Office of the Secretary 2005 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

Pursuant to section 10(A), Public Law 92-463, as amended, notice is hereby given of a forthcoming meeting of the Defense Department Advisory Committee on Women in the Services (DACOWITS). The purpose of the Committee meeting is to t. The meeting is open to the public, subject to the availability of space. Interested persons may submit a written statement for consideration by the Committee and make an oral presentation of such. Persons desiring to make an oral presentation or submit a written statement to the Committee must notify the point of contact listed below no later than 5 p.m., 3 January 2006. Oral presentation by members of the public will be permitted only on Monday, 9 January 2006 from 4:45 p.m. to 5 p.m. before the full Committee. Presentations will be limited to two minutes. Number of oral presentations to be made will depend on the number of requests received from members of the public. Each person desiring to make an oral presentation must provide the point of contact listed below with one (1) copy of the presentation by 5 p.m., 3 January 2006 and bring 35 copies of any material that is intended for distribution at the meeting. Persons submitting a written statement must submit 35 copies of the statement to the DACOWITS staff by 5 p.m. on 3 January 2006.

The Department of Defense is publishing the unclassified text of a section 36(b)(1) arms sales notification. This is published to fulfill the requirements of section 155 of Public Law 104-164 dated 21 July 1996.

The Defense Science Board Task Force on Nuclear Capabilities will meet in closed session on January 4, 2006, at the Institute for Defense Analysis (IDA), 4850 Mark Center Drive, Alexandria, VA. This meeting will be an Executive Session for draft report writing and discussion. The mission of the Defense Science Board is to advise the Secretary of Defense and the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology & Logistics on scientific and technical matters as they affect the perceived needs of the Department of Defense. At these meetings, the Defense Science Board Task Force will: Assess the current plan for sustaining the nuclear weapons stockpile and make recommendations for ensuring the future reliability, safety, security, and relevance of the nuclear weapons stockpile for the 21st century; examine the DoD role in defining needs in the nuclear weapons stockpile and recommend changes in institutional arrangements to ensure an appropriate DoD role; assess progress towards the goal of an integrated new triad of strike capabilities (nuclear, advanced conventional, and non-kinetic) within the new triad of strike, defense and infrastructure; examine a wide range of alternative institutional arrangements that could provide for more efficient management of the nuclear enterprise; examine approaches to evolving the stockpile with weapons that are simpler to manufacture and that can be sustained with a smaller, less complex, less expensive design, development, certification and production enterprise; and examine plans to transform the nuclear weapons production complex to provide a capability to respond promptly to changes in the threat environment with new designs or designs evolved with previously tested nuclear components. In accordance with Section 10(d) of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, Public Law 92-463, as amended (5 U.S.C. App. II), it has been determined that these Defense Science Board Task Force meetings concern matters listed in 5 U.S.C. 552b(c)(1) and that, accordingly, the meetings will be closed to the public.

The Department of Transportation is converting the interim final rule published in the Federal Register at 70 FR 6506, on February 7, 2005 to a final rule with changes to amend the Transportation Acquisition Regulation (TAR) due to internal organization changes and the need for minor editorial changes. No comments were received on this rule. This final rule replaces the 1994 edition of the Transportation Acquisition Regulation (TAR) with the 2004 edition.

This notice identifies the 20 messaging and vocabulary standards adopted for use in Federal government health information technology systems. The first set of 5 standards was adopted on March 21, 2003. The second set of 15 standards was adopted on May 6, 2004, thus completing the initial portfolio of the Consolidated Health Informatics (CHI) initiative.

DOT proposes to modify an existing system of records under the Privacy Act of 1974. An additional purpose for the system has been added to provide users of the system with investigation information. A routine use has been added to provide for the use and public posting of investigation results.

The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) will hold the second public meeting of the Veterans' Advisory Board on Dose Reconstruction (VBDR). The VBDR was established at the recommendation of the National Research Council report, entitled ``Review of the Dose Reconstruction Program of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.'' The report recommended the need to establish an advisory board that will provide suggestions for improvements in dose reconstruction and claim adjudication procedures. The goal of VBDR is to provide guidance and oversight of the dose reconstruction and claims compensation programs for veterans of U.S.- sponsored atmospheric nuclear weapons tests from 1945-1962; veterans of the 1945-1946 occupation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan; and veterans who were prisoners of war in those regions at the conclusion of World War II. In addition, the advisory board will assist VA and DTRA in communicating with the veterans. Radiation does reconstruction has been carried out by the Department of Defense under the Nuclear Test Personnel Review (NTPR) program since the 1970s. DTRA is the executive agent for the NTPR program which provides participation data and actual or estimated radiation dose information to veterans and the VA. Board members were selected to fulfill the statutory requirements mandated by Congress in Section 601 of Public Law 108-183. The Board was appointed on June 3, 2005, and is comprised of 16 members. Board members were selected to provide expertise in historical dose reconstruction, radiation health matters, risk communications, radiation epidemiology, medicine, quality management, decision analysis and ethics in order to appropriately enable the VBDR to represent and address veterans' concerns. The Board is governed by the provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), Public Law 92-463, which sets forth standards for the formation and conduct of government advisory committees.

