Wednesday, July 22, 2009Last Update: 11:27 PM PT

     WASHINGTON (CN) - The Securities and Exchange Commission has proposed changes that would add new disclosure requirements designed to enhance the information included in proxy and information statements, particularly information about executive and risk-management employee compensation.
     The SEC wants investors to be able to determine if a company's overall compensation policy encourages unnecessary risks, and examine and the relationship between the company's position on risk and director and nominee qualifications, company leadership structure, and the potential conflicts of interests of compensation consultants.
     Executives and other highly compensated individuals would be required to disclose the aggregate grant date fair value of bonuses or other compensation computed in accordance with Financial Accounting Standards Board Statement of Financial Accounting Standards instead of the dollar amount recognized for financial statement reporting purposes which often under estimates the value of the award.
     Click on the document icon beneath "VA Tosses Written Consent for HIV Testing" for additional new federal regulations.

     WASHINGTON (CN) - In response to recent increases in the incidental killing of porpoises by the gill net fisheries of the east coast, the National Marine Fisheries Service proposes to amend the Harbor Porpoise Take Reduction Plan to expand the fisheries covered under the plan and to create so called "consequence" closure areas to punish fisheries that do not comply with the take reduction plan.
     Poor compliance with existing measures and increased bycatch outside of existing management areas are the primary reasons for the increase in porpoise deaths, according to the agency. In some areas the agency has observed only 10 percent compliance with the placement of the proper number of pinging devices attached to gill nets to warn off porpoises.
     Consequence closure areas would be areas of high harbor porpoise bycatch that would become seasonally closed if the observed average bycatch rates over two consecutive management seasons indicate that bycatch in the area exceeds the target rate. In 2007 approximately 652 porpoises were killed, up from an annual rate of 515 from 2000 to 2005.

     WASHINGTON (CN) - President Obama has ordered the Attorney General, the Director of National Intelligence, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State to provide Congress with a report on the prisoner population at the detention facility at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, including the name and country of origin of each detainee, a current summary of the evidence, intelligence, and information used to justify the detention of each detainee, and a current accounting of all the measures taken to transfer each to the individual's country of citizenship or another country.
     The President made the order under the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2009, which also requires the administration to include a current description of the number of individuals released or transferred from detention at Guantanamo Bay who are confirmed or suspected of returning to terrorist activities after their release or transfer, and an assessment of any efforts by al Qaeda to recruit detainees released from the detention facility. An update of the report is due to Congress every 90 days.

      WASHINGTON (CN) - The National Marine Fisheries Service issued regulations allowing the Port of Anchorage to continue to use underwater pile drivers and chipping hammers to expand the port complex and construct new shipping facilities, noting that endangered "...beluga whales are not behaviorally reacting to noise from pile driving nor are longer term changes in habitat use or use frequency obvious."
     Sharon Young, Marine Issues Field Director for the Humane Society of the U.S. says that the agency underestimates the impact of chronic noise on marine mammals over time and calls it "simplistic" to assume that because whales have so far shown no behavioral changes that they are not suffering stress from construction noise. Young argues that the Service should take the greatest precautions possible with an endangered species, not the least. For instance, when construction began the agency required work to stop when belugas where detected within 1,300 meters of underwater activity but the new regulations reduce the distance to just 200 meters.
     The Port of Anchorage is the largest port in Alaska, serving as the state's commercial hub with 90 percent of all consumer goods passing through it. The expansion project is scheduled to be completed in 2014 and will increase the capacity of the port with new cranes able to extract cargo from the largest ocean freighters.

     WASHINGTON (CN) - Car makers will have another year to modify van doors to have double latches, which are meant to keep the doors shut in an accident, thanks to petitions by Ford Motor Company, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, and others.
     The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has delayed the compliance date of the federal motor vehicle safety standard sliding door provisions to Sept. 1, 2010, to analyze the issues in four petitions, and "to accommodate manufacturers' design and production cycles."
     This issue applies primarily to large vans and older mini-vans, which often have been manufactured with single latches.
     Click on the document icon for this and other federal regulations.

     WASHINGTON (CN) - TRICARE will cover forensic examinations following a sexual assault or domestic violence for eligible beneficiaries. This allows the same coverage for the examinations at civilian facilities that would be allowed at military medical treatment facilities.
     Click on the document icon for this and other federal regulations.

     WASHINGTON (CN) - For forty years, until 1991, the Central Wood Preserving Company facility in East Feliciana Parrish, Louisiana used creosote, copper oxide and chromium and arsenic salts to make wood impervious to the elements. The facility also was spilling and dumping those same chemicals onto the soil and into the streams. After 20 years of remediation work, including the removal of 1,500 cubic meters of contaminated top soil, the Environmental Protection Agency proposes to remove the Central Wood Preserving Company from its Superfund site list.