This section of the FEDERAL REGISTER

contains notices to the public of the proposed

issuance of rules and regulations. The

purpose of these notices is to give interested

persons an opportunity to participate in the

rule making prior to the adoption of the final

rules.

Proposed Rules Federal Register

5300

Vol. 69, No. 23

Wednesday, February 4, 2004

1Pub. L. 104–208, div. A, title II, sec. 2222, 110 

Stat. 3009–414; codified at 12 U.S.C. 3311.

2 68 FR 39863.

NATIONAL CREDIT UNION 

ADMINISTRATION 

12 CFR Chap. VII 

Request for Burden Reduction 

Recommendation; Consumer 

Protection: Lending-Related Rules; 

Economic Growth and Regulatory 

Paperwork Reduction Act of 1996 

Review

AGENCY: National Credit Union 

Administration.

ACTION: Proposed rule; notice of 

regulatory review; request for 

comments. 

SUMMARY: The NCUA Board is 

continuing its review of its regulations 

to identify outdated, unnecessary, or 

unduly burdensome regulatory 

requirements imposed on federallyinsured credit unions pursuant to the 

Economic Growth and Regulatory 

Paperwork Reduction Act of 1996 

(EGRPRA). Today, NCUA requests 

comments and suggestions on ways to 

reduce burden in rules we have 

categorized as Consumer Protection: 

Lending-Related Rules, consistent with 

our statutory obligations. All comments 

are welcome. 

We specifically invite comment on 

the following issues: Whether statutory 

changes are needed; whether the 

regulations contain requirements that 

are not needed to serve the purposes of 

the statutes they implement; the extent 

to which the regulations may adversely 

affect competition; the cost of 

compliance associated with reporting, 

recordkeeping, and disclosure 

requirements, particularly on small 

credit unions; whether any regulatory 

requirements are inconsistent or 

redundant; and whether any regulations 

are unclear. 

We will analyze the comments 

received and propose burden reducing 

changes to our regulations where 

appropriate. Some suggestions for 

burden reduction might require 

legislative changes. Where legislative 

changes would be required, we will 

consider the suggestions in 

recommending appropriate changes to 

the Congress.

DATES: Comment must be received on or 

before May 4, 2004.

ADDRESSES: Direct comments to Becky 

Baker, Secretary of the Board. Mail or 

hand-deliver comments to: National 

Credit Union Administration, 1775 

Duke Street, Alexandria, Virginia 

22314–3428. Fax comments to (703) 

518–6319. E-mail comments to 

regcomments@ncua.gov. Please send 

comments by one method only. Because 

of the number of regulatory matters for 

which NCUA may be receiving 

comments during the time this comment 

period is open, we suggest commenters 

identify comments in response to this 

notice by including ‘‘EGRPRA’’ in a 

subject or reference line in their 

comments.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ross 

P. Kendall, Staff Attorney, Office of 

General Counsel, at the above address or 

telephone (703) 518–6562.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. Introduction 

NCUA seeks public comment and 

suggestions on ways it can reduce 

regulatory burdens consistent with our 

statutory obligations. Today, we request 

input to help us identify which 

Consumer Protection—Lending Related 

rules are outdated, unnecessary, or 

unduly burdensome. The rules in this 

category are listed in a chart at the end 

of this notice. The EGRPRA review 

supplements and complements the 

reviews of regulations that NCUA 

conducts under other laws and its 

internal policies. 

In drafting this notice, the NCUA 

participated as part of the EGRPRA 

planning process with the Office of the 

Comptroller of the Currency, Board of 

Governors of the Federal Reserve 

System, Federal Deposit Insurance 

Corporation, and Office of Thrift 

Supervision (Agencies). Because of the 

unique circumstances of federallyinsured credit unions and their 

members, NCUA is issuing a separate 

notice from the other Agencies, which 

are issuing a joint notice. NCUA’s notice 

is consistent and comparable with the 

joint notice published by the other 

Agencies, except on issues that are 

unique to credit unions. 

This notice includes several 

regulations that affect credit union 

lending activity that are issued by the 

Board of Governors of the Federal 

Reserve System (Federal Reserve): Equal 

Credit Opportunity, 12 CFR part 202 

(Regulation B), Home Mortgage 

Disclosure, 12 CFR part 203 (Regulation 

C), Consumer Leasing, 12 CFR part 213 

(Regulation M) and Truth in Lending, 12 

CFR part 226 (Regulation Z). These 

regulations are also included in the 

Agencies’ joint notice in which the 

Federal Reserve is participating. The 

NCUA has enforcement authority for 

federal credit unions for Regulations B, 

M, and Z and for both federal credit 

unions and federally-insured state 

chartered credit unions for Regulation 

C. Credit unions and other interested 

parties seeking to comment on these 

rules may either submit comments to 

the NCUA or the EGRPRA Web site, at 

www.EGRPRA.gov, as specified in the 

joint notice. Commenters may address 

any aspect of the regulations, including 

specifically how the regulations 

uniquely affect credit unions. 

