Federal Register / Vol. 69, No. 226 / Wednesday, November 24, 2004 / Notices 68437

DEPARTMENT OF STATE

[Public Notice 4903] 

International Joint Commission 

Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909 

The International Joint Commission 

(IJC) will hold public hearings on the 

report of its International Missisquoi 

Bay Task Force. 

In May of this year, the Canadian and 

United States federal governments asked 

the IJC to review plans by the State of 

Vermont to modernize the AlburgSwanton Bridge, involving the partial 

removal of the existing causeway, and to 

provide advice on whether the plans 

comply with Article IV of the Boundary 

Waters Treaty of 1909. Article IV states, 

in part, that ‘‘boundary waters and 

waters flowing across the boundary 

shall not be polluted on either side to 

the injury of health or property on the 

other.’’

In June, the IJC appointed an 

International Missisquoi Bay Task Force 

with members from the two federal 

governments, the state of Vermont and 

province of Quebec. IJC Commissioners 

and the Task Force held public 

consultation sessions in Saint-Georgesde-Clarenceville, Quebec and Swanton, 

Vermont in August. After reviewing the 

full range of available information, the 

Task Force reported to the IJC in 

October. Following the scheduled 

public hearings, the IJC will prepare its 

final report to the governments of the 

United States and Canada. 

All interested organizations and 

citizens are invited to speak at the 

public hearings on the Task Force report 

to be held at the following times and 

locations:

Monday, December 6, 2004 from 7 p.m. 

to 9:30 p.m. at the Centre des 

Loisirs—1 rue Tourangeau in SaintGeorges-de-Clarenceville, Quebec. 

Tuesday, December 7, 2004 from 7 p.m. 

to 9:30 p.m. at the Missiquoi Valley 

Union High School, 100 Thunderbird 

Drive, Swanton, Vermont.

As time will be limited, speakers are 

encouraged to highlight their comments 

at the public hearings and provide more 

detailed comments in writing. Written 

comments may also be sent to either 

address below for receipt by January 4, 

2005:

Secretary, Canadian Section, 234 

Laurier Avenue West, 22nd Floor, 

Ottawa, Ontario K1P 6K6, Fax: (613) 

993–5583, Voice: (613) 995–2984, 

Email: Commission@ottawa.ijc.org.

Secretary, United States Section, 1250 

23rd Street NW., Suite 100, 

Washington, DC 20440, Fax: (202) 

467–0746, Voice: (202) 736–9024, 

Email: 

Commission@washington.ijc.org.

The International Joint Commission is 

an international organization 

established by the Boundary Waters 

Treaty of 1909. It assists the 

governments in managing waters along 

the border for the benefit of both 

countries in a variety of ways including 

examining issues referred to it by the 

two Federal governments. 

More information, including the full 

text of the International Missisquoi Bay 

Task Force Report, may be found on the 

Commission’s Web site, at http://

www.ijc.org.

November 17, 2004. 

James G. Chandler, 

Acting Secretary, United States Section, 

Department of State.

[FR Doc. 04–26050 Filed 11–23–04; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4710–14–P

DEPARTMENT OF STATE

[Public Notice 4891] 

Industry Advisory Panel: Meeting 

Notice 

The Industry Advisory Panel of the 

Overseas Buildings Operations will 

meet on Thursday, December 9, 2004 

from 9:45 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. Eastern 

Standard Time. The meeting will be 

held at the Department of State, 2201 C 

Street, NW., (entrance on 23rd Street), 

Washington, DC. The majority of the 

meeting is devoted to an exchange of 

ideas between the Department’s Bureau 

of Overseas Buildings Operations’

senior management and the panel 

members, on design, operations and 

building maintenance. Members of the 

public are asked to kindly refrain from 

joining the discussion until Director 

Williams opens the discussion to the 

public. 

Due to limited seating space for 

members of the public, we ask that you 

kindly e-mail your information. To 

participate in this meeting, simply 

register by e-mail at IAPR@STATE.GOV

before December 3, 2004. Your email 

should include the following 

information; Date of birth, social 

security number, company name and 

title. This information is required to 

issue a temporary pass to enter the 

building. 

For questions, please contact 

PinzinoLE3@state.gov or call tel: 703/

875–6872; 

Ms. Gina Pinzino; or 

SpragueMA@state.gov tel: 703/875–

7173 for Michael Sprague.

