November 16, 2020 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) is correcting a final rule that appeared in the Federal Register on October 16, 2020. This rule merged the 8(a) Business Development (BD) Mentor- Prot[eacute]g[eacute] Program and the All Small Mentor- Prot[eacute]g[eacute] Program to eliminate confusion and remove unnecessary duplication of functions within SBA. This rule also eliminated the requirement that 8(a) Participants seeking to be awarded an 8(a) contract as a joint venture submit the joint venture agreement to SBA for review and approval prior to contract award, revised several 8(a) BD program regulations to reduce unnecessary or excessive burdens on 8(a) Participants, and clarified other related regulatory provisions to eliminate confusion among small businesses and procuring activities. In addition, in response to public comment, the rule required a business concern to recertify its size and/or socioeconomic status for all set-aside orders under unrestricted multiple award contracts, unless the contract authorized limited pools of concerns for which size and/or status was required. This document is making three technical corrections to the final rule.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is issuing for public comment draft regulatory guide (DG), DG-1359, ``Fire Protection for Nuclear Power Plants.'' This regulatory guide (RG) describes an approach that is acceptable to the NRC staff to meet the regulatory requirements in the NRC's regulations governing a civilian nuclear power generating plant's fire protection program (FPP).

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is issuing for public comment draft regulatory guide (DG), DG-1360, ``Risk-Informed, Performance-Based Fire Protection for Existing Light-Water Nuclear Power Plants.'' This regulatory guide (RG) describes an approach that is acceptable to the NRC staff to meet the regulatory requirements in the NRC's regulations and the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Standard 805, ``Performance-Based Standard for Fire Protection for Light Water Reactor Electric Generating Plants,'' 2001 Edition, which is incorporated by reference in the NRC's regulations.

The FHWA has forwarded the information collection request described in this notice to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for approval of a new (periodic) information collection. We published a Federal Register Notice with a 60-day public comment period on this information collection on September 8, 2020. We are required to publish this notice in the Federal Register by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995.

The National Park Service is soliciting electronic comments on the significance of properties nominated before October 31, 2020, for listing or related actions in the National Register of Historic Places.

This action withdraws the final rule published in the Federal Register on October 26, 2020. In that action, the FAA amends VHF Omnidirectional Range (VOR) Federal airways V-5 and V-178 in the vicinity of New Hope, KY, and removes V-513 in its entirety due to the planned decommissioning of the VOR portion of the New Hope, KY, VOR/ Distance Measuring Equipment (VOR/DME) navigation aid. The FAA has determined that withdrawal of the final rule is warranted since there has been a change in the date for the decommissioning of the New Hope, KY, VOR.

EPA is proposing significant new use rules (SNURs) under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) for chemical substances which are the subject of premanufacture notices (PMNs). This action would require persons to notify EPA at least 90 days before commencing manufacture (defined by statute to include import) or processing of any of these chemical substances for an activity that is designated as a significant new use by this proposed rule. This action would further require that persons not commence manufacture or processing for the significant new use until they have submitted a Significant New Use Notice (SNUN), and EPA has conducted a review of the notice, made an appropriate determination on the notice, and has taken any risk management actions as are required as a result of that determination.

This rule revises National Park Service regulations to comply with the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Sturgeon v. Frost. In the Sturgeon decision, the Court held that National Park Service regulations apply exclusively to public lands (meaning federally owned lands and waters) within the external boundaries of National Park System units in Alaska. Lands which are not federally owned, including submerged lands under navigable waters, are not part of the units subject to the National Park Service's ordinary regulatory authority.

This direct final rule removes information on NASA's Cooperative Agreements with Commercial Firms because this information is already available in another section of the Code of Federal Regulations and in NASA's Grant and Cooperative Agreements Manual (GCAM).

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is taking final action to find that five states failed to submit State Implementation Plan (SIP) revisions required by the Clean Air Act (CAA) in a timely manner to address reasonably available control technology (RACT) requirements associated with the 2016 Oil and Natural Gas Industry Control Techniques Guidelines (CTG) for reducing volatile organic compounds (VOC) in certain nonattainment areas for the 2008 ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) and in states in the ozone transport region (OTR). The states that failed to submit the required SIP revisions to address the CTG-related RACT requirements are California, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas. This action triggers certain CAA deadlines for the EPA to impose sanctions if a state does not submit a complete SIP addressing the outstanding requirements and for the EPA to promulgate a Federal Implementation Plan (FIP) if the EPA does not approve the state's SIP revision.

Pursuant to the Federal Clean Air Act (CAA or the Act), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is notifying the public that we have received CAA section 111(d)/129 negative declarations from Arkansas, New Mexico, and Albuquerque-Bernalillo County, New Mexico, for existing incinerators subject to the Commercial and Industrial Solid Waste Incineration units (CISWI) emission guidelines (EG). These negative declarations certify that incinerators subject to CISWI EG and the requirements of sections 111(d) and 129 of the CAA do not exist within the jurisdictions of Arkansas, New Mexico, and Albuquerque- Bernalillo County. The EPA is accepting the negative declarations and amending the CFR in accordance with the requirements of the CAA.

In this document, known as a Candidate Notice of Review (CNOR), we, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), present an updated list of domestic plant and animal species that we regard as candidates for or have proposed for addition to the Lists of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended. This document also includes our findings on resubmitted petitions and describes our progress in revising the Lists of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants (Lists) during the period October 1, 2018, through September 30, 2020. Combined with other decisions for individual species that were published separately from this CNOR in the past year, the current number of domestic species that are candidates for listing is 11. Identification of candidate species can assist environmental planning efforts by providing advance notice of potential listings, and by allowing landowners and resource managers to alleviate threats and thereby possibly remove the need to list species as endangered or threatened. Even if we subsequently list a candidate species, the early notice provided here could result in more options for species management and recovery by prompting earlier candidate conservation measures to alleviate threats to the species. This document also adds the Sonoran desert tortoise back to the candidate list as a result of an August 3, 2020, court-approved settlement agreement.

This document contains corrections to the final regulations (Treasury Decision 9909) that were published in the Federal Register on Thursday, August 27, 2020. Treasury Decision 9909 contained final regulations under sections 245A and 954 of the Internal Revenue Code (the ``Code'') that limit the deduction for certain dividends received by United States persons from foreign corporations under section 245A and the exception to subpart F income under section 954(c)(6) for certain dividends received by controlled foreign corporations.

This action allows States to use the Indefinite Delivery and Indefinite Quantity (ID/IQ) method of contracting, including job order contracting (JOC), on Federal-aid highway projects, under certain circumstances, on a permanent basis.

This regulation establishes tolerances for residues of the insecticide indoxacarb in or on Almond, hulls at 8 parts per million (ppm) and Nut, tree, group 14-12 at 0.08 ppm. FMC Corporation requested tolerances for these commodities under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA).