Department of Transportation August 29, 2006 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Department of Transportation is directing all interested persons to show cause why it should not issue an order finding Partner Aviation Enterprises d/b/a Empire Airways fit, willing, and able, and awarding it a commuter air carrier authorization to engage in scheduled passenger air transportation as a commuter air carrier.

This amendment supersedes an existing airworthiness directive (AD) for MD Helicopters, Inc. (MDHI) Model MD900 helicopters, that currently requires reducing the life limit of certain Notar fan system tension-torsion (TT) straps. That existing AD also requires, at a specified time interval, removing each affected TT strap from the helicopter, doing a visual and X-ray inspection, and replacing any unairworthy part before further flight. This amendment requires the same actions as the existing AD, but also requires revising the life limit on the component history card or equivalent record and doing repetitive visual and X-ray inspections, and removes reporting requirements. This amendment is prompted by two in-flight TT strap failures. The actions specified by this AD are intended to prevent failure of a TT strap, loss of directional control, and subsequent loss of control of the helicopter.

Under the current version of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) No. 208, vehicles that are manufactured on or after September 1, 2006, are certified to the suppression requirements and have a child restraint anchorage system, commonly referred to as a Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children or ``LATCH'' system, in the right front passenger seating position must suppress the air bag for that position when a child restraint is installed at that position with the LATCH system. However, the standard does not yet specify detailed procedures for installing that type of child restraint in order to conduct the suppression test. In a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) published May 19, 2005, NHTSA proposed the needed installation procedures and proposed an effective date for the final rule following the NPRM. The agency anticipated in the NPRM that a final rule would be issued by September 1, 2006, that provided sufficient leadtime for vehicles to meet the suppression requirements with LATCH-equipped child restraints. Because we have not completed our response to the comments to the NPRM, this final rule delays, for one year, the compliance date of the requirement for vehicles to meet the air bag suppression requirement with LATCH-equipped child restraints. This delay allows us additional time to publish our final action on the rulemaking.

This solicitation is for proposals from national non-profit organizations with transportation coordination and technical assistance expertise for a cooperative agreement to develop and implement a National Resource Center for Human Service Transportation Coordination (NRC). The NCR will manage a program to improve and enhance the coordination of Federal resources for human service transportation with those of the Department of Transportation (DOT). The major goal of the NRC is to assist local communities and States in the expansion and provision of coordinated human service transportation for older adults, people with disabilities, and individuals with lower incomes. Federal Transit Administration (FTA) will award one four year agreement. Year one of the cooperative agreement is for one million, five hundred eighty-four thousand dollars ($1,584,000) as authorized in the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, and Efficient Transportation Equity ActA Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) and subsequently appropriated. Funding for subsequent years will be based on annual appropriations as well as annual performance reviews.

The FAA is proposing a rule to address the potential for increased congestion and delay at New York's LaGuardia Airport (LaGuardia) when the High Density Rule (HDR) expires there on January 1, 2007. The rule, if adopted, would establish an operational limit on the number of aircraft landing and taking off at the airport. To offset the effect of this limit, the proposed rule would increase utilization of the airport by encouraging the use of larger aircraft through implementing an airport-wide, average aircraft size requirement designed to increase the number of passengers that may use the airport within the overall proposed operational limits.

This action corrects an error in the airport reference point (ARP) for Provo Municipal Airport, Provo, UT, in the final rule that was published in the Federal Register on August 1, 2006, (71 FR 43355), Docket No. FAA-2006-24234; Airspace Docket No. 06-AWP-5. In addition, corrections are made to change FAA Order 7400.9O to FAA Order 7400.9N, amending its date in two references to September 1, 2005, effective September 15, 2005; and make two editorial changes, replacing the word attends with amends in the Summary, and Class D to Class E in the legal description.