Agencies and Commissions January 8, 2018 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

In accordance with the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) of 1995, the OCC, the Board, and the FDIC (the ``agencies'') may not conduct or sponsor, and the respondent is not required to respond to, an information collection unless it displays a currently valid Office of Management and Budget (OMB) control number. On June 27, 2017, the agencies, under the auspices of the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC), requested public comment for 60 days on a proposal to revise the Consolidated Reports of Condition and Income for a Bank with Domestic and Foreign Offices (FFIEC 031), the Consolidated Reports of Condition and Income for a Bank with Domestic Offices Only (FFIEC 041), and the Consolidated Reports of Condition and Income for a Bank with Domestic Offices Only and Total Assets Less than $1 Billion (FFIEC 051), which are currently approved collections of information. The Consolidated Reports of Condition and Income are commonly referred to as the Call Report. The proposed revisions to the FFIEC 031, FFIEC 041, and FFIEC 051 Call Reports would result in an overall reduction in burden. The comment period for the June 2017 notice ended on August 28, 2017. As described in the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section, after considering the comments received on the proposal, the FFIEC and the agencies will proceed with the proposed reporting revisions to the FFIEC 031, FFIEC 041, and FFIEC 051. These reporting revisions relate to the deletion or consolidation of a large number of items, the raising of certain reporting thresholds, and a reduction in reporting frequency for a number of items. For small institutions filing the FFIEC 051 report, these changes affect approximately seven percent of the data items collected. The agencies will also proceed with the scope revision to the FFIEC 031 and FFIEC 041 reports to require all institutions with consolidated total assets of $100 billion or more, regardless of whether an institution has any foreign offices, to file the FFIEC 031. However, the agencies will delay the effective date of these reporting revisions and scope revision until the June 30, 2018, report date, rather than implementing them as of the March 31, 2018, report date, as originally proposed. In addition, the agencies will proceed with the revisions to address the changes in the accounting for equity investments, with some modifications to the proposal in response to comments received. The effective date for these revisions would be the March 31, 2018, report date, as originally proposed, to coincide with the first reporting period in which the accounting changes will be adopted under U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) by certain reporting institutions. Finally, because of concerns raised by commenters regarding the proposed revisions to the definition of ``past due'' assets for regulatory reporting purposes, the agencies are giving further consideration to this proposal, including its effect on and relationship to other regulatory reporting requirements, and are not proceeding with this proposed revision at this time. The agencies are giving notice that they have sent the collection to OMB for review.

Notice is hereby given that a complaint was filed with the U.S. International Trade Commission on November 30, 2017, under section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended, on behalf of Qualcomm Incorporated of San Diego, California. The complaint alleges violations of section 337 based upon the importation into the United States, the sale for importation, and the sale within the United States after importation of certain mobile electronic devices and radio frequency and processing components thereof by reason of infringement of certain claims of U.S. Patent No. 9,154,356 (``the '356 patent''); U.S. Patent No. 9,473,336 (``the '336 patent''); U.S. Patent No. 8,063,674 (``the '674 patent''); U.S. Patent No. 7,693,002 (``the '002 patent''); and U.S. Patent No. 9,552,633 (``the '633 patent''). The complaint further alleges that an industry in the United States exists as required by the applicable Federal Statute. The complainant requests that the Commission institute an investigation and, after the investigation, issue a limited exclusion order and a cease and desist order.

In this document, the Commission invites comment on proposed changes to its rules. The Commission proposes rules regarding mechanisms to ensure that erroneously blocked calls can be unblocked as quickly as possible and without undue harm to callers and consumers. It also seeks comment on ways to measure the effectiveness of the Commission's robocalling efforts, as well as those of industry.

The Postal Service has filed an Annual Compliance Report on the costs, revenues, rates, and quality of service associated with its products in fiscal year 2017. Within 90 days, the Commission must evaluate that information and issue its determination as to whether rates were in compliance, and whether service standards in effect were met. To assist in this, the Commission seeks public comments on the Postal Service's Annual Compliance Report.

The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Board) published a final rule in the Federal Register on October 11, 2013, regarding Regulatory Capital Rules. This publication corrects a typographical error in those rules whereby a transition provision was unintentionally deleted. The Board also published inconsistent amendments to Regulation Q in final rules published in the Federal Register on May 1, 2014, and August 14, 2015, that pertain to firms identified as global systemically important bank holding companies (GSIBs). This publication resolves these inconsistencies.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is granting an exemption to allow a departure from the Design Certification Rule for AP1000 Design Control Document (DCD). The Tier 1 information for which a plant-specific departure and exemption is being requested includes a change to the thickness of one floor in the auxiliary building located between Column Lines I to J-1 and Column Lines 2 to 4 at elevation 153'-0''. The NRC is issuing License Amendment Nos. 89 and 88 to Combined Licenses (COL), NPF-91 and NPF-92. The COLs were issued to Southern Nuclear Operating Company, Inc., and Georgia Power Company, Oglethorpe Power Corporation, MEAG Power SPVM, LLC, MEAG Power SPVJ, LLC, MEAG Power SPVP, LLC, Authority of Georgia, and the City of Dalton, Georgia (the licensee); for construction and operation of the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant (VEGP) Units 3 and 4, located in Burke County, Georgia. The granting of the exemption allows the changes to Tier 1 information asked for in the amendment. Because the acceptability of the exemption was determined in part by the acceptability of the amendment, the exemption and amendment are being issued concurrently.

In this document, an Order on Reconsideration repeals and modifies several of the Commission's broadcast ownership rules. Specifically, this document repeals the Newspaper/Broadcast Cross- Ownership Rule, the Radio/Television Cross-Ownership Rule, and the attribution rule for television joint sales agreements. This document also revises the Local Television Ownership Rule to eliminate the Eight-Voices Test and to modify the Top-Four Prohibition to better reflect the competitive conditions in local markets. This document provides a favorable presumption for waiver of the Local Radio Ownership Rule's market definitions as to transactions in certain embedded markets. Lastly, this document rejects requests to change the definition of Shared Service Agreements (SSAs) and the requirement that commercial television stations disclose SSAs by placing the agreements in each station's online public inspection file. In addition, the document finds that the record supports adoption of an incubator program to promote ownership diversity. The Order on Reconsideration grants in part and denies in part the Petitions for Reconsideration filed separately by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. (Nexstar), and Connoisseur Media LLC (Connoisseur).

The FDIC seeks to update its Statement of Policy (SOP), which is issued pursuant to Section 19 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act (FDI Act) (Section 19). Section 19 prohibits, without the prior written consent of the FDIC, any person from participating in banking who has been convicted of a crime of dishonesty or breach of trust or money laundering, or who has entered a pretrial diversion or similar program in connection with the prosecution for such an offense. Based upon its experience with the application of the SOP since 1998, the FDIC is now proposing to revise and issue an updated SOP and rescind the current SOP, and is seeking comments on the proposed revisions by issuing this Federal Register Notice. Notably, in addition to minor format and technical changes, as well as clarifying changes, the FDIC is proposing to expand its current de minimis exception to encompass insufficient funds checks of aggregate moderate value; small dollar, simple theft; and isolated, minor offenses committed by young adults. These carefully measured changes are intended to reduce regulatory burden by decreasing the number of covered offenses that will require an application, while ensuring that insured institutions are not subject to risk by convicted persons.