Consumer Oriented Operating Loans, 22117-22118 [2024-06719]
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Federal Register / Vol. 89, No. 62 / Friday, March 29, 2024 / Notices
khammond on DSKJM1Z7X2PROD with NOTICES
displays a currently valid OMB control
number and the agency informs
potential persons who are to respond to
the collection of information that such
persons are not required to respond to
the collection of information unless it
displays a currently valid OMB control
number.
Food Safety and Inspection Service
Title: Qualitative Research on Food
Safety Behaviors Among Parents and
Caregivers who prepare meals for
minors or older adults. In Depth
Interview Research.
OMB Number: 0583–NEW.
Type of Request: Request for a new
information collection.
Abstract: FSIS is announcing its
intention to collect information from
interviews on consumer food safety
knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors.
FSIS will also collect consumer
responses to food safety messages
related to home cooking to gather
feedback on message content and
format.
FSIS’ Office of Public Affairs and
Consumer Education makes sure
members of the American public are
equipped with the tools they need to
reduce their risk of foodborne illness by
teaching the public how to safely
handle, prepare, and store food.
Consumer education campaigns
developed by OPACE’s staff are created
to promote safe food handling
procedures and reduce the likelihood of
foodborne illness.
To extend its commitment to
educating the public about food safety,
FSIS is seeking to focus on the parents
and caregivers or those who are
providing care and preparing meals to at
least one child or one older adult, as a
priority audience for this new food
safety campaign.
Need and Use of the Information:
Preliminary research is necessary to
learn more about how to best tailor
campaign messages to suit the needs of
the audiences of focus. The goal of the
proposed research study is to learn more
about African American/Black and
Hispanic/Latino parent and caregiver
knowledge, attitudes, and current
behaviors regarding food safety. The
information collected from this research
will be used to develop and tailor
messages to suit audience needs.
Further, audience feedback about draft
messaging strategies and approaches is
necessary to ensure that campaign
messages will appeal to audiences.
Information will be used to develop
and disseminate effective messaging to
help reduce foodborne illness among
parents and caregivers. The lack of
information in this area would impede
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16:49 Mar 28, 2024
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the Agency’s ability to provide more
useful information to consumers to help
reduce foodborne illness in the United
States. The final goal will be to gather
feedback on proposed FSIS food safety
messages and understand their possible
influence on future food safety
behaviors among consumers.
Description of Respondents:
Individuals/Households (Parents and
Caregivers).
Number of Respondents: 3,050.
Frequency of Responses: Reporting:
Annually.
Total Burden Hours: 547.
Rachelle Ragland-Greene,
Acting Departmental Information Collection
Clearance Officer.
[FR Doc. 2024–06721 Filed 3–28–24; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3410–DM–P
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Rural Utilities Service
[Docket #: RUS–24–Electric–0003]
Consumer Oriented Operating Loans
Rural Utilities Service, USDA.
Notice.
AGENCY:
ACTION:
The Rural Utilities Service
(RUS or Agency), a Rural Development
agency of the United States Department
of Agriculture, is issuing this notice to
announce it will be utilizing its longstanding statutory authority to consider
operating loans under an initiative
known as Consumer Oriented Operating
Loans (COOL). COOL funding may be
approved at the discretion of the RUS
Administrator to finance operations for
current system borrowers to meet
financing needs where the borrower
faces hardship circumstances involving
unique, transitory, or exigent
conditions. To qualify for COOL
financing borrowers will commit to
create environmental benefits to end
users/consumers and invest in
additional new carbon pollution-free
electricity and/or energy efficiency
measures. RUS estimates $50 million
will be available for this program in
fiscal year 2024.
DATES: This notice is applicable March
29, 2024 and will continue until further
notice.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Christopher McLean, Assistant
Administrator, Electric Program, Rural
Utilities Service, Rural Development,
United States Department of
Agriculture, 1400 Independence Avenue
SW, STOP 1568, Washington, DC
20250–1560; telephone: 202–690–4492.
Email to: christopher.mclean@usda.gov.
SUMMARY:
PO 00000
Frm 00002
Fmt 4703
Sfmt 4703
22117
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Authority: Section 4 (7 U.S.C. 904) of
title I of the Rural Electrification Act of
1936, as amended, gives RUS the
authority to make loans ‘‘for the purpose
of financing the construction and
operation’’ of electric infrastructure
furnishing and improving electric
service to persons in rural areas.
