Department of Agriculture February 2015 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Tongass Advisory Committee (Committee) will meet in Juneau, Alaska. The Committee is established consistent with the Federal Advisory Committee Act of 1972 (5 U.S.C. App. 2). Committee recommendations and advice may directly inform the development of a proposed action for modification of the 2008 Tongass Land Management Plan. The meeting is open to the public. Additional information concerning the Committee, including the meeting summary/minutes, can be found by visiting the Committee's Web site at: https://www.fs.usda.gov/ goto/R10/Tongass/TAC.

This notice announces the availability of funds and solicits applications from eligible institutions to compete for financial assistance in the form of a grant to establish a Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers Policy Research Center (The Center) at an 1890 Institution (as defined in 7 U.S.C. 7601).

The Rural Utilities Service (RUS) announces its Household Water Well System Grant Program (HWWS) application window for Fiscal Year (FY) 2015. RUS will make grants to qualified private non-profit organizations to establish lending programs for homeowners to borrow up to $11,000 to construct or repair household water wells for an existing home. The HWWS Grant Program is authorized under 7 U.S.C. 1926e. Regulations may be found at 7 CFR part 1776. Of particular note this year, the RUS will assign administrative discretion points to applications that: 1. Direct loans to rural areas where according to the American Community Survey data by census tracts show that at least 20 percent of the population is living in poverty. This emphasis will support Rural Development's goal of providing 20 percent of its funding by 2016 to these areas of need. 2. Direct loans to areas which lack running water, flush toilets, and modern sewage disposal systems, and areas which have open sewers and high rates of disease caused by poor sanitation, in particular, colonias or Substantially Underserved Trust Areas. 3. Direct loans to areas stricken by drought. RUS will publish on its Web site at https://www.rurdev.usda.gov/UWP- individualwellsystems.htm the amount of funding received in the final FY2015 Appropriations Act. Successful applications will be selected by the Agency for funding and subsequently awarded to the extent that funding may ultimately be made available to the Agency through appropriations.

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, this notice announces the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service's intention to request an extension of approval of an information collection associated with the interstate movement of regulated nursery stock from quarantined areas to prevent the spread of citrus canker, citrus greening, and Asian citrus psyllid.

We are advising the public that proposed changes to the National Poultry Improvement Plan Program Standards are available for review and comment.

The Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 amended the Lacey Act to provide, among other things, that importers submit a declaration at the time of importation for certain plants and plant products. Enforcement of the declaration requirement began on April 1, 2009, and products requiring a declaration are being phased-in. The purpose of this notice is to inform the public of another phase of the Federal Government's enforcement schedule.

This document contains technical corrections to the USDA organic regulations (7 CFR part 205) which were published in the Federal Register on December 21, 2000. The correcting amendments are minor, mostly typographical amendments which do not change, or alter the interpretation, of any provision within the USDA organic regulations.

This notice lists the newspapers that Ranger Districts, Forests, and the Regional Office of the Alaska Region will use to publish legal notices of the opportunity to object to proposed projects and activities implementing land and resource management plans, including hazardous fuel reduction projects authorized under the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003. The intended effect of this action is to inform interested members of the public which newspapers will be used to publish legal notice of actions subject to the pre- decisional administrative review process at 36 CFR 218, thereby allowing them to receive constructive notice of the proposed actions, to provide clear evidence of timely notice, and to achieve consistency in administering the pre-decisional review process.

This rule updates the list of institutions that are granted HSACU certification by the Secretary and are eligible for HSACU programs for the period starting October 1, 2014, and ending September 30, 2015.

Notice is hereby given of the intention of NRCS to issue a new conservation practice standard in the National Handbook of Conservation Practices. This standard is High Tunnel System (Code 325). NRCS State Conservationists who choose to adopt this practice for use within their States will incorporate it into section IV of their respective electronic Field Office Technical Guide. This practice may be used in conservation systems that treat highly erodible land (HEL) or on land determined to be a wetland. Section 343 of the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 requires NRCS to make available for public review and comment all proposed revisions to conservation practice standards used to carry out HEL and wetland provisions of the law.

We are advising the public that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is holding a 2-day, invitation-only workshop on agricultural coexistence, the concurrent cultivation of conventional, organic, identity-preserved, and genetically engineered crops consistent with farmer choices and consumer preferences. The objective of the workshop is to advance an understanding of agricultural coexistence and discuss how to make coexistence achievable and a basic consideration for all stakeholders. Workshop participants will represent a broad range of interests and experience relating to agricultural coexistence. The public is invited to listen to or watch the workshop sessions via phone and/or Webcast, after which they will have the opportunity to provide comments on the proposals discussed.

In a final rule published in the Federal Register on April 1, 2005, and effective on April 1, 2005, we amended the regulations concerning overtime services provided by employees of the Agency's Plant Protection and Quarantine and Veterinary Services programs by adding or amending commuted traveltime allowances for travel between certain locations in Texas, New Mexico, and Mexico. In the final rule, two commuted traveltime allowances that should have appeared in the ``within the metropolitan area'' column were erroneously printed in the ``outside the metropolitan area'' column. This document corrects those errors.

We are advising the public that we determined that the Republic of Croatia is free of foot-and-mouth disease, swine vesicular disease, and rinderpest and is low risk for classical swine fever. We are making our determinations, as well as an evaluation we have prepared in connection with this action, available for review and comment.