Department of Transportation February 11, 2022 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The recently enacted Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), enacted as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, authorizes a recipient or subrecipient of a grant provided by the DOT Secretary under Title 23 or 49, United States Code, to implement a local or other geographical or economic hiring preference relating to the use of labor for construction of a project funded by the grant subject to any applicable State and local laws, policies, and procedures. Based on this statutory authorization, FHWA is announcing a transition from its initiative announced in May 2021, which permitted, on an experimental basis, recipients and subrecipients of Federal funds for Federal-aid highway projects to utilize geographic, economic, or other hiring preferences or innovative contracting approaches not otherwise authorized by law. The May 2021 initiative was carried out as a pilot program under FHWA's existing experimental contracting authority and the legal authority in the Section 199B of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, authorizing such hiring preferences ``not otherwise authorized by law.'' Now that BIL creates the legal authority for local or other geographical or economic hiring preferences, an experimental pilot program for such hiring preferences is no longer needed. In Addition, the use of such preferences going forward are subject to Section 25019 of the BIL, not Section 199B of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021.

The FAA is correcting an airworthiness directive (AD) that was published in the Federal Register. That AD applies to certain Bombardier, Inc., Model CL-600-2B16 (601-3A, 601-3R, and 604 Variants) airplanes. As published, the AD number specified in the regulatory text is incorrect. This document corrects that error and one other minor error. In all other respects, the original document remains the same.

The FAA is proposing to amend Order 8000.82 that designates information provided to the agency from a voluntary Aviation Safety Action Program (ASAP) as protected from public disclosure in accordance with the provisions of the FAA regulations related to the protection of voluntarily submitted information. The FAA is required to protect the information from disclosure to the public, including disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) or other laws, following issuance of such order. The proposed designation would apply to air carriers, repair stations, or other entities who have an FAA-accepted ASAP, and their covered employees. The intent of this action is to encourage participation in the ASAP.