Interim Guidance on CIG Program

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Federal Register / Vol. 80, No. 67 / Wednesday, April 8, 2015 / Proposed Rules

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Federal Transit Administration
49 CFR Part 611
[Docket No. FTA–2015–0007]
RIN 2132–ZA03

Notice of Availability of Proposed
Interim Policy Guidance for the Capital
Investment Grant Program
Federal Transit Administration
(FTA), DOT.
ACTION: Notice of availability of
proposed interim policy guidance;
request for comments.
AGENCY:

The Federal Transit
Administration (FTA) invites public
comment on interim policy guidance
the agency is proposing for the Capital
Investment Grant (CIG) program. The
proposed interim guidance has been
placed in the docket and posted on the
FTA Web site. If adopted, this proposed
interim policy guidance will
complement FTA’s regulations that
govern the CIG program by providing a
deeper level of detail about the methods
for applying the project justification and
local financial commitment criteria for
rating and evaluating New Starts, Small
Starts, and Core Capacity Improvement
projects, and the procedures for getting
through the steps in the process
required by law.
DATES: Comments must be received on
or before May 8, 2015. Any comments
received beyond this deadline will be
considered to the extent practicable.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments
to DOT docket number FTA–2015–0007
by any of the following methods:
Federal eRulemaking Portal: Go to
http://www.regulations.gov and follow
the online instructions for submitting
comments.
U.S. Mail: Docket Management
Facility, U.S. Department of
Transportation, 1200 New Jersey
Avenue SE., West Building, Room W12–
140, Washington, DC 20590–0001.
Hand Delivery or Courier: U.S.
Department of Transportation, 1200
New Jersey Avenue SE., West Building,
Ground Floor, Room W12–140,
Washington, DC 20590, between 9 a.m.
and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday,
except Federal holidays.
Fax: 202–493–2251.
Instructions: You must include the
agency name (Federal Transit
Administration) and docket number
(FTA–2015–0007) for this notice at the
beginning of your comments. You must
submit two copies of your comments if
you submit them by mail. If you wish

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to receive confirmation FTA received
your comments, you must include a
self-addressed, stamped postcard. Due
to security procedures in effect since
October 2001, mail received through the
U.S. Postal Service may be subject to
delays. Parties submitting comments
may wish to consider using an express
mail firm to ensure prompt filing of any
submissions not filed electronically or
by hand.
All comments received will be posted,
without charge and including any
personal information provided, to
http://www.regulations.gov, where they
will be available to internet users. You
may review DOT’s complete Privacy Act
Statement published in the Federal
Register on April 11, 2000, at 65 FR
19477. For access to the docket and to
read background documents and
comments received, go to http://
regulations.gov at any time or to the U.S.
Department of Transportation, 1200
New Jersey Avenue SE., Docket
Management Facility, West Building
Ground Floor, Room W12–140,
Washington, DC 20590 between 9 a.m.
and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday,
except Federal holidays.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Elizabeth Day, FTA Office of Planning
and Environment, telephone (202) 366–
5159 or [email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Pursuant
to 49 U.S.C. 5309(g)(5), FTA is obliged
to publish policy guidance on the
review and evaluation process and
criteria for projects eligible for Federal
funding under the CIG program each
time the agency makes significant
changes to the process and criteria, and
in any event, at least once every two
years. Also, FTA is obliged to invite
public comment on the guidance, and to
publish its response to comments. In
brief, the policy guidance that FTA
periodically issues for the discretionary
Capital Investment Grant (‘‘CIG’’)
program complements the FTA
regulations that govern the CIG program,
codified at 49 CFR part 611. The
regulations set forth the process that
grant applicants must follow to be
considered eligible for discretionary
funding under the CIG program, and the
procedures and criteria FTA uses to rate
and evaluate the projects eligible for
that discretionary funding. The policy
guidance provides a greater level of
detail about the methods FTA uses to
apply the criteria for both project
justification and local financial
commitment, and the sequential steps a
sponsor must follow in developing a
project.
The interim policy guidance FTA is
proposing today is available in its

