Department of Transportation January 14, 2021 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The FAA is adopting a new airworthiness directive (AD) for all Airbus SAS Model A330-200, -200 Freighter, -300, -800, and -900 series airplanes; Model A340-200 and -300 series airplanes; and Model A340-541 and A340-642 airplanes. This AD was prompted by a report that an erroneous torque value for the attachment nuts to install a pitot probe was included in the affected Aircraft Maintenance Manual (AMM) task. This AD requires re-torqueing the attachment nuts of each affected part. In addition, this AD prohibits the use of the affected AMM task, as specified in a European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) AD, which is incorporated by reference. The FAA is issuing this AD to address the unsafe condition on these products.

The Surface Transportation Board (Board) is issuing a final rule to implement the annual inflationary adjustment to its civil monetary penalties, pursuant to the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015.

The Secretary of Transportation, as represented by the Maritime Administration (MARAD), is authorized to grant waivers of the U.S.-build requirements of the coastwise trade laws to allow the carriage of no more than twelve passengers for hire on vessels, which are three years old or more. A request for such a waiver has been received by MARAD. The vessel, and a brief description of the proposed service, is listed below.

On October 2, 2020, NHTSA received a petition for rulemaking from the Alliance for Automotive Innovation regarding when to apply an increase to the civil penalty rate applicable to automobile manufacturers that fail to meet applicable corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards and are unable to offset such a deficit with compliance credits. After carefully considering the issues raised, NHTSA has granted the petition and promulgates an interim final rule providing that the increase will go into effect beginning in model year 2022 in accordance with NHTSA's December 2016 rule on the same issue, except if the August 31, 2020 decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Case No. 19-2395 is vacated. This interim final rule amends the relevant regulatory text accordingly and requests comment. This document also responds to a petition for reconsideration of NHTSA's July 2019 rule from the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law.