22 CFR Chapter IX - FOREIGN SERVICE GRIEVANCE BOARD

The Department of State is issuing a final rule to amend its Privacy Act regulation exempting portions of a system of records from certain provisions of the Privacy Act of 1974. Certain portions of the Risk Analysis and Management (RAM) Records, State-78, system of records contain criminal investigation records, investigatory material for law enforcement purposes, confidential source information and are proposed to be exempted under the Privacy Act.

The Department of State amends the Schedule of Fees for Consular Services (Schedule) for visa fees. More specifically, the rule amends the Border Crossing Card fee paid by a Mexican citizen under age 15 whose parent or guardian has applied or is applying for a border crossing card (the “reduced Border Crossing Card fee”). The Department of State is increasing the fee in light of the passage of the Emergency Afghan Allies Extension Act of 2014, which added a $1 surcharge to the fees for Machine Readable Visa (MRV) and Border Crossing Card (BCC) application processing. The Department must raise the reduced Border Crossing Card fee by $1, for a total fee of $17, to continue to collect the legislatively mandated fee amount of $13 and all applicable surcharges.

The Department of State (“Department”) finalizes a proposed rule to add additional categories of international agreements to be exempted from the requirement to publish in the Treaties and Other International Acts Series (TIAS). The TIAS is the official treaty series of the United States and serves as evidence of the treaties, and international agreements other than treaties, in all courts of law and equity and of maritime jurisdiction, and in all the tribunals and public offices of the United States and of the several States, without any need of further proof or authentication. Certain international agreements may be exempted from publication in TIAS if the Department of State provides notice in its regulations. This rule adds three categories of international agreements that are not required to be published in TIAS.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) proposes a rule to establish environmental compliance procedures pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This proposed rule is applicable to all USAID activities, both program and operating expense (OE) funded, that occur within the United States, its territories and or possessions. Program funded activities that occur entirely outside of the United States, its territories and possessions undergo environmental impact assessment and compliance review under separate regulatory authority. This rule will ensure that the environmental consequences of USAID actions are considered prior to funding in accordance with NEPA.

With this rulemaking, the Department of State is amending the general rules covering the Exchange Visitor Program that govern the designation of sponsors and the overall administration of the Program. This final rule encompasses technical changes to the general provisions and addresses public diplomacy and foreign policy concerns, including the Department's ability to monitor sponsors to protect the health, safety and welfare of foreign nationals who come to the United States as exchange visitors. The Department previously published a proposed rule, and, after analyzing the comments received, the Department is promulgating this final rule with request for comment and soliciting comments over a period of 60 days.

The Department of State (“Department”) finalizes an interim final rule that establishes procedures for the Department to respond to domestic requests for program material disseminated by the Department abroad. The Department adopts the rule as final, without amendment.

The Department of State published a Federal Register document on August 28, 2014, in Volume 79, No. 167, page 51247, amending the Schedule of Fees for Consular Services (Schedule) for certain nonimmigrant visa application processing fees, certain immigrant visa application processing and special visa services fees, and certain citizenship services fees. The document contained an incorrect effective date. This document corrects the document by changing the effective date that the new fees will go into effect from September 6, 2014 to September 12, 2014 and the date that comments must be received by from October 21, 2014 to October 26, 2014.

The Department of State amends the Schedule of Fees for Consular Services (Schedule) for certain nonimmigrant visa application processing fees, certain immigrant visa application processing and special visa services fees, and certain citizenship services fees. More specifically, the rule amends the application processing fees for two categories of petition-based nonimmigrant visas and the tiered application processing fees for immigrant visas. The rule also amends the security surcharge for immigrant visa services and the fees for certain immigrant visa services. Lastly, the rule raises the application processing fee for renunciation of U.S. citizenship and lowers the hourly consular officer time charge. The Department of State is adjusting the fees in light of the findings of a recent Cost of Service study to ensure that the fees for consular services better align with the costs of providing those services.

The Department of State is amending the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) to update the defense trade policy regarding the Central African Republic to reflect the most recent resolution adopted by the United Nations Security Council.

This rule implements the procedures by which the Millennium Challenge Corporation responds to subpoenas or other official demands for information and testimony served upon itself or its employees.

The Department of State is repealing the regulation that provides for personal liability for Consular Officers in cases of malfeasance, and provides updates to citations of authorities. The deleted regulation, which was promulgated in 1957 and last amended in 1984, is no longer authorized by statute.

