Department of Agriculture September 18, 2014 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

We are amending the regulations concerning the importation of fruits and vegetables to allow the importation of mangoes from Jamaica into the continental United States. As a condition of entry, the mangoes must be produced in accordance with a systems approach employing a combination of mitigation measures for certain fruit flies, soft scale insects, and diseases and must be inspected prior to exportation from Jamaica and found free of these pests and diseases. The mangoes must be imported in commercial consignments only and be treated to mitigate the risk of fruit flies. The mangoes must also be accompanied by a phytosanitary certificate. This action will allow the importation of mangoes from Jamaica while continuing to protect against the introduction of plant pests into the United States.

As directed by the National Forest Management Act (NFMA), the U.S. Forest Service is preparing the El Yunque National Forest's revised land management plan (forest plan) and will also prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for this revised forest plan. This notice briefly describes the nature of the decision to be made, a proposed action based on the preliminary identified need to change the existing plan, and information concerning public participation. It also provides estimated dates for filing the EIS and the name and address of the responsible agency official and the individuals who can provide additional information. Finally, this notice identifies the applicable planning rule that will be used for completing this plan revision. The revised forest plan will supersede the existing forest plan that was approved by the Regional Forester in April 1997. The existing forest plan will remain in effect until the revised forest plan takes effect.

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 this notice announces the intention of the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) to request revision and extension of a currently approved information collection, the Agricultural Labor Survey. Revision to burden hours will be needed due to changes in the size of the target population, sampling design, and/or questionnaire length.

Rural Development (RD) is amending the regulations so that an obligation date for all guaranteed loans, direct loans, and grants will no longer be 6 working days from the date of request for reservation of authority. This action is necessary as the 6-day reservation period will be permanently removed from the Commercial Loan Servicing System (CLSS), Guaranteed Loan System (GLS), and Program Loan Accounting System (PLAS). The effect of this action will reduce system or manual intervention when legislative mandates direct cutoff for obligations and/or funding; eliminate program waivers on obligation date; increase consistency with other RD programs; reduce risks with new system implementations, such as the Financial Modernization Management Initiative; and eliminate numerous reconciliation issues between processed obligations and actual obligations for internal RD reports and USDA reporting requirements.