Notice is hereby given that on November 23, 2005, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Debarring Official, on behalf of the Secretary of HHS, issued a final notice of debarment based on the scientific misconduct findings of the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) in the following case: Jessica Lee Grol, University of Pittsburgh: Based on the report of an investigation conducted by the University of Pittsburgh (UP) and additional analysis conducted by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) in its oversight review, HHS found on October 17, 2005, that Ms. Grol, former Research Project Coordinator, Department of Neurological Surgery, UP, engaged in scientific misconduct by fabricating study research records for 15 subjects, including the patient interview data, the forms tracking data, and the medical record extraction data in a study on the management of cerebral aneurysms. The research was supported by National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), National Institutes of Health (NIH), career development award K23 NS02159. In a final decision dated November 23, 2005, the HHS Debarring Official, on behalf of the Secretary of HHS, issued the final debarment notice based on the PHS findings of scientific misconduct finding. The following actions have been implemented for a period of three (3) years, beginning on November 23, 2005: (1) Ms. Grol has been debarred from any contracting or subcontracting with any agency of the United States Government and from eligibility for or involvement in nonprocurement programs of the United States Government as defined in the debarment regulations at 45 CFR part 76; and (2) Ms. Grol is prohibited from serving in any advisory capacity to PHS, including but not limited to service on any PHS advisory committee, board, and/or peer review committee, or as a consultant.

This rule proposes to revise DoD regulations to prohibit the sale or rental of sexually explicit material on property under DoD jurisdiction. It establishes responsibilities for monitoring compliance, establishes a review board to determine whether a material offered for sale or rental is sexually explicit as consistent with the definition in 10 U.S.C. 2489a, and delineates review board procedures.

The Department is considering amending its rule on price advertising, and it is seeking comment on several options. Under the existing rule, the Department considers any advertisement that states a price for air transportation that is not the total price the consumer will pay to be unfair or deceptive in violation of the statute under which this provision was adopted in 1984. Although it has not amended the codified rule, in practice the Department has long allowed an exception to it for certain taxes, fees, and other charges that are imposed by a government entity. As a matter of prosecutorial discretion, the Department does not take enforcement action against any advertisement that omits these charges from the quoted fare, provided that the charges are collected on a per-passenger basis and are not ad valorem in nature, and provided further that the advertisement clearly indicates the existence and amount of these charges so that consumers can easily calculate the total fare. The Department has consistently prohibited sellers of air transportation from breaking out other cost elements, such as fuel surcharges, from the advertised fare. Although the Department has denied a recent request to allow separate listing of the fuel surcharges that carriers are adopting in response to soaring fuel costs, the Department has also decided that the time is ripe after 21 years of marketing innovations for a reexamination of the fare- advertising rule and its long-time enforcement policy. Therefore, the Department is asking interested persons to comment on four alternative options: Maintain the current practice either with or without codifying all of its elements in the rule; end the exception for government- imposed charges and enforce the rule as written; revise the rule to eliminate most or all requirements for airfare advertisements but to require that consumers be apprised of the total purchase price before the purchase is made; or eliminate the full-fare advertising rule in its entirety.

This rule conforms to the requirements of the Electronic Freedom of Information Act Amendments of 1996. It promotes public trust by making the maximum amount of information available to the public, in both hard copy and electronic formats, on the operation and activities of the Department of Defense, consistent with DoD responsibility to protect national security and other DoD interests as provided by applicable law. It also allows a requester to obtain Agency records from the Department of Defense that are available through other public information services without invoking the FOIA.

This document removes 32 CFR Part 346, ``DoD Education Activity''. This part has served the purpose for which it was intended and is no longer needed. A copy of DoD Directive 1342.20, ``Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA),'' is available at https:// www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/.

This notice provides for the updating of hospital-specific per diem rates for high volume providers and regional per diem rates for low volume providers; the updated cap per diem for high volume providers; the beneficiary per diem cost-share amount for low volume providers for FY 2006 under the TRICARE Mental Health Per Diem Payment System; and the updated per diem rates for both full-day and half-day TRICARE Partial Hospitalization Programs for fiscal year 2006.