Agencies and Commissions October 2009 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Farm Credit Administration (FCA or Agency), through the FCA Board (Board), issued a direct final rule under part 604 on August 31, 2009 (74 FR 44727) amending FCA's regulations on meeting announcements to provide greater flexibility to the FCA Board in scheduling meetings. In accordance with 12 U.S.C. 2252, the effective date of the final rule is 30 days from the date of publication in the Federal Register during which either or both Houses of Congress are in session. Based on the records of the sessions of Congress, the effective date of the regulations is October 22, 2009.

This document corrects the file number in the preamble to a proposed rule regarding credit ratings disclosure published in the Federal Register of Thursday, October 15, 2009 (74 FR 53086). The file number should read as set forth above.

The NRC is soliciting public comment on its Proposed Interim Staff Guidance (ISG) ESP/DC/COL-ISG-015 (Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) Accession No. ML091671355). The purpose of this ISG is to modify and provide early site permit (ESP), design certification (DC) and combined license (COL) applicants additional clarity and guidance for the application of Section C.III.4 of Regulatory Guide (RG) 1.206. In addition, the ISG provides additional clarity to the guidance in NUREG-0800, Standard Review Plan Chapter 1.0, for NRC review of DC and COL applications. While reviewing DC and COL applications, the NRC staff determined that the guidance in Section C.III.4 of RG 1.206 on COL information items that cannot be resolved before the issuance of a license needed some additional clarification and guidance. In addition, it was determined that referring to this category of COL information items as ``COL Holder'' items is inappropriate. Specific guidance for determining which of the commitment types (i.e., inspection, test, analysis, and acceptance criteria, license condition, and final safety analysis report commitment) was the most appropriate for these COL information items was considered necessary, along with examples for clarification, for common understanding by applicants preparing their COL applications and NRC staff reviewing these COL applications. The NRC staff issues ISGs to facilitate timely implementation of current staff guidance and to facilitate activities associated with review of applications by the Office of New Reactors. The NRC staff also intends to incorporate the approved ESP/DC/COL-ISG-015 into the next revision of RG 1.206 and related guidance documents.

The Board is requesting comment on proposed guidance (the ``guidance'') designed to help ensure that incentive compensation policies at banking organizations do not encourage excessive risk- taking and are consistent with the safety and soundness of the organization. The Federal Reserve also is commencing two supervisory initiatives to spur progress by the banking industry in the development and implementation of sound incentive compensation arrangements, identify emerging best practices, and advance the state of practice more generally in the banking industry. The Federal Reserve expects all banking organizations to evaluate their incentive compensation arrangements and related risk management, control, and corporate

The Postal Service is filing with the Postal Regulatory Commission a notice of revisions to policies and procedures for determining postage adjustments for mailings of First-Class Mail[supreg] and Standard Mail[supreg] pieces that are determined to

5 U.S.C. 5702 authorizes the General Services Administration (GSA) to establish per diem allowances within the continental United States (CONUS) for the reimbursement for actual and necessary expenses of official travel. After a recent comprehensive meals and incidental expenses (M&IE) study, GSA is amending the Federal Travel Regulation in regards to the allocated meal costs. The new costs are broken out in the table Sec. 301-11.18 by continental breakfast/breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the use of travelers who have had a meal(s) furnished by the Government or included in the registration fee, and who then must deduct the meal(s) before submitting the voucher for reimbursement. GSA is also updating the incidental expense rate.

In this document, the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau (Bureau) extends for an additional year waivers of certain Telecommunications Relay Services (TRS) mandatory minimum standards for Video Relay Service (VRS) and Internet Protocol Relay (IP Relay). The waived TRS mandatory minimum standards are: One-line voice carry over (VCO); VCO-to-teletypewriter (TTY); VCO-to-VCO; one-line hearing carry over (HCO); HCO-to-TTY; HCO-to-HCO; call release; pay-per-call (900) calls; types of calls; equal access to interexchange carriers; and speech-to-speech (STS). Also, in this document, the Bureau grants a limited extension of the waiver of the speed dialing requirement for IP Relay. The Bureau extends the waivers for one year (four months in the case of speed dialing for IP Relay) because the record demonstrates that it is technologically infeasible for VRS and IP Relay providers to offer these services at this time.

The SBA is issuing this notice to announce the location, date, time, and agenda for the next meeting of the Audit and Financial Management Advisory Committee (AFMAC). The meeting will be open to the public.

Notice is hereby given that the U.S. International Trade Commission has determined to review in part the presiding administrative law judge's (``ALJ'') final initial determination (``ID'') issued on August 31, 2009, finding no violation of Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930 (19 U.S.C. 1337) in the above-captioned investigation. Specifically, the Commission has determined to review portions of the ALJ's claim construction and invalidity analysis, but to affirm the ALJ's determination of no violation, and has terminated the investigation.

Following receipt of a request on October 16, 2009 from the United States Trade Representative (USTR) under section 332(g) of the Tariff Act of 1930 (19 U.S.C. 1332 (g)), the U.S. International Trade Commission (Commission) instituted investigation No. 332-507, Advice Concerning Possible Modifications to the U.S. Generalized System of Preferences, 2009 Review of Additions and Removals.

The NRC has recently submitted to OMB for review the following proposal for the collection of information under the provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. Chapter 35). The NRC hereby informs potential respondents that an agency may not conduct or sponsor, and that a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number. The NRC published a Federal Register Notice with a 60-day comment period on this information collection on August 14, 2009.

The General Services Administration (GSA) is amending the General Services Administration Acquisition Regulation (GSAR) to update Part 532, Contract Financing, of the regulation. This project is part of the GSAM rewrite Project, in which all parts of the regulation are being reviewed and updated to include new statutes, legislation, and policies.

This proposed rule would implement section 1202 of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (HERA), which amended section 7(i) of the Federal Home Loan Bank Act (Bank Act) by repealing the statutory caps on the annual compensation that can be paid to Federal Home Loan Bank (Bank) directors. The proposed rule would allow each Bank to pay its directors reasonable compensation and expenses, subject to the authority of the Director (Director) of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) to object to, and to prohibit prospectively, compensation and/or expenses that the Director determines are not reasonable.