Charles E. Williams, 

Director/Chief Operating Officer, Overseas 

Buildings Operations, Department of State.

[FR Doc. 04–26169 Filed 11–23–04; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4710–24–P

OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES 

TRADE REPRESENTATIVE 

Request for Public Comment With 

Respect to the Annual National Trade 

Estimate Report on Foreign Trade 

Barriers

AGENCY: Office of the United States 

Trade Representative.

ACTION: Notice.

SUMMARY: Pursuant to section 303 of the 

Trade and Tariff Act of 1984, as 

amended, USTR is required to publish 

annually the National Trade Estimate 

Report on Foreign Trade Barriers (NTE). 

With this notice, the Trade Policy Staff 

Committee (TPSC) is requesting 

interested parties to assist it in 

identifying significant barriers to U.S. 

exports of goods, services and overseas 

direct investment for inclusion in the 

NTE. Particularly important are 

impediments materially affecting the 

actual and potential financial 

performance of an industry sector. The 

TPSC invites written comments that 

provide views relevant to the issues to 

be examined in preparing the NTE. In 

order to ensure the most timely 

processing of submissions, the 

Department of Commerce will receive 

comments in response to this Notice.

DATES: Public comments are due not 

later than Tuesday, December 21, 2004. 

This deadline is firm. No submissions 

will be accepted after December 21.

ADDRESSES: Paper submissions: NTE 

Comments, U.S. Department of 

Commerce, USA Trade Center Room, 

14th & Constitution Ave., NW., Ronald 

Reagan Building, Washington, DC 

20230. 

Submissions by electronic mail: 

ntecomments@ita.doc.gov.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Procedural questions about transmitting 

comments or viewing public 

submissions should be directed to Mrs. 

Lisa Leyser on (202–482–3433), U.S. 

Department of Commerce. Questions 

regarding the report or its subject matter 

should be directed to Ms. Gloria Blue, 

Office of Policy Coordination, Office of 

the United States Trade Representative 

(202–395–3475).

68438 Federal Register / Vol. 69, No. 226 / Wednesday, November 24, 2004 / Notices 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Last year’s 

report may be found on USTR’s Internet 

Home Page (http://www.ustr.gov) under 

the section on Reports. In order to 

ensure compliance with the statutory 

mandate for reporting foreign trade 

barriers that are significant, we will 

focus particularly on those restrictions 

where there has been active private 

sector interest. 

The information submitted should 

relate to one or more of the following 

ten categories of foreign trade barriers: 

(1) Import policies (e.g., tariffs and 

other import charges, quantitative 

restrictions, import licensing, and 

customs barriers); 

(2) Standards, testing, labeling, and 

certification (including unnecessarily 

restrictive application of phytosanitary 

standards, refusal to accept U.S. 

manufacturers’ self-certification of 

conformance to foreign product 

standards, and environmental 

restrictions); 

(3) Government procurement (e.g., 

‘‘buy national’’ policies and closed 

bidding); 

(4) Export subsidies (e.g., export 

financing on preferential terms and 

agricultural export subsidies that 

displace U.S. exports in third country 

markets); 

(5) Lack of intellectual property 

protection (e.g., inadequate patent, 

copyright, and trademark regimes); 

(6) Services barriers (e.g., limits on the 

range of financial services offered by 

foreign financial institutions, regulation 

of international data flows, restrictions 

on the use of data processing, quotas on 

imports of foreign films, and barriers to 

the provision of services by 

professionals (e.g., lawyers, doctors, 

accountants, engineers, nurses, etc.); 

(7) Investment barriers (e.g., 

limitations on foreign equity 

participation and on access to foreign 

government-funded R&D consortia, local 

content, technology transfer and export 

performance requirements, and 

restrictions on repatriation of earnings, 

capital, fees and royalties); 

(8) Anticompetitive practices with 

trade effects tolerated by foreign 

governments (including anticompetitive 

activities of both state-owned and 

private firms that apply to services or to 

goods and that restrict the sale of U.S. 

products to any firm, not just to foreign 

firms that perpetuate the practices); 

(9) Trade restrictions affecting 

electronic commerce (e.g., tariff and 

non-tariff measures, burdensome and 

discriminatory regulations and 

standards, and discriminatory taxation); 

and 

(10) Other barriers (i.e., barriers that 

encompass more than one category, e.g.,

bribery and corruption, or that affect a 

single sector). 