Definitions: For the purposes of this
notice:
Carbon pollution-free electricity
means electrical energy produced from
resources that generate no carbon
emissions, including marine energy,
solar, wind, hydrokinetic (including
tidal, wave, current, and thermal),
geothermal, hydroelectric, nuclear,
renewably sourced hydrogen, and
electrical energy generation from fossil
resources to the extent there is active
capture and storage of carbon dioxide
emissions that meets EPA requirements;
https://www.federalregister.gov/
documents/2021/12/13/2021-27114/
catalyzing-clean-energy-industries-andjobs-through-federal-sustainability.
Energy Efficiency Measure means any
capital investment that reduces energy
costs in an amount sufficient to recover
the total cost of purchasing and
installing such measure over an
appropriate period of time and
maintains or reduces non-renewable
energy consumption.
Clean Energy Enabling Measures shall
mean measures (such as adopting new
technologies and/or making
investments) that enable carbon
pollution-free electricity as defined in
this notice.
Purpose: To provide funding, at the
discretion of the RUS Administrator, to
current system borrowers to meet
financing needs in hardship
circumstances involving unique,
transitory, or exigent conditions, such
as, but not limited to, power or material
cost spikes; liquidity needs due to
weather events, supply chain
interruptions, man-made or natural
disasters or circumstances where end
users/consumers could experience
excessive rate impacts. Additionally,
these loans will require borrowers to
create environmental benefits through
investments in additional new carbon
pollution-free electricity, energy
efficiency measures, and/or clean
energy enabling measures.
Terms: COOL financing recipients
will be required to commit that the loan
funds will be used to benefit the end
users/consumers. In addition, the
recipients will also be required to make
an investment in carbon pollution-free
electricity, energy efficiency measures,
and clean energy enabling measures
acceptable to the Administrator. Such
E:\FR\FM\29MRN1.SGM
29MRN1
22118
Federal Register / Vol. 89, No. 62 / Friday, March 29, 2024 / Notices
investment must be after the date of the
loan commitment letter and prior to two
(2) years from the date of the first COOL
advance, or other contract covenant
deadline approved by the RUS
Administrator given the unique
circumstances of the Borrower. The
investment must be in an amount equal
to at least 10 percent of the COOL
financing, be additional new carbon
pollution-free electricity and/or energy
efficiency measures and result in
quantifiable, greenhouse gas emissions
reductions as evidenced in
documentation submitted to the Agency
in form and substance acceptable to the
RUS Administrator. In all other
respects, COOL financing will be subject
to the same eligibility, underwriting,
loan security and repayment criteria as
the core RUS electric infrastructure loan
program.
COOL financing will only be made
available if the Administrator
determines that the loan is feasible and
sufficient collateral exists to provide the
RUS with adequate security pursuant to
a first-priority lien or shared firstpriority lien on system assets to ensure
full repayment of RUS debt. COOL loans
will generally follow the RUS
regulations, bulletins and standard
policies and procedures for the type of
funding (i.e., direct or guaranteed)
approved for the COOL loan and will be
at terms not to exceed 20 years.
The Electric Program will update
existing regulations and bulletins and
promulgate new regulations as
necessary to implement this new COOL
loan policy.
Background: Historically the RUS has
prioritized infrastructure construction
and sparingly utilized its authority to
finance operations and has only
approved loans funding operations
where a borrower faced a unique
hardship affecting the borrower’s
liquidity or consumer rates. The COVID
pandemic and severe weather events are
recent examples of such events.
The RUS, on a trial basis, approved
COOL financing to several generation
and transmission system borrowers and
distribution system borrowers who
sought operating loans to address
hardship circumstances. Under the
previously approved COOL financing,
the Agency made operating loans
whereas a condition of receiving the
COOL financing, the borrowers
committed that the COOL financing
would benefit the end users/consumers
and the borrowers also committed that
an amount equal to 10 percent of the
principal amount of the COOL financing
would be invested in new energy
efficiency measures or carbon pollutionfree electricity technologies. Based on
its experience with COOL financing
with these trial cases and the
application of the agency’s rigorous
underwriting standards, the agency is
announcing that COOL financing is
available to current RUS borrowers that
encounter the hardship circumstances
described in this notice.
Upon publication of this notice in the
Federal Register and until further
notice, the RUS will, in hardship
situations, consider new requests for
COOL financing in addition to its
existing authorities and programs.
Infrastructure financing will continue to
be the RUS Electric Program’s highest
priority and COOL financing will only
be made available in hardship cases
when funds are available and there is no
negative impact on RUS ability to meet
the infrastructure financing needs in the
core RUS Electric Program.
Michele Brooks,
Acting Administrator, Rural Utilities Service.