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entirety on the agency’s public Web site
at http://www.fta.dot.gov, and in the
docket at http://www.regulations.gov. It
is approximately 100 typewritten pages
in length, arranged in three stand-alone
chapters for each of the three types of
projects eligible for CIG funds: New
Starts, Small Starts, and Core Capacity
Improvements. Each chapter provides a
short introduction, a discussion of
eligibility for that type of project, a
summary of the requirements for entry
into and getting through each step of the
CIG process, information on each of the
project evaluation criteria, and an
explanation of how FTA will determine
the overall rating for a project. Each type
of project in the CIG program—a New
Start, Small Start, or Core Capacity
Improvement—is governed by a unique
set of requirements, although there are
many similarities amongst the three sets
of requirements.
Most importantly, the guidance
proposed today addresses four subjects
not addressed in either the regulations
or previous policy guidance for the CIG
program. These are, specifically: (1) The
measures and breakpoints for the
congestion relief criterion applicable to
New Starts and Small Starts projects; (2)
the evaluation and rating process for
Core Capacity Improvement projects,
including the measures and breakpoints
for all the project justification and local
financial commitment criteria
applicable to those projects; (3) the
prerequisites for entry into each phase
of the CIG process for each type of
project in the CIG program, and the
requirements for completing each phase
of that process; and (4) ways in which
certain New Starts, Small Starts, and
Core Capacity Improvement projects can
qualify for ‘‘warrants’’ entitling them to
automatic ratings on some of the
evaluation criteria. Readers should
please direct their comments to these
four subjects. All the other material in
this guidance document has been
developed through public notice-andcomment for the regulations at 49 CFR
part 611 or the previous policy guidance
for the CIG program. The newly
proposed requirements are clearly
identified in the text of each chapter,
and in an accompanying table, for easy
reference.
This proposed policy guidance is
characterized as ‘‘interim’’ in that, in the
near future, FTA will initiate a
rulemaking to amend the regulations at
49 CFR part 611 to fully carry out the
authorization statute for the CIG
program, 49 U.S.C. 5309, as amended by
the Moving Ahead for Progress in the
21st Century Act (Pub. L. 112–141; July
6, 2012) (‘‘MAP–21’’). The information
gained through the public comment

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Federal Register / Vol. 80, No. 67 / Wednesday, April 8, 2015 / Proposed Rules
process on this proposed interim policy
guidance will inform the future
rulemaking. After reviewing and
responding to the comments received on
this proposed guidance, FTA will issue
a final iteration of the interim guidance,
and then initiate the rulemaking.
Therese W. McMillan,
Acting Federal Transit Administrator.
[FR Doc. 2015–08063 Filed 4–7–15; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE P

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration
50 CFR Part 622
[Docket No. 140611492–5308–01]
RIN 0648–BE30

Fisheries of the Caribbean, Gulf of
Mexico, and South Atlantic; SnapperGrouper Fishery Off the Southern
Atlantic States; Regulatory
Amendment 20
National Marine Fisheries
Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),
Commerce.
ACTION: Proposed rule; request for
comments.
AGENCY:

NMFS proposes regulations to
implement Regulatory Amendment 20
to the Fishery Management Plan for the
Snapper-Grouper Fishery of the South
Atlantic Region (FMP) (Regulatory
Amendment 20), as prepared and
submitted by the South Atlantic Fishery
Management Council (Council). If
implemented, this proposed rule would
revise the snowy grouper annual catch
limits (ACLs), commercial trip limit,
and recreational fishing season. The
purpose of this rule is to help achieve
optimum yield (OY) and prevent
overfishing of snowy grouper while
enhancing socio-economic
opportunities within the snappergrouper fishery in accordance with the
requirements of the Magnuson-Stevens
Fishery Conservation and Management
Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act).
DATES: Written comments must be
received on or before May 8, 2015.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments
on the proposed rule, identified by
‘‘NOAA–NMFS–2015–0003’’ by either
of the following methods:
• Electronic Submission: Submit all
electronic public comments via the
Federal e-Rulemaking Portal. Go to
www.regulations.gov/
#!docketDetail;D=NOAA-NMFS-2015-

