Coast Guard September 29, 2011 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

On March 30, 2011, the Coast Guard published a direct final rule that notified the public of the Coast Guard's intent to harmonize structural and performance standards for inflatable recreational personal flotation devices (PFDs) with current voluntary industry consensus standards, and to slightly modify regulatory text in anticipation of a future rulemaking addressing the population for which inflatable recreational PFDs are approved (76 FR 17561). As discussed below, we have received an adverse comment on the direct final rule, and have withdrawn the direct final rule in a notice of withdrawal published separately in this issue of the Federal Register. The Coast Guard seeks comment on the issues raised by the commenters and proposes to make the same changes to the current regulatory text, as modified below.