Department of Labor January 2005 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Department of Labor, as part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork and respondent burden, conducts a pre-clearance consultation program to provide the general public and Federal agencies with an opportunity to comment on proposed and/or continuing collections of information in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA95) [44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(2)(A)]. This program helps to ensure that requested data can be provided in the desired format, reporting burden (time and financial resources) is minimized, collection instruments are clearly understood, and the impact of collection requirements on respondents can be properly assessed. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is soliciting comments concerning the proposed revision of the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages Program. A copy of the proposed information collection request (ICR) can be obtained by contacting the individual listed below in the Addresses section of this notice.

The Employment and Training Administration (ETA) of the Department of Labor (Department or DOL) is issuing this Notice to announce that DOL has moved its foreign labor certification field staff in the Atlanta and Chicago Regional Offices to the new Atlanta and Chicago National Processing Centers. This Notice provides the public in the Atlanta and Chicago regions with contact information regarding these two new processing centers. All foreign labor certification processing activities previously conducted in the Atlanta and Chicago Regional Offices will now be assumed by the corresponding Atlanta or Chicago National Processing Centers. The regulation to implement the re-engineered permanent labor certification program was published in the Federal Register on December 27, 2004. The National Processing Centers will continue current functions on an interim basis and ETA will provide additional guidance as to the handling of cases which will be filed under the new rule as well as backlogged permanent labor certification cases. Employers in the Atlanta and Chicago regions requesting H-2A workers should simultaneously submit H-2A applications to their appropriate State Workforce Agency (SWA) and respective National Processing Center. These H-2A applications should no longer be submitted to ETA's Atlanta or Chicago Regional Offices. Employers in the Atlanta and Chicago regions requesting either permanent or H-2B workers should continue, until ETA publishes future guidance on this issue, to file permanent and H-2B applications with the appropriate SWA.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) through this final rule is continuing to remove and revise provisions of its standards that are outdated, duplicative, unnecessary, or inconsistent, or can be clarified or simplified by being written in plain language. The Agency completed Phase I of the Standards Improvement Project in June 1998. In this Phase II of the Standards Improvement Project, OSHA is again revising or removing a number of health provisions in its standards for general industry, shipyard employment, and construction. The Agency believes that the changes streamline and make more consistent the regulatory requirements in OSHA health and safety standards. In some cases, OSHA has made substantive revisions to requirements because they are outdated, duplicative, unnecessary, or inconsistent with more recently promulgated health standards. The Agency believes these revisions will reduce regulatory requirements for employers without reducing employee protection.