August 23, 2019 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This final rule amends regulations relating to the apprehension, processing, care, custody, and release of alien juveniles. The rule replaces regulations that were promulgated in 1988 in response to a lawsuit filed in 1985 against the Attorney General and the Department of Justice's legacy U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), in Flores v. Meese. In January 1997, the parties reached a comprehensive settlement agreement, referred to as the Flores Settlement Agreement (FSA). The FSA, as modified in 2001, provides that it will terminate forty-five days after publication of final regulations implementing the agreement. Since 1997, intervening legislation, including the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (HSA) and the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (TVPRA), have significantly altered the governing legal authorities relating to the detention, custody, processing, and release of alien juveniles. This final rule adopts regulations that implement the relevant and substantive terms of the FSA, consistent with the HSA and the TVPRA, with some modifications discussed further below to reflect intervening statutory and operational changes while still providing similar substantive protections and standards. The final rule satisfies the basic purpose of the FSA in ensuring that all alien juveniles in the government's custody pursuant to its authorities under the immigration laws are treated with dignity, respect, and special concern for their particular vulnerability as minors, while doing so in a manner that is workable in light of subsequent statutory, factual, and operational changes and builds on the government's extensive experience working under the FSA. Most prominently, in response to great difficulty working under the state-licensing requirement for family residential centers, the final rule creates an alternative to the existing licensed program requirement for ICE family residential centers, so that ICE may use appropriate facilities to detain family units together during their immigration proceedings, consistent with applicable law.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is taking final action for 11 ozone nonattainment areas that are classified as ``Moderate'' for the 2008 ozone national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS). First, the agency is determining that two Moderate areas Baltimore, Maryland, and Mariposa County, Californiaattained the standards by the July 20, 2018, applicable attainment date. Second, the agency is granting a 1-year attainment date extension for the two Moderate areas in Sheboygan County, WisconsinInland Sheboygan County, Wisconsin, and Shoreline Sheboygan County, Wisconsin. Third, the agency is determining that seven Moderate areas failed to attain the standards by the applicable attainment dateChicago-Naperville, Illinois- Indiana-Wisconsin; Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas; Greater Connecticut, Connecticut; Houston-Galveston-Brazoria, Texas; Nevada County (Western part), California; New York-North New Jersey-Long Island, New York-New Jersey-Connecticut; and San Diego County, California. The effect of failing to attain by the applicable attainment date is that these areas will be reclassified by operation of law to ``Serious'' nonattainment for the 2008 ozone NAAQS on September 23, 2019, the effective date of this final rule. Accordingly, the responsible state air agencies must submit State Implementation Plan (SIP) revisions and implement controls to satisfy the statutory and regulatory requirements for Serious areas for the 2008 ozone NAAQS according to the deadlines established in this final rule.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (``Commission'') is proposing for public comment amendments to modernize the description of business, legal proceedings, and risk factor disclosures that registrants are required to make pursuant to Regulation S-K. These disclosure items have not undergone significant revisions in over 30 years. The proposed amendments are intended to update our rules to account for developments since their adoption or last amendment, to improve these disclosures for investors, and to simplify compliance efforts for registrants. Specifically, the proposed amendments are intended to improve the readability of disclosure documents, as well as discourage repetition and disclosure of information that is not material.