[FR Doc. 2024–06719 Filed 3–28–24; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3410–15–P
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
Census Bureau
[Docket Number: 240130–0030]
X–RIN 0607–XC074
Estimates of the Voting-Age
Population for 2023
Census Bureau, Commerce.
General notice announcing
population estimates.
AGENCY:
ACTION:
This notice announces the
voting-age population estimates as of
July 1, 2023 for each state and the
District of Columbia. We are providing
this notice in accordance with the 1976
amendment to the Federal Election
Campaign Act.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Karen Battle, Chief, Population
Division, U.S. Census Bureau, 4600
Silver Hill Road, Washington, DC
20233. Phone: 301–763–2071. Email:
Karen.Battle@census.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Under the
requirements of the 1976 amendment to
the Federal Election Campaign Act,
Title 52, United States Code, Section
30116(e), I hereby give notice that the
estimates of the voting-age population
for July 1, 2023 for each state and the
District of Columbia are as shown in the
following table.
SUMMARY:
ESTIMATES OF THE POPULATION OF VOTING AGE FOR EACH STATE AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: JULY 1, 2023
Population 18
and over
khammond on DSKJM1Z7X2PROD with NOTICES
Area
United States ..........................................................
Alabama ..................................................................
Alaska .....................................................................
Arizona ....................................................................
Arkansas .................................................................
California .................................................................
Colorado .................................................................
Connecticut .............................................................
Delaware .................................................................
District of Columbia ................................................
Florida .....................................................................
Georgia ...................................................................
Hawaii .....................................................................
Idaho .......................................................................
Illinois ......................................................................
Indiana ....................................................................
Iowa ........................................................................
Kansas ....................................................................
Kentucky .................................................................
Louisiana .................................................................
VerDate Sep<11>2014
16:49 Mar 28, 2024
Jkt 262001
PO 00000
262,083,034
3,977,628
557,899
5,848,310
2,362,124
30,519,524
4,662,926
2,894,190
819,952
552,380
18,229,883
8,490,546
1,141,525
1,497,384
9,844,167
5,274,945
2,476,882
2,246,209
3,509,259
3,506,600
Frm 00003
Fmt 4703
Population 18
and over
Area
Missouri ..................................................................
Montana .................................................................
Nebraska ................................................................
Nevada ...................................................................
New Hampshire ......................................................
New Jersey ............................................................
New Mexico ............................................................
New York ................................................................
North Carolina ........................................................
North Dakota ..........................................................
Ohio ........................................................................
Oklahoma ...............................................................
Oregon ...................................................................
Pennsylvania ..........................................................
Rhode Island ..........................................................
South Carolina .......................................................
South Dakota .........................................................
Tennessee ..............................................................
Texas ......................................................................
Sfmt 4703
E:\FR\FM\29MRN1.SGM
29MRN1
4,821,686
897,161
1,497,381
2,508,220
1,150,004
7,280,551
1,663,024
15,611,308
8,498,868
599,192
9,207,681
3,087,217
3,401,528
10,332,678
892,124
4,229,354
697,420
5,555,761
22,942,176
]]>Agencies
[Federal Register Volume 89, Number 62 (Friday, March 29, 2024)]
[Notices]
[Pages 22117-22118]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2024-06719]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Rural Utilities Service
[Docket #: RUS-24-Electric-0003]
Consumer Oriented Operating Loans
AGENCY: Rural Utilities Service, USDA.
ACTION: Notice.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY: The Rural Utilities Service (RUS or Agency), a Rural
Development agency of the United States Department of Agriculture, is
issuing this notice to announce it will be utilizing its long-standing
statutory authority to consider operating loans under an initiative
known as Consumer Oriented Operating Loans (COOL). COOL funding may be
approved at the discretion of the RUS Administrator to finance
operations for current system borrowers to meet financing needs where
the borrower faces hardship circumstances involving unique, transitory,
or exigent conditions. To qualify for COOL financing borrowers will
commit to create environmental benefits to end users/consumers and
invest in additional new carbon pollution-free electricity and/or
energy efficiency measures. RUS estimates $50 million will be available
for this program in fiscal year 2024.
DATES: This notice is applicable March 29, 2024 and will continue until
further notice.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Christopher McLean, Assistant
Administrator, Electric Program, Rural Utilities Service, Rural
Development, United States Department of Agriculture, 1400 Independence
Avenue SW, STOP 1568, Washington, DC 20250-1560; telephone: 202-690-
4492. Email to: [email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Authority: Section 4 (7 U.S.C. 904) of title I of the Rural
Electrification Act of 1936, as amended, gives RUS the authority to
make loans ``for the purpose of financing the construction and
operation'' of electric infrastructure furnishing and improving
electric service to persons in rural areas.
