1 CFR Chapter I, Subchapter C - SPECIAL EDITIONS OF THE FEDERAL REGISTER

The National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC or Commission) rescinds its current Environmental and Historic Preservation Policies and Procedures (2004 Policies) and hereby adopts new rules governing NCPC's implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

The National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC or Commission) proposes to adopt new regulations governing NCPC's implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and regulations promulgated by the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). Federal agencies and NCPC on behalf of non-federal agencies must comply with the requirements of NEPA and CEQ regulations for projects submitted to the Commission for review and approval.

The Administrative Conference of the United States (“ACUS” or “the Conference”) is revising its regulations for disclosure of records under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to comply with the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016.

In this document, we are revising our regulations on incorporation by reference to require that agencies seeking the Director of the Federal Register's approval of their incorporation by reference requests add more information regarding materials incorporated by reference to the preambles of their rulemaking documents. Specifically, agencies must set out, in the preambles of their proposed and final rules, a discussion of the actions they took to ensure the materials are reasonably available to interested parties and that they summarize the contents of the materials they wish to incorporate by reference.

The Administrative Committee of the Federal Register proposes to update its regulations for the Federal Register system to clarify certain policies and to reflect current procedures and technological advances. This proposal would also revise the regulatory text to make it more readable and consistent with plain language principles.

The National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC or Commission) revises the current rule the NCPC follows for processing requests for information under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The revisions reorganize the rule to focus each section on a discrete topic. The revisions also incorporate new information in response to changes to the FOIA since NCPC's adoption of its current FOIA rule in 1982. Finally, the revisions decrease the cost charged for hard copies and increase the threshold dollar amount that must be reached before the NCPC charges members of the public a processing fee for information.

On November 18, 2013, the Office of the Federal Register published an extension of the comment period for our proposal to amend our regulations governing the approval of agency requests to incorporate material by reference into the Code of Federal Regulations. We are correcting the date of that extension.

On October 2, 2013, the Office of the Federal Register published a proposal to amend our regulations governing the approval of agency requests to incorporate material by reference into the Code of Federal Regulations. Given the recent government shutdown and technical issues with Regulations.gov, we are extending the comment period. We are also correcting the docket number and adding a link to the docket.

On February 13, 2012, the Office of the Federal Register received a petition to amend our regulations governing the approval of agency requests to incorporate material by reference into the Code of Federal Regulations. We agree with the petitioners that our regulations need to be updated, however the petitioners proposed changes to our regulations that go beyond our statutory authority. In this document, we propose that agencies seeking the Director's approval of their incorporation by reference requests add more information regarding materials incorporated by reference to the preambles of their rulemaking documents. We propose that they set out in the preambles a discussion of the actions they took to ensure the materials are reasonably available to interested parties or summarize the contents of the materials they wish to incorporate by reference.

The National Capital Planning Commission (“NCPC” or “Commission”) proposes to revise the current regulations the NCPC follows for processing Requests for Information under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The revisions reorganize the regulations to focus each section on a discrete topic. The revisions also incorporate new information in response to changes to the FOIA. Finally, the revisions increase the threshold dollar amount that must be reached before the NCPC charges members of the public a processing fee for information.

On February 13, 2012, the Office of the Federal Register (OFR or we) received a petition to amend our regulations governing the approval of agency requests to incorporate material by reference into the Code of Federal Regulations. We published an announcement of the petition and request for comments on February 27, 2012. Since that time we have received one formal and several informal requests to extend the comment period. We are extending the comment period until June 1, 2012. We will not accept late comments.