II. A. The EGRPRA Review 

Requirements and NCUA’s Proposed 

Plan 

This notice is part of the regulatory 

review required by section 2222 of 

EGRPRA.1 The NCUA described the 

review requirements in our initial 

Federal Register notice, published on 

July 3, 2003.2 As we noted at that time, 

we anticipate that the EGRPRA review’s 

overall focus on the ‘‘forest’’ of 

regulations will offer a new perspective 

in identifying opportunities to reduce 

regulatory burden. We must, of course, 

assure that the effort to reduce 

regulatory burden is consistent with 

applicable statutory mandates and 

provides for the continued safety and 

soundness of federally-insured credit 

unions and appropriate consumer 

protections.

The EGRPRA review required that 

NCUA categorize our regulations by 

type. Our July 3, 2003, Federal Register

publication identified ten broad 

categories for our regulations. The 

categories are:

1. Applications and Reporting 

2. Powers and Activities 

3. Agency Programs 

4. Capital 

5. Consumer Protection 

Federal Register / Vol. 69, No. 23 / Wednesday, February 4, 2004 / Proposed Rules 5301

6. Corporate Credit Unions 

7. Directors, Officers and Employees 

8. Money Laundering 

9. Rules of Procedure 

10. Safety and Soundness

To spread the work of commenting on 

and reviewing the categories of rules 

over a reasonable period of time, we 

proposed to publish one or more 

categories of rules approximately every 

six months between 2003 and 2006 and 

provide a 90-day comment period for 

each publication. We asked for 

comment on all aspects of our plan, 

including: The categories, the rules in 

each category, and the order in which 

we should review the categories. 

Because the NCUA was eager to begin 

reducing unnecessary burden where 

appropriate, our initial notice also 

published the first two categories of 

rules for comment (Applications and 

Reporting and Powers and Activities). 

All our covered categories of rules must 

be published for comment and reviewed 

by the end of September 2006. 

The EGRPRA review then requires the 

Agencies to: (1) Publish a summary of 

the comments we received, identifying 

and discussing the significant issues 

raised in them; and (2) eliminate 

unnecessary regulatory requirements. 

Within 30 days after the Agencies 

publish the comment summary and 

discussion, the Federal Financial 

Institutions Examination Council, 

which is the formal interagency body to 

which all of the Agencies, including the 

NCUA, belong, must submit a report to 

the Congress. This report will 

summarize significant issues raised by 

the public comments and the relative 

merits of those issues. It will also 

analyze whether the appropriate federal 

banking agency can address the burdens 

by regulation, or whether the burdens 

must be addressed by legislation. 

B. Public Response and NCUA’s Current 

Plan 

NCUA received eight comments in 

response to its first notice. The 

comments have been reviewed and an 

ongoing analysis of them is underway. 

The comments have been posted on the 

interagency EGRPRA Web site 

(www.EGRPRA.gov) and can be viewed 

by clicking on ‘‘Comments.’’ We are 

actively reviewing the feedback received 

about specific ways to reduce regulatory 

burden, as well as conducting our own 

analyses. Because the main purpose of 

this notice is to request comment on the 

next category of regulations, we will not 

discuss specific recommendations about 

the first set of regulation categories here. 

However, as we develop initiatives to 

reduce burden on specific subjects in 

the future—whether through regulatory, 

legislative, or other channels—we will 

discuss the public’s recommendations 

that relate to our proposed actions. 

In our last notice, we requested 

comment about our proposed categories 

and placement of the rules within each 

category. Persons commenting on the 

joint notice published by the other 

Agencies last June observed that 

commenting on the Consumer 

Protection category would be 

burdensome in itself, and suggested that 

we might receive more useful feedback 

if the category was divided. As a result, 

both NCUA and the other Agencies have 

divided the consumer protection 

regulations into two categories: (1) 

Lending-Related Rules, and (2) Share 

Account—Deposit Relationships and 

Miscellaneous Consumer Rules. The 

regulations in the Lending-Related 

Rules category are listed in the chart 

below. The Share Account—Deposit 

Relationships and Miscellaneous 

Consumer Rules category will contain 

the remaining rules previously 

identified in the Consumer Protection 

category. We plan to request comment 

on the Share Account—Deposit 

Relationships and Miscellaneous 

Consumer Rules in the next notice. 

