Department of Energy July 2012 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

Pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, as amended (NEPA) (42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.); the Council on Environmental Quality Regulations for implementing the procedural provisions of NEPA (40 CFR parts 1500-1508); and the Department of Energy (DOE) implementing procedures (10 CFR part 1021); the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program (NNPP) announces the availability of a Final Environmental Assessment (EA) for construction and operation of a radiological work and storage building at the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory Kesselring Site in West Milton, New York. A modernized facility is needed to streamline radioactive material handling and storage operations, permit demolition of aging facilities, and accommodate efficient maintenance of existing nuclear reactors. The EA shows that the potential effects on the human environment associated with the construction and operation of the radiological work and storage building are not significant. Therefore, the NNPP has concluded that an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) is not required to be prepared and is issuing a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI).

This notice announces a meeting of the Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (BESAC). Federal Advisory Committee Act (Pub. L. 92- 463, 86 Stat. 770) requires that public notice of these meetings be announced in the Federal Register.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is amending the pro forma Open Access Transmission Tariff to remove unduly discriminatory practices and to ensure just and reasonable rates for Commission- jurisdictional services. Specifically, this Final Rule removes barriers to the integration of variable energy resources by requiring each public utility transmission provider to: offer intra-hourly transmission scheduling; and, incorporate provisions into the pro forma Large Generator Interconnection Agreement requiring interconnection customers whose generating facilities are variable energy resources to provide meteorological and forced outage data to the public utility transmission provider for the purpose of power production forecasting.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will hold a public meeting to discuss and receive comments on the product classes that DOE plans to analyze for purposes of establishing energy conservation standards for residential furnace fans; the analytical framework, models, and tools that DOE is using to evaluate potential standards for these products; the results of preliminary analyses performed by DOE for these products; the potential energy conservation standard levels derived from these analyses that DOE could consider for these products; and any other issues relevant to the development of energy conservation standards for residential furnace fans. In addition, DOE encourages written comments on these subjects. To inform interested parties and to facilitate this process, DOE has prepared an agenda, a preliminary technical support document (preliminary TSD), and briefing materials, which are available on the DOE Web site.