Department of Transportation November 3, 2016 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

PHMSA is publishing this notice to seek public comments on a request for special permit, seeking relief from compliance with certain requirements in the federal pipeline safety regulations. At the conclusion of the 30-day comment period, PHMSA will review the comments received from this notice as part of its evaluation to grant or deny the special permit request.

The Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act (FAST Act) established the Nationally Significant Freight and Highway Projects (NSFHP) program to provide Federal financial assistance to projects of national or regional significance and authorized the program at $4.5 billion for fiscal years (FY) 2016 through 2020, including $850 million for FY 2017 to be awarded by the Secretary of Transportation. The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT/Department) will also refer to NSFHP grants as Fostering Advancements in Shipping and Transportation for the Long-term Achievement of National Efficiencies (FASTLANE) grants. The purpose of this notice is to solicit applications for FY 2017 grants for the FASTLANE program. The Department also invites interested parties to submit comments about this notice's contents to public docket DOT-OST-2016-0016 by December 31, 2016.

The Department of Transportation is issuing a third ``Enhancing Airline Passenger Protections'' final rule to enhance protections for air travelers and to improve the air travel environment as follows: Expanding the pool of reporting carriers for service quality data; requiring reporting carriers to include service quality data for their domestic scheduled flights operated by their code-share partners; enhancing the Department's code-share disclosure regulation to codify the statutory requirement that carriers and ticket agents must disclose any code-share arrangements on their Web sites on the first display presented in response to a search of a requested itinerary for each itinerary involving a code-share operation; and prohibiting undisclosed biasing based on carrier identity by carriers and ticket agents in any electronic displays of the fare, schedule or availability information of multiple carriers. The amendments to the reporting requirements in this rule will ensure that the Department obtains and provides to the public expanded and enhanced service quality data from the airlines. The provision to strengthen the Department's code-share disclosure rule will also enhance air travel consumer protection. Additionally, this final rule corrects certain drafting errors and makes minor changes to the Department's second Enhancing Airline Passenger Protections rule to better reflect the Department's intent. Other topics covered by the proposed rule that are not addressed by this final rule will be addressed in two separate rulemakings. Specifically, the Department will be issuing a Supplemental Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (SNPRM) to seek additional information on the disclosure of fees for basic ancillary services to consumers at all points of sale. The remaining topics discussed in the 2014 notice of proposed rulemaking (e.g., customer service commitments by large ticket agents, prohibition on post-purchase price increases for ancillary services) will be addressed in another final rule that the Department plans to issue at a later date.