We also requested comment about the 

order we should review the categories. 

According to some industry 

representatives, the requirements 

imposed by the Consumer Protection 

regulations are among the most 

burdensome. Given this response, we 

will focus on those rules first. 

III. Request for Comment on Consumer 

Protection: Lending Related Rules 

Category 

NCUA is asking the public to identify 

the ways in which the Consumer 

Protection: Lending Related rules may 

be outdated, unnecessary, or unduly 

burdensome. If the implementation of a 

comment would require modifying a 

statute that underlies the regulation, the 

comment should, if possible, identify 

the needed statutory change. The rules 

in this category are listed in the chart 

below. 

We encourage comments that not only 

deal with individual rules or 

requirements but also pertain to certain 

product lines. For example, in the case 

of a particular loan, are any disclosure 

requirements under one regulation 

inconsistent with or duplicative of 

requirements under another regulation? 

Are there unnecessary records that must 

be kept? A product line approach is 

consistent with EGRPRA’s focus on how 

rules interact, and may be especially 

helpful in exposing redundant or 

potentially inconsistent regulatory 

requirements. We recognize that 

commenters using a product line 

approach may want to make 

recommendations about rules that are 

not in our current request for comment. 

They should do so since the EGRPRA 

categories are designed to stimulate 

creative approaches rather than limiting 

them. 

Specific issues to consider. While all 

comments are welcome, NCUA 

specifically invites comment on the 

following issues: 

• Need for statutory change. Do any 

of the statutory requirements underlying 

these regulations impose redundant, 

conflicting or otherwise unduly 

burdensome requirements? Are there 

less burdensome alternatives? 

• Need and purpose of the 

regulations. Are the regulations 

consistent with the purposes of the 

statutes that they implement? Have 

circumstances changed so that the 

regulation is no longer necessary? Do 

changes in the financial products and 

services offered to consumers suggest a 

need to revise certain regulations (or 

statutes)? Do any of the regulations 

impose compliance burdens not 

required by the statutes they 

implement?

• General approach/flexibility.

Generally, is there a different approach 

to regulating that NCUA could use that 

would achieve statutory goals while 

imposing less burden? Do any of the 

regulations in this category or the 

statutes underlying them impose 

unnecessarily inflexible requirements? 

• Effect of the regulations on 

competition. Do any of the regulations 

in this category or the statutes 

underlying them create competitive 

disadvantages for credit unions 

compared to another part of the 

financial services industry? 

• Reporting, recordkeeping and 

disclosure requirements. Do any of the 

regulations in this category or the 

statutes underlying them impose 

particularly burdensome reporting, 

recordkeeping or disclosure 

requirements? Are any of these 

requirements similar enough in purpose 

and use so that they could be 

consolidated? What, if any, of these 

requirements could be fulfilled 

electronically to reduce their burden? 

Are any of the reporting or 

recordkeeping requirements 

unnecessary to demonstrate compliance 

with the law? 

• Consistency and redundancy. Do 

any of the regulations in this category 

impose inconsistent or redundant 

regulatory requirements that are not 

warranted by the purposes of the 

regulation? 

5302 Federal Register / Vol. 69, No. 23 / Wednesday, February 4, 2004 / Proposed Rules 

• Clarity. Are the regulations in this 

category drafted in clear and easily 

understood language? 

• Burden on small insured 

institutions. NCUA has a particular 

interest in minimizing burden on small 

insured credit unions (those with less 

than $10 million in assets). More than 

half of federally-insured credit unions 

are small—having $10 million in assets 

or less—as defined by NCUA in IRPS 

03–2. NCUA solicits comment on how 

any regulations in this category could be 

changed to minimize any significant 

economic impact on a substantial 

number of small credit unions. 

NCUA appreciates the efforts of all 

interested parties to help us eliminate 

outdated, unnecessary or unduly 

burdensome regulatory requirements. 

IV. Regulations About Which Burden 

Reduction Recommendations Are 

Requested Currently

Consumer Protection: Lending Related Rules 

Nondiscrimination Requirement (Fair Housing) ...................................................................................................................... 12 CFR 701.31. 

Loans in Areas Having Special Flood Hazards ...................................................................................................................... 12 CFR part 760. 

Credit Practices ....................................................................................................................................................................... 12 CFR part 706. 

[Federal Reserve Rules] 

Equal Credit Opportunity [Regulation B] ................................................................................................................................. 12 CFR part 202. 

