Department of Commerce December 19, 2016 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council will hold a one and a half day meeting of its Standing, Reef Fish, Coastal Migratory Pelagics (CMP) and Socioeconomics Scientific and Statistical Committees (SSC).

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.

In March 2016, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and ASTM International announced a new international standard that can ``map'' the critically important environmental aspects of manufacturing processes, leading to significant improvements in sustainability while keeping a product's life cycle low cost and efficient. Sustainability for manufacturing is beginning to be addressed through the recently approved ASTM Standard Guide for Characterizing Environmental Aspects of Manufacturing Processes (ASTM E60.13 E3012-16). The standard provides a science-based, systematic approach to capture and describe information about the environmental aspects for any manufacturing production process or group of processes, and then use that data to make informed decisions on improvements. NIST is announcing the Reusable Abstractions of Manufacturing Processes (RAMP) Challenge, with support from ASTM International, the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference (MSEC) Organizing Committee, to familiarize the community with a recent standard for modeling manufacturing processes that was developed under the ASTM's E60.13 Subcommittee on Sustainable Manufacturing. The RAMP Challenge calls on participants (either as an individual or as a team) to model any manufacturing process and demonstrate application of the ASTM E3012-16 Unit Manufacturing Process (UMP) representation for purposes of information sharing and sustainability assessment. The RAMP Challenge will provide an opportunity for participants to put this standard into practice in modeling a process of their own interest, and to share experiences in applying the standard across a variety of processes. Formal methods for acquiring and exchanging information about manufacturing processes will lead to consistent characterizations and help establish a collection for reuse of these models. Standard methods will ensure effective communication of computational analytics and sharing of sustainability performance data. Results of the competition will assist in demonstrating the use of a reusable standard format leading to models suitable for automated inclusion in a system analysis, such as a system simulation model or an optimization program.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) invites organizations to provide products and technical expertise to support and demonstrate security platforms for the Multifactor Authentication for e-Commerce Project for the retail sector. This notice is the initial step for the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) in collaborating with technology companies to address cybersecurity challenges identified under the retail sector program. Participation in the Multifactor Authentication for e-Commerce Project is open to all interested organizations.

On November 3, 2016, the Department of Commerce (the ``Department'') published its notice of initiation and preliminary results of a changed circumstances review of the antidumping duty (``AD'') order on crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells, whether or not assembled into modules (``solar cells''), from the People's Republic of China (``PRC'') (Preliminary Results). The Department preliminarily determined that Zhejiang ERA Solar Technology Co., Ltd. (``Zhejiang ERA'') is the successor-in-interest to Era Solar Co., Ltd. (``Era Solar'') for purposes of the AD order on solar cells from the PRC and, as such, is entitled to Era Solar's antidumping duty cash deposit rate with respect to entries of subject merchandise. We invited interested parties to comment on the Preliminary Results. As no parties submitted comments, and there is no other information or evidence on the record calling into question our Preliminary Results, the Department is making no changes to the Preliminary Results. For these final results, the Department continues to find that Zhejiang ERA is the successor-in-interest to Era Solar.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council's (Council) Ad Hoc Ecosystem Workgroup (EWG) will hold a webinar, which is open to the public.

Notice is hereby given that permits have been issued to the following entities: Permit No. 19225: James D. Darling, Ph.D., Whale Trust, P.O. Box 384, Tofino, BC V0R2Z0 Canada; Permit No. 19257: Ann M. Zoidis, Director, Cetos Research Organization, 11 Des Isle Avenue, Bar Harbor, ME 04609; Permit No. 19315: Center for Coastal Studies, Right Whale Ecology Program, 5 Holway Avenue, P.O. Box 1036, Provincetown, MA 02657 [Responsible Party: Richard Delaney]; Permit No. 19674: Scott Kraus, Ph.D., New England Aquarium, Edgerton Research Lab, Central Wharf, Boston MA 02110; and Permit No. 20599: NMFS Southwest Fisheries Science Center, Antarctic Ecosystem Research Division, La Jolla, California [Responsible Party: George Watters, Ph.D.].

NMFS is adjusting the Swordfish (SWO) General Commercial permit retention limits for the Northwest Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, and U.S. Caribbean regions for January through June of the 2017 fishing year, unless otherwise later noticed. The SWO General Commercial permit retention limit in each of these regions is increased from the regulatory default limits to six swordfish per vessel per trip. The SWO General Commercial permit retention limit in the Florida SWO Management Area will remain unchanged at the default limit of zero swordfish per vessel per trip. These adjustments apply to SWO General Commercial permitted vessels and Highly Migratory Species (HMS) Charter/Headboat permitted vessels when on a non-for-hire trip. This action is based upon consideration of the applicable inseason regional retention limit adjustment criteria.