Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service August 2008 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES) is soliciting stakeholder input on the implementation of the Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program (VMLRP), which is authorized under section 1415A of the National Agricultural Research, Extension, and Teaching Policy Act of 1977 (7 U.S.C. 3151a). The purpose of this program is for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to enter into agreements with veterinarians under which the veterinarians agree to provide, for a specific period of time as identified in the agreement, veterinary services in veterinarian shortage situations. As part of the stakeholder input process, CSREES is conducting a public meeting to solicit comments regarding the implementing regulations to be developed for this program.

The Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES) is publishing one set of administrative requirements that contain elements common to all of the competitive and noncompetitive non-formula grant programs the Agency administers as an interim rule. Although this interim rule becomes effective on the date of publication, CSREES is requesting comments for a 60-day period as identified below. In a relatively short period of time, this will allow CSREES to apply basic rules to grant programs that are currently operating without them, including new non-formula grant programs created by the passage of the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (FCEA) (Pub. L. 110-234) and to efficiently implement changes to programs with existing regulations as required by FCEA. The provisions in subparts A through E will serve as a single Agency resource codifying current practices simply and coherently for almost all CSREES competitive and noncompetitive non-formula grant programs except the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program. As specific rules are developed for each CSREES grant program, CSREES will propose adding a subpart for that Federal assistance program to this regulation. This interim rule is being published with a first set of program-specific grant regulations as subpart F for the Specialty Research Crop Initiative, authorized under section 7311 of FCEA.