Department of the Interior September 22, 2014 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

On July 22, 2014, we, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, announced a draft policy on crediting voluntary conservation actions taken for species prior to their listing under the Endangered Species Act. The proposed policy seeks to give landowners, government agencies, and others incentives to carry out voluntary conservation actions for nonlisted species by allowing the benefits to the species from a voluntary conservation action undertaken prior to listing under the Act to be usedeither by the person who undertook such action or by a third partyto mitigate or to serve as a compensatory measure for the detrimental effects of another action undertaken after listing. This draft policy, if adopted, would help us further our efforts to protect native species and conserve the ecosystems on which they depend. We announce the extension of the comment period for our July 22, 2014, proposed policy to ensure the public has sufficient time to comment on the proposed policy.

To comply with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA), BSEE is notifying the public that we have submitted to OMB an information collection request (ICR) for review approval of the paperwork requirements in the regulations under Subpart M, Unitization. This notice also provides the public a second opportunity to comment on the revised paperwork burden of these regulatory requirements.

The Department of the Interior and the Central Utah Water Conservancy District, as joint leads, are evaluating the impacts of a proposed replacement of the Olmsted Hydroelectric Power Plant, and have prepared an associated Draft Environmental Assessment for public review.