Department of the Interior May 9, 2019 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The regulations implementing the Indian Child Welfare Act provide that Indian Tribes may designate an agent other than the Tribal chairman for service of notice of proceedings under the Act. This notice includes the current list of designated Tribal agents for service of notice.

This notice informs the public that the Assistant Secretary Indian Affairs proclaimed approximately 0.115 acres, more or less, an addition to the reservation of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, on April 17, 2019.

We, the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE), are approving an amendment to the North Dakota regulatory program (North Dakota program) under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMCRA or the Act). This amendment, proposed by North Dakota, makes numerous rule changes to the North Dakota Administrative Code for surface coal mining and reclamation operations based on statutory changes that were made during North Dakota's 2015 Legislative Session. The statutory changes added a definition of ``commercial leonardite'' (oxidized lignite) and excluded commercial leonardite from the statutory definition of ``coal.'' The statutory changes also added the phrase ``and commercial leonardite'' and ``or commercial leonardite'' to many other sections of North Dakota's reclamation statute. The statutory changes necessitated a number of similarly related changes to North Dakota's administrative rules. Finally, some of North Dakota's proposed rule revisions include minor non-substantive grammatical, codification, and statutory citation cross-reference changes. North Dakota's revisions are intended to improve operational efficiency. OSMRE does not have any corresponding statutes or regulations about leonardite, and the changes are consistent with OSMRE policy about leonardite. As such, North Dakota's proposed statutory and regulatory changes add specificity about the regulation of leonardite beyond that contained in SMCRA and the Federal regulations, and we are approving them. OSMRE's approval of North Dakota's proposed statutory and regulatory changes are solely for purposes of complying with SMCRA and may not be viewed as waiving any property interests that the United States may have in leonardite deposits that are part of the federal coal estate in certain lands in North Dakota.

The National Park Service is soliciting comments on the significance of properties nominated before April 27, 2019, for listing or related actions in the National Register of Historic Places.