Agencies and Commissions November 2019 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

Pursuant to the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended (the Act), the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is publishing this regular biweekly notice. The Act requires the Commission to publish notice of any amendments issued, or proposed to be issued, and grants the Commission the authority to issue and make immediately effective any amendment to an operating license or combined license, as applicable, upon a determination by the Commission that such amendment involves no significant hazards consideration, notwithstanding the pendency before the Commission of a request for a hearing from any person. This biweekly notice includes all notices of amendments issued, or proposed to be issued, from October 22, 2019, to November 4, 2019. The last biweekly notice was published on November 5, 2019.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is amending its regulations to make miscellaneous corrections. These changes include removing obsolete language and correcting references, a typographical error, mailing, email, and web page addresses, grammatical errors, a division title, and a division address and title. This document is necessary to inform the public of these non-substantive amendments to the NRC's regulations.

On September 27, 2019, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) solicited comments on best practices for establishment and operation of local community advisory boards (CABs) associated with decommissioning activities, including lessons learned from existing boards, as required by the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act (NEIMA). The public comment period was originally scheduled to close on November 15, 2019. The NRC has elected to reopen the public comment period to allow more time for members of the public to develop and submit their comments. Consistent with the consultation requirements in NEIMA Section 108, the NRC has hosted 11 public meetings and a public webinar to consult with host States, communities within the emergency planning zone of an applicable nuclear power reactor, and existing local CABs. The NRC is planning to host a second public webinar on November 19, 2019. In addition to these public meetings and public webinars, the NRC has developed a questionnaire to collect information regarding the areas identified in NEIMA with respect to the creation and operation of CABs from CABs in the vicinity of power reactors undergoing decommissioning, similar established stakeholder groups, or local government organizations. The results of the meetings, along with any other data received as a result of the NRC's information collection activities associated with the NEIMA Section 108, will be captured in a best practices report that will be submitted to Congress.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has submitted the following information collection requirement to OMB for review and clearance under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. NSF is forwarding the proposed renewal submission to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for clearance simultaneously with the publication of this second notice. The full submission may be found at: https://www.reginfo.gov/ public/do/PRAMain.

Notice is hereby given that the U.S. International Trade Commission has issued a general exclusion order (``GEO'') denying entry of certain water filters and components thereof as well as two cease and desist orders (``CDOs''). The investigation is terminated.

We propose to revise our regulations regarding when and how often we conduct continuing disability reviews (CDR), which are periodic reviews of eligibility required for benefit continuation. The proposed rules would add a category to the existing medical diary categories that we use to schedule CDRs and revise the criteria for assigning each of the medical diary categories to cases. The proposed rules would also change the frequency with which we perform a CDR for claims with the medical diary category for permanent impairments. The revised changes would ensure that we continue to maintain appropriate stewardship of the disability program and identify medical improvement (MI) at its earliest point.

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) intends to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to address the potential environmental effects associated with the future management of coal combustion residuals (CCR) material at the Johnsonville Fossil Plant (JOF) located in Humphreys County, Tennessee. The purpose of this EIS is to address the disposition of Ash Pond 2 at JOF, to support the implementation of TVA's goal to eliminate all wet CCR storage at its coal plants by closing CCR surface impoundments across the TVA system, and to assist TVA in complying with the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) CCR Rule and other applicable federal and state statutes and regulations. TVA will evaluate the closure of JOF Ash Pond 2 and will develop and evaluate various alternatives for closure including the No Action Alternative. One alternative identified by TVA is Closure-in-Place of Ash Pond 2. Another alternative is Closure-by- Removal of Ash Pond 2. TVA is considering four options for disposal of the CCR removed from Ash Pond 2, including transport and disposal of CCR in an existing offsite permitted landfill, transport and disposal of CCR to a new onsite landfill, transport and disposal of CCR to both an existing offsite permitted landfill and a new onsite landfill, and transport of CCR to a beneficial re-use processing facility to be processed for use in concrete and other building materials with any unusable CCR and excavated soil material going to an existing offsite or new onsite permitted landfill. TVA has identified a potential location for a new onsite landfill. TVA has not selected a potential offsite landfill for disposal of CCR from JOF, and no specific provider of the beneficiation services or specific site at which a beneficial re-use processing facility would be constructed has been developed at this time. Therefore, impacts of these options for CCR disposal would be based on the most impactful or ``bounding'' characteristics of CCR transport to suitable existing landfills or to a beneficial re-use processing facility. Similarly, the potential effects of construction and operation of the beneficial re- use processing facility will be evaluated using `bounding'' attributes obtained from candidate beneficiation vendors. Public comments are invited concerning both the scope of the review and environmental issues that should be addressed. No decisions have been made about the final disposition of CCR storage at COF Ash Pond 2.

Under the provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act, the Regulatory Secretariat Division will be submitting to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) a request to review and approve an existing information collection requirement regarding OMB Control No: 3090-0310; Nondiscrimination in Federal Financial Assistance Programs, GSA 3702. This information is needed to facilitate nondiscrimination in GSA's Federal Financial Assistance Programs, consistent with Federal civil rights laws and regulations that apply to recipients of Federal financial assistance.

As required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announces that the CPSC has submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) a request for extension of approval of a collection of information under the requirements pertaining to the third party conformity assessment bodies registration form, approved previously under (OMB No. 3041-0143). In the Federal Register of September 6, 2019, the CPSC published a notice announcing the agency's intent to seek extension of approval of the collection of information. The Commission received no comments. Therefore, by publication of this notice, the CPSC announces that the agency has submitted to the OMB a request for extension of approval of that collection of information, without change.

This direct final rule contains amendments to the regulations governing the HUBZone Program. The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) is making changes to its regulations to implement provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 which authorized the inclusion of ``Governor-designated covered areas'' under the HUBZone program. This direct final rule would merely replicate these statutory changes into SBA's regulations.