December 6, 2019 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC or Commission) adopts an Order that closes Lockbox 979096 and removes the relevant rule relating to the collection of payment for charges for certain international telecommunications services.

The FAA is adopting a new airworthiness directive (AD) for Bell Helicopter Textron Canada Limited (BHTC) Model 427 helicopters. This AD requires inspecting the inboard skin of the vertical fin around the four tailboom attachment points. This AD was prompted by reports of cracked vertical fin skins that resulted from metal fatigue. The actions of this AD are intended to prevent an unsafe condition on these products.

This rule is revising the Commodity Credit Corporation's (CCC) Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) regulations to specify the terms and conditions of CRP and to implement amendments made by the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (2018 Farm Bill). The 2018 Farm Bill authorizes CRP through fiscal year 2023. This rule makes required changes to the eligibility criteria for enrollment in CRP, the benefits available to participants, and the land use and compliance provisions of CRP. In addition, this rule will implement two new pilot programs, the Clean Lakes, Estuaries, and Rivers 30 (CLEAR 30) Pilot Program and the Soil Heath and Income Protection Pilot (SHIPP) Program, as required by the 2018 Farm Bill.

We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), propose to list Pectis imberbis (beardless chinchweed), a plant species from southern Arizona and northern Mexico, as an endangered species and to designate critical habitat for Beardless chinchweed under the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (Act), as amended. In total, we propose to designate approximately 10,604 acres (4,291 hectares) in southern Arizona as critical habitat for this plant. We also announce the availability of a draft economic analysis of the proposed designation of critical habitat for beardless chinchweed. In addition, we propose to list Graptopetalum bartramii (Bartram's stonecrop), a plant species from southern Arizona and northern Mexico, as a threatened species under the Act and to issue a rule under section 4(d) of the Act to provide for the conservation of Bartram's stonecrop. We are not proposing to designate critical habitat for Bartram's stonecrop because we find that a designation is not prudent. If we make this rule final as proposed, it would extend the Act's protections to both of these species and to beardless chinchweed's critical habitat.

The FDIC is amending its deposit insurance assessment regulations to apply the community bank leverage ratio (CBLR) framework to the deposit insurance assessment system (CBLR Assessments final rule). The FDIC, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Federal Reserve) and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) (collectively, the Federal banking agencies) are considering, and are expected to adopt, a final rule that provides for a simple measure of capital adequacy for certain community banking organizations (CBLR final rule). The CBLR Assessments final rule: prices all insured depository institutions (IDIs) that elect to use the CBLR framework as small institutions; makes technical amendments to the FDIC's assessment regulations to ensure that the assessment regulations continue to reference the prompt corrective action (PCA) regulations for the definitions of capital categories used in the deposit insurance assessment system; and clarifies that an IDI that elects to use the CBLR framework and also meets the definition of a custodial bank will have no change to its custodial bank deduction or reporting items required to calculate the deduction. The final rule does not make any changes to the FDIC's assessment methodology for small or large institutions.

This document contains final regulations implementing the base erosion and anti-abuse tax, designed to prevent the reduction of tax liability by certain large corporate taxpayers through certain payments made to foreign related parties and certain tax credits. These final regulations also provide reporting requirements related to this tax. This tax was added to the Internal Revenue Code (the ``Code'') as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. This document finalizes the proposed regulations published on December 21, 2018. The final regulations affect corporations with substantial gross receipts that make payments to foreign related parties. The final regulations also affect any reporting corporations required to furnish information relating to certain related-party transactions and information relating to a trade or business conducted within the United States by a foreign corporation.

The U.S. Department of Energy (``DOE'') is proposing to revise its test procedure for external power supplies (``EPS'' or ``EPSs''). DOE is proposing to add a definition for ``commercial and industrial power supply'' in its regulations to differentiate between EPSs and other non-consumer power supplies that are not subject to the test procedure. DOE also proposes to add a definition to address an adaptive EPS that conforms to the Universal Serial Bus Power Delivery (``USB-PD EPS'') specifications and revise its procedure to address their testing in a manner more representative of their actual use. Further, the proposed revisions would provide more specific instructions for testing single-voltage EPSs that have multiple output busses. Lastly, DOE proposes to reorganize the test procedure to centralize definitions, consolidate generally applicable requirements, and better delineate requirements for single-voltage, multiple-voltage, and adaptive EPSs. DOE is seeking comment from interested parties on the proposal.