Department of Commerce August 14, 2024 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

In accordance with the regulations implementing the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) as amended, notification is hereby given that NMFS has issued an incidental harassment authorization (IHA) to Phillips 66 Co. to incidentally harass marine mammals during construction activities associated with a dock replacement project in Ferndale, Washington.

NMFS has received a request from the Office of Naval Research (ONR) for authorization to take marine mammals incidental to Arctic Research Activities (ARA) in the Beaufort Sea and eastern Chukchi Sea. Pursuant to the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), NMFS is requesting comments on its proposal to issue an incidental harassment authorization (IHA) to incidentally take marine mammals during the specified activities. NMFS is also requesting comments on a possible one-time, 1-year renewal that could be issued under certain circumstances and if all requirements are met, as described in Request for Public Comments at the end of this notice. NMFS will consider public comments prior to making any final decision on the issuance of the requested MMPA authorization and agency responses will be summarized in the final notice of our decision. The ONR's activities are considered military readiness activities pursuant to the MMPA, as amended by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004 (2004 NDAA).

This final rule will implement a set of management measures to ensure fishery impacts on California Coastal (CC) Chinook salmon, which are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, remain within the conservation objective in the Pacific Coast Salmon Fishery Management Plan (Salmon FMP). Under the final rule, management tools (e.g., trip limits (also known as landing and possession limits) and inseason management) consistent with the provisions of the Salmon FMP will be used to provide greater certainty in avoiding exceedances of the conservation objectives for CC Chinook salmon.

This notice announces the Secretary of Commerce's approval of three Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS): FIPS 203, Module-Lattice-Based Key-Encapsulation Mechanism Standard; FIPS 204, Module-Lattice-Based Digital Signature Standard; and FIPS 205, Stateless Hash-Based Digital Signature Standard. These standards specify key establishment and digital signature schemes that are designed to resist future attacks by quantum computers, which threaten the security of current standards. The three algorithms specified in these standards are each derived from different submissions in the NIST post-quantum cryptography standardization project (see https:// csrc.nist.gov/pqc-standardization).