This regulation prescribes the procedures and standard terms and conditions applicable to loan guarantees to be issued for the benefit of the Republic of Tunisia pursuant to Title III of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2012, as applied to FY 2013 funding by section 1706(j) of the Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013.

This rule amends the Department of State (Department) rule on the accreditation and approval of adoption service providers in intercountry adoptions. The revisions reflect the requirement of the Intercountry Adoption Universal Accreditation Act of 2012 (UAA) that the accreditation standards developed in accordance with the 1993 Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption (Convention) and the Intercountry Adoption Act of 2000 (IAA), which previously only applied in Convention adoption cases, apply also in non-Convention adoption cases. Non-convention adoption cases are known as “orphan” cases, defined in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). This rule also revises the accreditation rule by referring to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Convention home study regulation and deleting obsolete references, such as any reference to temporary accreditation.

The Department of State (hereinafter, “State” or “the Department”) is publishing a correction to a final rule that amended State's debt collection regulations.

The Treaties and Other International Acts Series (TIAS) is the official treaty series of the United States and serves as evidence of the treaties, and international agreements other than treaties, in all courts of law and equity of the United States, and in public offices of the federal government and of the states, without any need of further authentication. Certain international agreements may be exempted from publication in TIAS, if the Department of State provides notice in its regulations. With this proposed rule, the Department of State is proposing to update those regulations to exempt three additional agreement categories.

As part of the President's Export Control Reform (ECR) effort, the Department of State is amending the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) to revise U.S. Munitions List (USML) Category XI (Military Electronics). The Department is also amending Category VIII (Aircraft and Related Articles) with respect to wing folding systems and both Categories VIII and XIX to remove three paragraphs superseded by the revision of Category XI. The revisions contained in this rule are part of the Department of State's retrospective plan under E.O. 13563.

The Department of State revises its regulations governing the classification of national security information that is under the control of the Department in order to reflect the provisions of a new executive order on national security information, E.O. 13526 and its implementing directive in Information Security Oversight Office regulations. This revision also reflects consequent changes in the Department's procedures since the last revision of the Department's regulations on this subject in 2004. These changes include some changes in the classification categories, in the rules governing the sharing of other-agency classified information, and in granting access to classified information to certain former government personnel. This regulation does not apply to information classified as Restricted Data (RD) or Formerly Restricted Data (FRD). Requirements for classifying and declassifying RD and FRD can be found in Department of Energy regulations on Nuclear Classification and Declassification, or in a Department of State regulation or internal order implementing those regulations.

Pursuant to the Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act of 2005, the Department of State amends the immigrant visa classification table listed in the Department's regulations to add a symbol for an immigrant visa issued to to an alien who: is the parent of a current U.S.citizen, or the parent of a former U.S. citizen who, within the two-year period prior to filing the petition, lost or renounced U.S. citizenship status related to an incident of domestic violence or died; is a person of good moral character; is eligible to be classified as an immediate relative under the Immigration and Nationality Act; resides, or has resided, with the U.S. citizen daughter or son; demonstrates that he or she has been battered or subject to extreme cruelty by the U.S. citizen daughter or son; and has an approved petition from the Department of Homeland Security.

This regulation prescribes the procedures and standard terms and conditions applicable to loan guarantees to be issued for the benefit of Ukraine pursuant to the Support for the Sovereignty, Integrity, Democracy, and Economic Stability of Ukraine Act of 2014.

The purpose of this document is to outline the procedures by which the Millennium Challenge Corporation proposes to respond to subpoenas or other official demands for information and testimony served upon itself or its employees.

The Department of State (“Department”) is amending its regulations to implement Section 1078 of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013. This statutory provision, which entered into effect on July 2, 2013, amends previous law to allow the Department and the Broadcasting Board of Governors (“BBG”) to make public diplomacy program material available within the United States, upon request, following the dissemination of such material abroad, and requires the Department to issue regulations implementing this change.

The final rule updates Peace Corps regulations on the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to implement guidance given by the President and the Attorney General regarding discretionary disclosures of records or information exempt from disclosure under the FOIA, whenever disclosure would not foreseeably harm an interest protected by a FOIA exemption. The final rule is based on language used by Department of Justice in its FOIA regulations. The Peace Corps received comments from the National Archives and Records Administration's Office of Government Information Services (OGIS).