Oh joy, it's semiannual agenda day
It's Christmas morning for administrative law geeks: in today's Oct. 31 Federal Register, all the federal agencies announce their rulemaking plans. These documents appear every six months but they contain advance plans being made as much as a year ahead. They're very much worth reading for a sense of what the federal agencies plan to do next.
I won't link to very many individual files within today's FR because they're easily found through the main table of contents. Instead, the following consists of browsing instructions and a few highlights noticed quickly by a busy blogmother. There's obviously a lot more to be found in these documents.
Oddly enough, to read the upcoming regulatory plans that the agencies deem most important, you have to dig up the most obscurely placed file in the FR's electronic table of contents. It's captioned, "Introduction to Regulatory Plan and Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions," under the heading, "Regulatory Information Service Center." Rulemaking plans that the agencies choose to describe here get special attention, receiving detailed rationales both under their own headings and in a prefatory "Statement of Regulatory Priorities" by each agency. You'll find the individual rule proposals cross-referenced, via low two-digit sequence numbers such as "64," in the individual agencies' files that appear elsewhere in today's FR, but the descriptions are in this special "Introduction" file.
Included in the HUD section of the "Introduction" are the continuing rewriting, "streamlining," and market-orienting of the public housing regulations "to more closely align public housing with the conventional real estate industry"... some rescue ideas for the most conspicuously wretched "chronically homeless"... a HOPWA overhaul... environmental regulation rewrites.... new rules on Ginnie Mae excess yield securities... and more.
The most directly housing-related individual files in the Table of Contents -- all with their corresponding sections in the "Introduction" I've just mentioned -- are of course those for HUD, Treasury (the main Treasury file includes tax law rulemaking), the Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight Office, the Federal Housing Finance Board, and the Agriculture Department. You have to go to the main Agriculture file, as Rural Development doesn't publish a separate regulatory agenda.
A few highlights, hardly everything: a glance into the Commerce Department agenda finds no mention of the "Strengthening America's Communities" proposal, though it says the Economic Development Administration plans to review and reissue all regs within three months of its next reauthorization.... Treasury is planning a new regulation, to be proposed somewhere around June 2006, to provide "guidance under section 45 D regarding how an entity meets the requirements to be a qualified active low-income community business for purposes of the new markets tax credit when its activities involve targeted populations."... Around December 2005, expect a new housing tax credit rule from Treasury that "will improve the administration of the low-income housing credit program by allowing all Forms 8609 to be processed at one location and reduce taxpayer burden by allowing the taxpayer to file the form one time."... Around December 2006, expect a further proposed rule, not described specifically here, "amending the low-income housing tax credit program."... a new tax rule under Sec. 141 on the allocation of private activity bond proceeds is coming around June 2006... final action is expected around the same time in a long-running rulemaking on private activity bond refunding regulations...
It's hard to summarize the HUD regulatory agenda file without filling the rest of this whole page, so if you have a stake in HUD rulemaking plans, do glance over the file yourself, especially the newer "Proposed Rule Stage" sections. Among other things there's a rule coming around next August changing the HOME Investment Partnerships Program rules regarding Community Housing Development Organizations (CHDOs).... A final rule in the existing rulemaking process for electronic grant applications is coming in December... so is a new Proposed Rule on renewals of expiring project-based Sec. 8 contracts... Amendments to the Mark-to-Market program in January... aw, just go read the thing.
I'll try and digest these agendas more thoroughly if time later. Until then, happy reading.
I won't link to very many individual files within today's FR because they're easily found through the main table of contents. Instead, the following consists of browsing instructions and a few highlights noticed quickly by a busy blogmother. There's obviously a lot more to be found in these documents.
Oddly enough, to read the upcoming regulatory plans that the agencies deem most important, you have to dig up the most obscurely placed file in the FR's electronic table of contents. It's captioned, "Introduction to Regulatory Plan and Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions," under the heading, "Regulatory Information Service Center." Rulemaking plans that the agencies choose to describe here get special attention, receiving detailed rationales both under their own headings and in a prefatory "Statement of Regulatory Priorities" by each agency. You'll find the individual rule proposals cross-referenced, via low two-digit sequence numbers such as "64," in the individual agencies' files that appear elsewhere in today's FR, but the descriptions are in this special "Introduction" file.
Included in the HUD section of the "Introduction" are the continuing rewriting, "streamlining," and market-orienting of the public housing regulations "to more closely align public housing with the conventional real estate industry"... some rescue ideas for the most conspicuously wretched "chronically homeless"... a HOPWA overhaul... environmental regulation rewrites.... new rules on Ginnie Mae excess yield securities... and more.
The most directly housing-related individual files in the Table of Contents -- all with their corresponding sections in the "Introduction" I've just mentioned -- are of course those for HUD, Treasury (the main Treasury file includes tax law rulemaking), the Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight Office, the Federal Housing Finance Board, and the Agriculture Department. You have to go to the main Agriculture file, as Rural Development doesn't publish a separate regulatory agenda.
A few highlights, hardly everything: a glance into the Commerce Department agenda finds no mention of the "Strengthening America's Communities" proposal, though it says the Economic Development Administration plans to review and reissue all regs within three months of its next reauthorization.... Treasury is planning a new regulation, to be proposed somewhere around June 2006, to provide "guidance under section 45 D regarding how an entity meets the requirements to be a qualified active low-income community business for purposes of the new markets tax credit when its activities involve targeted populations."... Around December 2005, expect a new housing tax credit rule from Treasury that "will improve the administration of the low-income housing credit program by allowing all Forms 8609 to be processed at one location and reduce taxpayer burden by allowing the taxpayer to file the form one time."... Around December 2006, expect a further proposed rule, not described specifically here, "amending the low-income housing tax credit program."... a new tax rule under Sec. 141 on the allocation of private activity bond proceeds is coming around June 2006... final action is expected around the same time in a long-running rulemaking on private activity bond refunding regulations...
It's hard to summarize the HUD regulatory agenda file without filling the rest of this whole page, so if you have a stake in HUD rulemaking plans, do glance over the file yourself, especially the newer "Proposed Rule Stage" sections. Among other things there's a rule coming around next August changing the HOME Investment Partnerships Program rules regarding Community Housing Development Organizations (CHDOs).... A final rule in the existing rulemaking process for electronic grant applications is coming in December... so is a new Proposed Rule on renewals of expiring project-based Sec. 8 contracts... Amendments to the Mark-to-Market program in January... aw, just go read the thing.
I'll try and digest these agendas more thoroughly if time later. Until then, happy reading.
posted by Martha Bridegam at 9:33 AM
<< Home