Department of Transportation March 19, 2019 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This document announces the availability of the FAA National Facilities Realignment and Consolidation Report, Parts 4 & 5. The report was developed in response to Section 804 of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012. The report and recommendations contained therein have been developed collaboratively with the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) and the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists (PASS) labor unions and with input from stakeholders. The FAA seeks comments on this report.

Nuro, Inc. (Nuro) has petitioned NHTSA for a temporary exemption from certain requirements in Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) No. 500, which establishes standards for ``Low-speed vehicles,'' on the basis that an exemption would make the development or field evaluation of a low-emission vehicle easier without unreasonably lowering the safety of that vehicle. The vehicle for which Nuro requests an exemption is a low-speed, highly automated delivery vehicle intended to be operated without any human occupants and thus designed without any seating. Specifically, Nuro requests exemptions from the requirements in FMVSS No. 500 that its vehicle be equipped with rearview mirrors, a windshield that complies with FMVSS No. 205, and a rear visibility (backup camera) system that complies with FMVSS No. 111. Nuro states that the absence of human occupants, combined with the vehicle's various safety design features, including the vehicle's Automated Driving System (ADS), make compliance with these provisions of FMVSS No. 500 either unnecessary for, or detrimental to, the safety of pedestrians and cyclists. NHTSA is publishing this document in accordance with statutory and administrative provisions, and requests comments on this document and the petition submitted by Nuro. NHTSA will assess the merits of the petition and decide whether to grant or deny it after receiving and considering the public comments on this notice, the petition, public responses to the questions in this notice and such additional information as Nuro may provide.

This notice announces final environmental actions taken by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) for projects in Tarrant, Dallas, and Collin Counties, Texas and Marion County, Indiana. The purpose of this notice is to announce publicly the environmental decisions by FTA on the subject projects and to activate the limitation on any claims that may challenge these final environmental actions.

This action extends, with modifications to reflect changed conditions in Libya, the Special Federal Aviation Regulation (SFAR) prohibiting certain flight operations in the Tripoli Flight Information Region (FIR) (HLLL) by all: United States (U.S.) air carriers; U.S. commercial operators; persons exercising the privileges of an airman certificate issued by the FAA, except when such persons are operating U.S.-registered aircraft for a foreign air carrier; and operators of U.S.-registered civil aircraft, except where the operator of such aircraft is a foreign air carrier. This action extends the prohibition of U.S. civil flight operations in the Tripoli FIR (HLLL) at altitudes below Flight Level (FL) 300 to safeguard against continuing hazards to U.S. civil aviation. However, this action also reduces the scope of the prohibition, permitting U.S. civil aviation overflights of the Tripoli FIR (HLLL) at altitudes at and above FL300 to resume, due to the reduced risk to U.S. civil aviation operations at those altitudes. The FAA also republishes, with minor revisions, the approval process and exemption information for this SFAR, consistent with other recently published flight prohibition SFARs; makes a minor editorial change to the title of the rule; and makes other minor revisions for consistency with other recently published flight prohibition SFARs.