Department of Agriculture November 2017 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This interim final rule extends through school year 2018-2019 three menu planning flexibilities currently available to many Child Nutrition Program operators, giving them near-term certainty about Program requirements and more local control to serve nutritious and appealing meals to millions of children nationwide. These flexibilities include: Providing operators the option to offer flavored, low-fat (1 percent fat) milk in the Child Nutrition Programs; extending the State agencies' option to allow individual school food authorities to include grains that are not whole grain-rich in the weekly menu offered under the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and School Breakfast Program (SBP); and retaining Sodium Target 1 in the NSLP and SBP. This interim final rule addresses significant challenges faced by local operators regarding milk, whole grains and sodium requirements and their impact on food development and reformulation, menu planning, and school food service procurement and contract decisions. The comments from the public on the long-term availability of these three flexibilities will help inform the development of a final rule, which is expected to be published in fall 2018 and implemented in school year 2019-2020.

The Department of Agriculture (USDA) is adopting, as a final rule, without change, an interim rule that implemented a recommendation from the California Walnut Board (Board) to decrease the assessment rate established for the 2017-18 and subsequent marketing years from $0.0465 to $0.0400 per kernelweight pound of assessable walnuts. The Board is comprised of growers and handlers of walnuts and locally administers the Marketing Order that regulates the handling of walnuts grown in California. The Board also has a public member who has no financial interest in walnut production or handling.

This notice announces the members of the Senior Executive Service (SES) and Senior Level (SL) and Scientific or Professional (ST) Performance Review Board. Agriculture has one PRB that is represented by each Mission Area. The PRB is comprised of a Chairperson and a mix of career and noncareer senior executives that meets annually to review and evaluate performance appraisal documents and provides a written recommendation to the Secretary for final approval of each executive's performance rating, performance-based pay adjustment, and performance award.

The Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC) amends the Catastrophic Risk Protection Endorsement, the Area Risk Protection Insurance Basic Provisions, and the Common Crop Insurance Policy Basic Provisions to revise and clarify policy provisions and reduce burden on producers choosing to insure their crops. The changes to the policy made in this rule are applicable for the 2018 and succeeding crop years for all crops with a 2018 contract change date on or after the effective date of the rule, and for the 2019 and succeeding crop years for all crops with a 2018 contract change date prior to the effective date of the rule.

This rule implements a recommendation from the Citrus Administrative Committee (Committee) to relax the minimum size requirements currently prescribed for grapefruit under the marketing order for oranges, grapefruit, tangerines, and pummelos grown in Florida (Order). The Committee locally administers the Order and is comprised of producers and handlers operating within the production area and one public member. This rule relaxes the minimum size requirement for grapefruit from 3\5/16\ inches in diameter to 3 inches in diameter. This rule will maximize shipments by allowing more grapefruit to be shipped to the fresh market and will help reduce the losses sustained by the grapefruit industry during the September 2017 hurricane in Florida. The corresponding change in the grapefruit import regulation is required under section 8e of the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937.

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, the Forest Service is seeking comments from all interested individuals and organizations on the new collection of information request, Management of Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros.

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, the Forest Service is seeking comments from all interested individuals and organizations on the extension of a currently approved information collection; Financial Information Security Request Form (0596-0204).

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) regulations, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is announcing its intention to collect information from focus groups on consumer food safety knowledge, attitudes, and practices and to elicit consumer responses to FSIS food safety messages and determine their impact on consumer food safety knowledge and behavior.

The Rural Utilities Service (RUS), an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), is announcing funding availability and is soliciting letters of intent for loan applications under the Rural Energy Savings Program (RESP), announcing the application process for those loans and deadlines for applications from eligible entities. These loans are made available under the authority of Section 6407 of the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002, as amended, (Section 6407) and the Title III, Section 769 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2017. This notice describes the eligibility requirements, the application process and deadlines, the criteria that will be used by RUS to assess Applicants' creditworthiness, and how to obtain application materials.

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, this notice announces a public comment period on the information collection requests (ICRs) associated with the Standard Reinsurance Agreement and Appendices I, II and IV administered by Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC). Appendix III is excluded because it contains the Data Acceptance System requirements.

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, the Farm Service Agency (FSA) is requesting comments from all interested individuals and organizations on an extension of a currently approved information collection associated with the Volunteer Program.

The United States Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) is delaying the effective date of the Organic Livestock and Poultry Practices final rule published in the Federal Register on January 19, 2017 (OLPP final rule), until May 14, 2018.

The National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) withdraws the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (RIN 0524-AA25) published on April 29, 2003. In addition, NIFA proposes to revise its regulations for the purpose of implementing the statutory amendments applicable to the matching requirements for Federal agricultural research and extension capacity (formula) funds for 1890 land-grant institutions (LGUs), including Central State University, Tuskegee University, and West Virginia State University, and 1862 land-grant institutions in insular areas, and to remove the term ``qualifying educational activities.'' These matching requirements were amended by the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act; the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008; and the Agricultural Act of 2014.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) is publishing this notice on behalf of the Carbon Cycle Interagency Working Group (CCIWG)/U.S. Carbon Cycle Science Program and the United States Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) to announce the availability of a draft assessment, the 2nd State of the Carbon Cycle Science Report (SOCCR-2), for a 60-day public review. Collected comments will be carefully reviewed by the relevant chapter author teams. Following revision and further review, a revised draft will undergo final Federal interagency clearance.

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, this notice announces the intention of the above-named Agencies to request an extension for the currently approved information collection in support of the servicing of Community and Direct Business Programs Loans and Grants.

We are withdrawing a proposed rule that would have revised our regulations regarding the importation, interstate movement, and environmental release of certain genetically engineered organisms. We are taking this action after considering the comments we received following the publication of the proposed rule.

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 this notice announces the intention of the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) to seek approval to conduct a new information collection to gather data related to water usage for North Carolina agricultural operations that likely use between 10,000 and 1,000,000 gallons per day.

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, this notice announces the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service's intention to request a revision to and extension of approval of an information collection associated with the regulations for the importation of fresh bananas from the Philippines into Hawaii and U.S. Territories.

On September 5, 2017, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service published a direct final rule. The direct final rule notified the public of our intention to amend the black stem rust quarantine and regulations by adding 15 varieties to the list of rust-resistant Berberis species and varieties and 2 varieties to the list of rust- resistant Mahonia species and varieties. We received two comments, which are addressed in this document.

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, this notice invites the general public and other public agencies to comment on this proposed information collection. This is a new collection for facilitating a communication network among CACFP organizations and USDA Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) Child Nutrition Programs, as well as between schools participating in the National School Breakfast Program and National School Lunch programs, both via the Team Nutrition initiative.