Agencies and Commissions January 3, 2012 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

On November 7, 2011, the OCC, Board, FDIC, and SEC (collectively, the ``Agencies'') published in the Federal Register a joint notice of proposed rulemaking for public comment to implement section 619 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (``Dodd-Frank Act'') which contains certain prohibitions and restrictions on the ability of a banking entity and nonbank financial company supervised by the Board to engage in proprietary trading and have certain interests in, or relationships with, a hedge fund or private equity fund (``proposed rule''). Due to the complexity of the issues involved and to facilitate coordination of the rulemaking among the responsible agencies as provided in section 619 of the Dodd-Frank Act, the Agencies have determined that an extension of the comment period until February 13, 2012 is appropriate. This action will allow interested persons additional time to analyze the proposed rules and prepare their comments.

This document is issued under the joint authority of DOD, GSA, and NASA. This Small Entity Compliance Guide has been prepared in accordance with section 212 of the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996. It consists of a summary of the rule appearing in Federal Acquisition Circular (FAC) 2005-55, which amends the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR). Interested parties may obtain further information regarding this rule by referring to FAC 2005-55, which precedes this document. These documents are also available via the Internet at https://www.regulations.gov.

DoD, GSA, and NASA are issuing a final rule amending the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to update references to authoritative accounting standards owing to the Financial Accounting Standards Board's Accounting Standards Codification of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.

DoD, GSA, and NASA are issuing a final rule amending the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to implement Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommendations to: ensure that time-and- materials and labor-hour contracts are used to acquire commercial services only when no other contract type is suitable; and instill discipline in the determination of contract type with a view toward managing the risk to the Government.

DoD, GSA, and NASA are issuing a final rule amending the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to update certain definitions and clauses pertaining to three procurement systems included in the Integrated Acquisition Environmentthe Central Contractor Registration database, the Excluded Parties List System, and the Online Representations and Certifications Application. These three Integrated Acquisition Environment systems and the Disaster Response Registry will now be accessed through a single Web site.

This document summarizes the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) rules agreed to by DoD, GSA, and NASA in this Federal Acquisition Circular (FAC) 2005-55. A companion document, the Small Entity Compliance Guide (SECG), follows this FAC. The FAC, including the SECG, is available via the Internet at https://www.regulations.gov.