As in the case of last year’s NTE, we 

are asking that particular emphasis be 

placed on any practices that may violate 

U.S. trade agreements. We are also 

interested in receiving any new or 

updated information pertinent to the 

barriers covered in last year’s report as 

well as new information. Please note 

that the information not used in the 

NTE will be maintained for use in future 

negotiations. 

It is most important that your 

submission contain estimates of the 

potential increase in exports that would 

result from the removal of the barrier, as 

well as a clear discussion of the 

method(s) by which the estimates were 

computed. Estimates should fall within 

the following value ranges: Less than $5 

million; $5 to $25 million; $25 million 

to $50 million; $50 million to $100 

million; $100 million to $500 million; or 

over $500 million. Such assessments 

enhance USTR’s ability to conduct 

meaningful comparative analyses of a 

barrier’s effect over a range of 

industries. 

Please note that interested parties 

discussing barriers in more than one 

country should provide a separate 

submission (i.e., one that is selfcontained) for each country.

Written Comments: In order to ensure 

the most timely receipt and 

consideration of comments submitted in 

response to this Notice, the following 

guidelines and special procedures have 

been established: 

(1) All comments will be received at 

the U.S. Department of Commerce rather 

than the Office of the United States 

Trade Representative; 

(2) The Department of Commerce has 

arranged to accept non-confidential, 

public submissions by electronic mail 

(e-mail). An automatic reply confirming 

receipt of e-mail submissions will be 

sent. E-mail submissions in Microsoft 

Word or Corel WordPerfect are 

preferred. If a word processing 

application other than those two is 

used, please advise us in your 

submission of the specific application 

used; 

(3) In order to facilitate prompt 

processing of submissions, the 

Department of Commerce strongly urges 

and prefers e-mail submission of nonconfidential, public comments; 

(4) To ensure security, submissions 

containing business confidential 

information should not be sent by email, but via the U.S. Postal Service or 

commercial express delivery (see 

paragraph 6 and 7 below for special 

requirements applying to such 

submissions). If a submission contains 

business confidential information, a 

non-confidential public version must 

also be submitted along with the 

business confidential version. 

(5) Business-confidential submissions 

must be accompanied by a justification 

as to why the information contained in 

the submission should be treated 

confidentially. In addition, any 

submissions containing business 

confidential information must be clearly 

marked ‘‘Confidential’’ at the top and 

bottom of the cover page (or letter) and 

of each succeeding page of the 

submission. 

The version that does not contain 

confidential information should also be 

clearly marked, at the top and bottom of 

each page, ‘‘public version’’ or ‘‘nonconfidential’’. 

(6) When comments are submitted 

using the U.S. Postal Service or 

commercial couriers, it is strongly 

recommended that submitters notify the 

Department of Commerce by e-mail 

(ntecomments@ita.doc.gov) as to the 

date of transmittal and method of 

delivery (U.S. Postal Service or name of 

courier company). 

(7) All submissions must be in 

English and should conform to the 

information requirements of 15 CFR 

2003. If submissions are made via U.S. 

Postal Service or commercial express 

delivery, the submission should be 

accompanied by a computer disk 

containing a machine-readable version. 

The disk should have a label identifying 

the software used, the submitter and the 

title of the submission. In addition, 

business confidential and public or nonconfidential submissions should be 

submitted on separate disks which are 

clearly marked ‘‘business confidential’’

or ‘‘non-confidential’’, as appropriate. 

Submissions must be received at the 

Department of Commerce no later than 

Tuesday, December 21, 2004. 

After the filing deadline, 

arrangements can be made to view these 

non-proprietary public comments at the 

U.S. Department of Commerce’s USA 

Trade Center, in the Trade Reference 

Library. The USA Trade Center is 

located in the Ronald Reagan Building, 

Suite 800 on the Mezzanine Level, at 

1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW., 

Washington, DC 20004. The Trade 

Reference Library is open from 8:30 a.m. 

to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. Call 

202–482–0200 to confirm. Questions 

regarding the operation of the library 

should be directed to Mrs. Lisa Leyser 

at 202–482–3433.

Carmen Suro-Bredie, 

Chair, Trade Policy Staff Committee.

[FR Doc. 04–26034 Filed 11–23–04; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 3190–W5–P