Department of Agriculture December 5, 2008 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This notice constitutes an open call to the public to submit nomination applications for the following positions on the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument Advisory Committee:

The Rural Business-Cooperative Service (RBS) announces the availability of approximately $230,000 in funds for fiscal year (FY) 2009 for cooperative agreements to develop and implement pilot programs aimed at: (1) Preventing and alleviating the problems facing African Americans in rural areas that are involved with real estate with clouded title due to unresolved interests of generations of heirs (otherwise known as ``heir properties''); (2) establishing an outreach/ educational program that will assist farmers and homeowners with heir property issues in expanding ownership; and (3) enabling farming heir property owners to develop economically viable agricultural operations and accrue homeownership. The Agency proposes to enter into a maximum of four cooperative agreements with private non-profit community based organizations (CBO) to assist them in the development of proposals to be presented to the Agency that meet the purposes described above. The maximum amount of each of these initial agreements is $20,000. After Agency review of the proposals, the Agency may offer no more than two CBOs initially awarded cooperative agreements a subsequent cooperative agreement to implement the proposals the CBOs developed. The maximum amount of each of these subsequent agreements is $75,000.

This notice sets forth the schedule and proposed agenda of a forthcoming teleconference meeting of the Plant Variety Protection Board. Notice of this meeting is required under section 10(a)(2) of the Federal Advisory Committee Act. This document is intended to notify the general public of their opportunity to attend the meeting.

This rule revises the administrative rules and regulations governing nominations for the California Walnut Board (Board). The Board locally administers the marketing order that regulates the handling of walnuts grown in California (order). This rule removes references to independent handlers, revises specifications under which groups of growers may submit nominations for certain grower positions on the Board, and corrects numerical references to other sections of the order. This change is needed to bring the administrative rules and regulations into conformance with recently enacted amendments to the order concerning Board structure and nomination procedures.