Home Mortgage Disclosure [Regulation C] ............................................................................................................................. 12 CFR part 203. 

Consumer Leasing [Regulation M] .......................................................................................................................................... 12 CFR part 213. 

Truth in Lending [Regulation Z] ............................................................................................................................................... 12 CFR part 226. 

By the National Credit Union 

Administration Board on January 28, 2004. 

Becky Baker, 

Secretary of the Board.

[FR Doc. 04–2279 Filed 2–3–04; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 7535–01–P

SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

13 CFR Part 121 

Small Business Size Standards; 

Waiver of the Nonmanufacturer Rule

AGENCY: U.S. Small Business 

Administration.

ACTION: Proposed rule; notice of intent 

to waive the Nonmanufacturer Rule for 

General Aviation Turboprop Aircraft. 

SUMMARY: The U.S. Small Business 

Administration (SBA) is considering 

granting a waiver of the 

Nonmanufacturer Rule for General 

Aviation Turboprop Aircraft 

manufacturing. The basis for waivers is 

that no small business manufacturers 

are supplying these classes of products 

to the Federal government. The effect of 

a waiver would be to allow otherwise 

qualified regular dealers to supply the 

products of any domestic manufacturer 

on a Federal contract set aside for small 

businesses or awarded through the SBA 

8(a) Program. The purpose of this notice 

is to solicit comments and potential 

source information from interested 

parties.

DATES: Comments and sources must be 

submitted on or before February 20, 

2004.

ADDRESSES: Address comments to: Edith 

Butler, Program Analyst, U.S. Small 

Business Administration, 409 3rd Street, 

SW., Washington DC, 20416, Tel: (202) 

619–0422.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Edith Butler, Program Analyst, (202) 

619–0422, FAX (202) 205–7280.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Pub. L. 

100–656, enacted on November 15, 

1988, incorporated into the Small 

Business Act the previously existing 

regulation that recipients of Federal 

contracts set aside for small businesses 

or SBA 8(a) Program procurement must 

provide the product of a small business 

manufacturer or processor, if the 

recipient is other than the actual 

manufacturer or processor. This 

requirement is commonly referred to as 

the Nonmanufacturer Rule. The SBA 

regulations imposing this requirement 

are found at 13 CFR 121.406(b). Section 

303(h) of the law provides for waiver of 

this requirement by SBA for any ‘‘class 

of products’’ for which there are no 

small business manufacturers or 

processors in the Federal market. 

To be considered available to 

participate in the Federal market on 

these classes of products, a small 

business manufacturer must have 

submitted a proposal for a contract 

solicitation or received a contract from 

the Federal government within the last 

24 months. The SBA defines ‘‘class of 

products’’ based on six digit coding 

systems. 

The first coding system is the Office 

of Management and Budget North 

American Industry Classification 

System (NAICS). The second is the 

Product and Service Code established 

by the Federal Procurement Data 

System. 

The Small Business Administration is 

currently processing a request to waive 

the Nonmanufacturer Rule for General 

Aviation Turboprop Aircraft, North 

American Industry Classification 

System (NAICS) 441229. The public is 

invited to comment or provide source 

information to SBA on the proposed 

waiver of the nonmanufacturer rule for 

this NAICS code.

Barry S. Meltz, 

Acting Associate Administrator for 

Government Contracting.

[FR Doc. 04–2239 Filed 2–3–04; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 8025–01–P

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

Federal Aviation Administration 

14 CFR Part 39 

[Docket No. 2003–CE–63–AD] 

RIN 2120–AA64 

Airworthiness Directives; HPH s.r.o. 

Models Glasflu ̈ gel 304CZ, 304CZ–17, 

and 304C Sailplanes

AGENCY: Federal Aviation 

Administration (FAA), DOT.

ACTION: Notice of proposed rulemaking 

(NPRM). 

SUMMARY: The FAA proposes to adopt a 

new airworthiness directive (AD) for all 

HPH s.r.o. (HPH) Models Glasflu ̈ gel 

304CZ, 304CZ–17, and 304C sailplanes. 

This proposed AD would require you to 

inspect to determine the airbrake handle 

attachment rivet material. This 

proposed AD would require you to 

replace any non-steel rivet with a steel 

rivet. This proposed AD is the result of 

mandatory continuing airworthiness 

information (MCAI) issued by the 

airworthiness authority for the Czech 

Republic. We are issuing this proposed 

AD to prevent the airbrake handle from 

becoming loose, which could result in 

failure of the airbrake control. This 

failure could lead to loss of control of 

the sailplane.

DATES: We must receive any comments 

on this proposed AD by March 4, 2004.