Wednesday, October 28, 2009Last Update: 11:06 PM PT

     WASHINGTON (CN) - The Labor Department's Mine Safety and Health Administration requests information regarding whether use of the relatively new Continuous Personal Dust Monitor may lead to more effective monitoring and control of miners' exposure to respirable coal mine dust.
     The sampling device is accurate, precise, and durable in providing continuous exposure information previously not available to coal miners and coal mine operators, according to a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health's 2006 study regarding use of the pre-commercial monitor in laboratory and underground coal mine environments.
     The MSHA plans to use the information to determine: How to best use the monitoring capability to improve protection from disabling occupational lung disease; the feasibility of more effective exposure monitoring given the availability of the device; and what regulatory and non-regulatory actions should be considered regarding the monitor's use.
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     WASHINGTON (CN) - The Environmental Protection Agency is establishing federal drinking water requirements for aircraft public water systems under the Safe Drinking Water Act, as of Nov. 18.
     The EPA will require all aspects of water boarded on airplanes to comply with Food and Drug Administration sanitary requirements to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases.
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     WASHINGTON (CN) - Telecommunications companies will have another year to comply with mandatory minimum standards for enabling customers with hearing and speech disabilities to use video and Internet services. The Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission has determined that it is "technologically infeasible" to provide the services at this time.
     The minimum standards that will not be enforced until later, are: One-line voice carry over; voice carry over-to-teletypewriter; voice carry over-to-voice carry over; one-line hearing carry over; hearing carry over-to-teletypewriter; hearing carry over-to-hearing carry over; call release; pay-per-call (900) calls; types of calls; equal access to interexchange carriers; and speech-to-speech.
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     WASHINGTON (CN) - The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has created an emergency credit facility for participants in the Debt Guarantee Program of the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program who find themselves unable to issue non-guaranteed debt to replace maturing senior unsecured debt due to market disruptions or other circumstances beyond their control.
     Access to the facility will be granted on a case-by-case basis after the FDIC reviews the depository institution's application. If the application is approved, the FDIC will guarantee the applicant's senior unsecured debt issued on or before April 30, 2010. Debt guaranteed under the emergency guarantee facility is subject to an annualized assessment rate equal to a minimum of 300 basis points.

      WASHINGTON (CN) - The National Marine Fisheries Service is extending the public comment period for proposed regulations under the Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act to prohibit vessels from approaching killer whales within 200 yards and from parking in the path of whales for vessels in inland waters of Washington State. The comment period is extended by 80 days.
     The killer whale or orca, is found in all oceans in both open seas and coastal waters. Orcas are toothed whales, related to sperm and pilot whales, and sit at the top of their food chain, prey only to large sharks. Orcas are known to hunt in teams and have the most varied diet of all whales.
     The Southern Resident killer whales are a large population in the Pacific Northwest and "reside" in around the San Juan Islands and Puget Sound in Washington state for long periods each year.
     When the Southern resident killer whales were first listed as endangered, the agency identified disturbance and sound associated with vessels as a potential contributing factor in the whale's recent decline.
     The restriction of vessel approaches is aimed mainly at commercial whale watching vessels, which the agency says intentionally place themselves in the path of traveling whales, altering the whales' course and increasing whale surfacing, which is popular with whale watching tourists.

     WASHINGTON (CN) - Each Program and Field Office of the Department of Energy is to post on its Web site determinations that certain types of undertakings do not require an environmental impact report. Personnel matters are an example of a category that would not require an environmental impact report.
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     WASHINGTON (CN) - President Obama has ordered the State Department to admit 80,000 refugees to the U.S. in fiscal year 2010, for humanitarian reasons.
     The total number is allocated over several regions of the world with the largest being the Near East/South Asia segment with a cap of 35,000 refugees followed by East Asia with 17,000, Africa with 15,500; Latin America and the Caribbean with 5,000, Europe and Central Asia, 2,500, and 5,000 unallocated positions to be allocated at the discretion of the Secretary of State according to need.

     WASHINGTON (CN) - The Civilian Agency Acquisition Council and the Defense Acquisition Regulations Council have placed a one year limit on the duration of contracts awarded noncompetitively under "unusual and compelling urgency."
     Such contracts have been common with military contractors since the beginning of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as the military sought to out-source noncombat positions and meet its immediate need for providers of food, shelter and, in some cases, security and construction.
     The new one year limit rule implements part of the Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Act of 2009. It further limits such contracts to the time it takes for the acquisition agency to use competitive procedures to enter into another contract for the required goods and services.