Department of Commerce April 14, 2005 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Council) will hold a meeting of its Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) and SSC Biological Subcommittee and Socio-economic Subcommittee in Charleston, SC.

The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) is publishing this final rule to amend the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) by increasing the country scope of chemical/biological (CB) controls on those Commerce Control List (CCL) entries that contain chemical/ biological equipment and related technology included on the Australia Group (AG) Common Control Lists. Specifically, this final rule expands the country scope of the CB license requirements for these CCL entries from certain countries of concern for chemical/biological weapons reasons to all destinations, worldwide, except for those countries that participate in the Australia Group (AG). These changes are intended to make the EAR license requirements that apply to chemical/biological equipment and related technology identified on the AG Common Control Lists consistent with the AG ``Guidelines for Transfers of Sensitive Chemical or Biological Items.'' In addition, this rule amends certain end-user and end-use based controls in the EAR by expanding these controls to include transfers (in-country), as well as exports and reexports. Specifically, this final rule expands the EAR restrictions on certain chemical and biological weapons end-uses to apply to exports, reexports, and transfers of items subject to the EAR to or within any country or destination, worldwide. Prior to the publication of this rule, such restrictions applied only to exports and reexports. Finally, this rule amends the EAR by expanding the country scope of the restrictions on certain activities of U.S. persons to include activities in support of the design, development, production, stockpiling, or use of chemical or biological weapons in or by any country or destination, worldwide. This change makes the country scope of these U.S. person controls consistent with the country scope of the chemical and biological weapons end-user/end-use controls in Section 744.4 of the EAR, as described above.

NMFS proposes 2005 fishing year (FY) Total Allowable Catches (TACs) for Georges Bank (GB) cod, haddock, and yellowtail flounder in the U.S./Canada Management Area, and provides notice that these TACs may be adjusted during FY 2005, if NMFS determines that the harvest of these stocks in FY 2004 exceeded the TACs specified for FY 2004. The intent of this action is to provide for the conservation and management of those three stocks of fish.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will host, in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), a public meeting from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on May 13, 2005 at the NIST campus in Gaithersburg, MD. This meeting pertains to a new DHS Program to develop comprehensive standards related to the development, testing, and certification of effective technologies for Urban Search and Rescue (US&R) robotics. These US&R robotic performance standards cover sensing, mobility, navigation, planning, integration, and operator control in order to ensure that the robots can meet operational requirements under the extremely challenging conditions that rescuers are faced with, including long endurance missions. The standards will also address issues of robotic component interoperability to reduce costs. The US&R robotic standards effort focuses on fostering collaboration between first responders, robot vendors, and technology developers to advance consensus standards for task specific robot capabilities and interoperability of components. These standards will allow DHS to provide guidance to local, state, and federal homeland security entities regarding the purchase, deployment and use of US&R robotic systems. The meeting is intended as a method of disseminating information pertaining to this newly initiated program. Attendees at the May 13 forum are expected to include: robot platform vendors, robot peripherals and software providers, sensor (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, environmental) providers, researchers working on robotic components, platforms, and algorithms, government agencies working on applicable robotic technologies and sensors, federal, state, and local responders and response agencies, and testing and evaluation sites and laboratories. There will be an $80 charge for this meeting and pre-registration is required. An electronic registration site will be available at https://www.isd.mel.nist.gov/ US&RRobotStandards.

The Department of Commerce, as part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork and respondent burden, invites the general public and other Federal agencies to take this opportunity to comment on proposed and/or continuing information collections, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995.