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0003, click the ‘‘Comment Now!’’ icon,
complete the required fields, and enter
or attach your comments.
• Mail: Submit written comments to
Nikhil Mehta, Southeast Regional
Office, NMFS, 263 13th Avenue South,
St. Petersburg, FL 33701.
Instructions: Comments sent by any
other method, to any other address or
individual, or received after the end of
the comment period, may not be
considered by NMFS. All comments
received are a part of the public record
and will generally be posted for public
viewing on www.regulations.gov
without change. All personal identifying
information (e.g., name, address, etc.),
confidential business information, or
otherwise sensitive information
submitted voluntarily by the sender will
be publicly accessible. NMFS will
accept anonymous comments (enter ‘‘N/
A’’ in the required fields if you wish to
remain anonymous).
Electronic copies of the regulatory
amendment, which includes an
environmental assessment and an initial
regulatory flexibility analysis (IRFA),
may be obtained from the Southeast
Regional Office Web site at http://
sero.nmfs.noaa.gov/sustainable_
fisheries/s_atl/sg/2015/reg_am20/
index.html.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Nikhil Mehta, telephone: 727–824–
5305, or email: [email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Snowy
grouper is in the snapper-grouper
fishery of the South Atlantic and is
managed under the FMP. The FMP was
prepared by the Council and is
implemented through regulations at 50
CFR part 622 under the authority of the
Magnuson-Stevens Act.
Background
The Magnuson-Stevens Act requires
NMFS and regional fishery management
councils to achieve on a continuing
basis the OY from federally-managed
fish stocks. This mandate is intended to
ensure that fishery resources are
managed for the greatest overall benefit
to the nation, particularly with respect
to providing food production and
recreational opportunities, and
protecting marine ecosystems.
Management Measures Contained in
This Proposed Rule
This proposed rule would revise the
snowy grouper ACLs for both the
commercial and recreational sectors,
revise the commercial trip limits, and
revise the recreational fishing season.
All weights described in the preamble of
this proposed rule are in gutted weight.

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Snowy Grouper Commercial and
Recreational ACLs
In 2013, a standard stock assessment
for snowy grouper was conducted using
the Southeast Data, Assessment, and
Review (SEDAR) process (SEDAR 36).
SEDAR 36 indicates the snowy grouper
stock is no longer undergoing
overfishing, remains overfished, and is
rebuilding.
Snowy grouper is in a rebuilding plan
and catch levels are currently being held
constant as the stock rebuilds. While the
amendment states that it is changing the
rebuilding strategy, the effect of the
action is to adopt the acceptable
biological catch (ABC) chosen by the
Council as recommended by the
Council’s Scientific and Statistical
Committee (SSC) based upon the stock
assessment. The Council’s SSC
recommended an ABC equal to the yield
at 75 percent of the fishing mortality at
maximum sustainable yield (FMSY),
which would allow ABC to increase as
the stock rebuilds.
The current ABC is 87,254 lb (39,578
kg), which equals the total allowable
catch specified by the rebuilding
strategy in Amendment 15A to the FMP.
As described in Regulatory Amendment
20, the ABC would increase to 139,098
lb (63,094 kg) in 2015; 151,518 lb
(68,727 kg) in 2016; 163,109 lb (73,985
kg) in 2017; 173,873 lb (78,867 kg) in
2018; and 185,464 lb (84,125 kg) in 2019
and subsequent fishing years.
SEDAR 36 updated the historical
landings data for snowy grouper from
the Marine Recreational Fisheries
Statistical Survey (MRFSS) to the
Marine Recreational Information
Program (MRIP). Additionally,
recreational landings from Monroe
County, Florida, which encompasses the
islands of the Florida Keys, were
included in the SEDAR 36 stock
assessment. The recreational landings
data from Monroe County were not
included in the first stock assessment
conducted for snowy grouper in 2004
(SEDAR 4) because it was not possible
at that time to separate out the data from
Monroe County from the landings data
for the rest of the west coast of Florida.
However, in 2013, a method was
developed for extracting and separating
the recreational landings from Monroe
County from the rest of the west coast
of Florida and therefore, the Monroe
County recreational data were included
in SEDAR 36. When applying the
existing allocation formula for snowy
grouper to the change in landings from
the SEDAR 36 assessment, a shift results
in the sector ACLs from 95 percent
commercial and 5 percent recreational

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