Department of Treasury August 25, 2010 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This document contains a correction to final regulations (TD 9495) that were published in the Federal Register on Friday, July 30, 2010 (75 FR 44901) providing guidance to State and local governments that issue qualified zone academy bonds and to banks, insurance companies, and other taxpayers that hold those bonds on the program requirements for qualified zone academy bonds.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury, as part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork and respondent burden, invites the general public and other Federal agencies to take this opportunity to comment on proposed and/or continuing information collections, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, 44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(2)(A). Currently, the Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund, Department of the Treasury, is soliciting comments concerning the New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) ProgramAllocation Application (hereafter, the Application).

The regulations of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (FRB), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) (collectively, the agencies) include various references to and requirements based on the use of credit ratings issued by nationally recognized statistical rating organizations (NRSROs). Section 939A of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the Act), enacted on July 21, 2010, requires the agencies to review their regulations that require the use of an assessment of creditworthiness of a security or money market instrument and make reference to, or have requirements regarding, credit ratings. The agencies must then modify their regulations to remove any reference to, or requirements of reliance on, credit ratings in such regulations and substitute in their place other standards of creditworthiness that the agencies determine to be appropriate for such regulations.