Definitions: For the purposes of this notice:
Carbon pollution-free electricity means electrical energy produced
from resources that generate no carbon emissions, including marine
energy, solar, wind, hydrokinetic (including tidal, wave, current, and
thermal), geothermal, hydroelectric, nuclear, renewably sourced
hydrogen, and electrical energy generation from fossil resources to the
extent there is active capture and storage of carbon dioxide emissions
that meets EPA requirements; https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/12/13/2021-27114/catalyzing-clean-energy-industries-and-jobs-through-federal-sustainability.
Energy Efficiency Measure means any capital investment that reduces
energy costs in an amount sufficient to recover the total cost of
purchasing and installing such measure over an appropriate period of
time and maintains or reduces non-renewable energy consumption.
Clean Energy Enabling Measures shall mean measures (such as
adopting new technologies and/or making investments) that enable carbon
pollution-free electricity as defined in this notice.
Purpose: To provide funding, at the discretion of the RUS
Administrator, to current system borrowers to meet financing needs in
hardship circumstances involving unique, transitory, or exigent
conditions, such as, but not limited to, power or material cost spikes;
liquidity needs due to weather events, supply chain interruptions, man-
made or natural disasters or circumstances where end users/consumers
could experience excessive rate impacts. Additionally, these loans will
require borrowers to create environmental benefits through investments
in additional new carbon pollution-free electricity, energy efficiency
measures, and/or clean energy enabling measures.
Terms: COOL financing recipients will be required to commit that
the loan funds will be used to benefit the end users/consumers. In
addition, the recipients will also be required to make an investment in
carbon pollution-free electricity, energy efficiency measures, and
clean energy enabling measures acceptable to the Administrator. Such
[[Page 22118]]
investment must be after the date of the loan commitment letter and
prior to two (2) years from the date of the first COOL advance, or
other contract covenant deadline approved by the RUS Administrator
given the unique circumstances of the Borrower. The investment must be
in an amount equal to at least 10 percent of the COOL financing, be
additional new carbon pollution-free electricity and/or energy
efficiency measures and result in quantifiable, greenhouse gas
emissions reductions as evidenced in documentation submitted to the
Agency in form and substance acceptable to the RUS Administrator. In
all other respects, COOL financing will be subject to the same
eligibility, underwriting, loan security and repayment criteria as the
core RUS electric infrastructure loan program.
COOL financing will only be made available if the Administrator
determines that the loan is feasible and sufficient collateral exists
to provide the RUS with adequate security pursuant to a first-priority
lien or shared first-priority lien on system assets to ensure full
repayment of RUS debt. COOL loans will generally follow the RUS
regulations, bulletins and standard policies and procedures for the
type of funding (i.e., direct or guaranteed) approved for the COOL loan
and will be at terms not to exceed 20 years.
The Electric Program will update existing regulations and bulletins
and promulgate new regulations as necessary to implement this new COOL
loan policy.
Background: Historically the RUS has prioritized infrastructure
construction and sparingly utilized its authority to finance operations
and has only approved loans funding operations where a borrower faced a
unique hardship affecting the borrower's liquidity or consumer rates.
The COVID pandemic and severe weather events are recent examples of
such events.
The RUS, on a trial basis, approved COOL financing to several
generation and transmission system borrowers and distribution system
borrowers who sought operating loans to address hardship circumstances.
Under the previously approved COOL financing, the Agency made operating
loans whereas a condition of receiving the COOL financing, the
borrowers committed that the COOL financing would benefit the end
users/consumers and the borrowers also committed that an amount equal
to 10 percent of the principal amount of the COOL financing would be
invested in new energy efficiency measures or carbon pollution-free
electricity technologies. Based on its experience with COOL financing
with these trial cases and the application of the agency's rigorous
underwriting standards, the agency is announcing that COOL financing is
available to current RUS borrowers that encounter the hardship
circumstances described in this notice.
Upon publication of this notice in the Federal Register and until
further notice, the RUS will, in hardship situations, consider new
requests for COOL financing in addition to its existing authorities and
programs. Infrastructure financing will continue to be the RUS Electric
Program's highest priority and COOL financing will only be made
available in hardship cases when funds are available and there is no
negative impact on RUS ability to meet the infrastructure financing
needs in the core RUS Electric Program.
Michele Brooks,
Acting Administrator, Rural Utilities Service.
[FR Doc. 2024-06719 Filed 3-28-24; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3410-15-P
