbers and for each number allocated to or ported to each provider that receives North American Numbering Plan U.S. geographic numbers. The Commission also sets a minimum aging period of 45 days before a permanently disconnected number may be reassigned to a new subscriber and adopts a limited safe harbor from liability for any caller that relies upon inaccurate information provided by the database.

In this document, the Commission adopts rules to implement Congress's directive in the 2018 Reimbursement Expansion Act (REA) that the Commission reimburse certain Low Power Television and television translator stations and FM broadcast stations, for costs incurred as a result of the Commission's broadcast television spectrum incentive auction. In the REA, Congress provided additional funding for the TV Broadcaster Relocation Fund and expanded the list of entities eligible to receive reimbursement for costs reasonably incurred as a result of the reorganization of broadcast television spectrum to include LPTV/ translator and FM stations. This document adopts rules relating to eligibility, expenses, and procedures the Commission will use to provide reimbursement to these entities and mandates the use of various measures designed to protect the Reimbursement Fund against waste, fraud, and abuse.

This final rule implements the 2019 adjustment of the level of the maximum daily civil monetary penalties contained in the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) regulations for violations of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) and the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA), in accordance with the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015 and relevant Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidance. The 2019 adjustment multiplier of 1.02522 accounts for one year of inflation spanning the period from October 2017 through October 2018.

This proposed rule would amend regulations of the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) to renew reporting requirements for the mandatory BE-140 Benchmark Survey of Insurance Transactions by U.S. Insurance Companies with Foreign Persons. This survey will apply to the 2018 calendar reporting year. This mandatory benchmark survey, conducted under the authority of the International Investment and Trade in Services Survey Act, covers the universe of transactions in insurance services and is BEA's most comprehensive survey of such transactions. For the 2018 benchmark survey, BEA proposes several changes in the data items collected and the design of the survey form.

The Office of Head Start currently requires Head Start programs to operate 100-percent of their preschool center-based slots for 1,020 annual hours by August 1, 2021, which would substantially increase the minimum amount of time preschool children must receive Head Start services. We believe the approach to require all center- based programs to increase their hours of operation was too prescriptive and will reduce grant recipients' flexibility to meet the needs of the communities they serve. It would be costly for grantees to meet the increased service-duration requirement and would likely result in a reduction in the number of children served by Head Start. For these reasons, we propose to remove the 100-percent service duration requirement from the HSPPS. We also propose technical changes to our Program Structure regulations.