Federal Register / Vol. 65, No. 125 / Wednesday, June 28, 2000 / Rules and Regulations 39817

2. Section ll.26 is amended by

adding paragraph (i) (10) (v) to read as

follows:

§ll.26 Subsistence taking of fish.

* * * * *

(i) * * *

(10) * * *

(v) You may not use gillnets in

freshwater.

* * * * *

Dated: June 19, 2000.

Kenneth E. Thompson,

Acting Regional Forester, USDA—Forest

Service.

Thomas H. Boyd,

Acting Chair, Federal Subsistence Board.

[FR Doc. 00–16037 Filed 6–27–00; 8:45 am]

BILLING CODE 3410–11–M; 4310–55–M

NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS

ADMINISTRATION

36 CFR Part 1228

RIN 3095–AA81

Agency Records Centers

AGENCY: National Archives and Records

Administration (NARA).

ACTION: Summary of comments received

on final rule.

SUMMARY: This document describes the

comments that the National Archives

and Records Administration (NARA)

received in response to the invitation for

public comment on three sections of our

final rule on agency records center

storage standards, published December

2, 1999. We are publishing this

document to inform the public of the

comments and our disposition of the

comments.

DATES: The final rule was effective

January 3, 2000, except §§ 1228.234,

1228.236, and 1228.238 which were

effective March 2, 2000.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Nancy Allard at (301) 713–7360, ext.

226.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: NARA

published its final rule, Agency Records

Centers, on December 2, 1999 (64 FR

67634). In that final rule, we delayed the

effective date of three new provisions

concerning exceptions and waivers to

the facility standards to allow a 60-day

public comment period. These three

new provisions are intended to make it

easier for facilities to gain certification.

We received timely comments from two

offices in the Veterans Administration,

an individual, Iron Mountain, United

Mine Workers of America (UMWA),

Contract Services Association of

America (CSA), and PRISM

International (PRISM). We also

considered late comments from the

Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for

Acquisition Reform (DoD) and the

Coalition for Government Procurement

(Coalition).

One of the agencies stated that they

had no comment and the individual

commented that the reasoning behind

the waiver is understandable. A

discussion of the other major comments

follows, organized by subject. Most of

these comments reiterated comments

raised earlier in the rulemaking and

addressed in the final rule.

Timing of Approvals of Waivers

The UMWA endorsed the three

sections with one recommended

modification to § 1228.238(c). That

provision applies to waiver of roof

requirements for underground storage

facilities. It states that NARA will

normally grant the waiver and notify the

requesting agency within 10 work days

if the agency has not also requested a

waiver of a different requirement under

§ 1228.236. If the agency has another

waiver request pending for the same

facility, NARA will respond to all of the

waiver requests at the same time and

within the longest time limits.

UMWA argued that approval of one

waiver for a facility should not be

delayed because another waiver is

received unless the initial waiver would

be impacted by the new filing for a

waiver. While a waiver of roof

requirements can be considered

independently from waivers addressed

by § 1228.236, a facility that requires a

waiver of another NARA requirement

cannot be approved to store Federal

records until the requested waiver of the

other provision(s) is approved. We

would prefer to make one notification

when all waivers are approved and we

expect that agencies will submit all

waiver requests for a facility at one time.

Limit the Scope of the Regulation to

Permanent/Archival Records

Iron Mountain, PRISM, CSA, and the

Coalition recommended revising

§ 1228.222(a) to limit the entire

regulation to permanent archival

Federal records. We rejected this

proposal because (1) recommendations

to change other sections of the

regulation were outside the scope of the

request for comment on § 1228.234,

1228.236, and 1228.238, and (2) NARA

had previously addressed comments on

our position that all Federal records, not

just permanent records, require a

minimum level of protection (see 64 FR

67634). We also note that permanent

archival records are those records that

have been transferred to NARA’s legal

custody, not records still in the creating

agency’s custody. The regulation covers

permanent and temporary records that

are in the creating agency’s custody.

As we stated in the preamble to the

proposed rule (64 FR 23504), in our

initial regulatory flexibility analysis (64

FR 50028), and again in the final rule,

Federal records provide essential

documentation of the Federal

Government’s policies and transactions

and protect rights of individuals. The

Government has an obligation to protect

and preserve these records for their

entire retention period, even if that

retention period is only a few years, as

is the case with IRS income tax returns

or invoice payments. NARA believes

that records storage facilities should be

structurally sound, protect against

unauthorized access, and protect against

fire and water damage to the records,

whether the records are temporary or

permanent. Only in the area of

environmental conditions is the length

of time the records are retained a

significant consideration in setting

standards.

NARA’s Facility Standards are

Inconsistent With Commercial

Standards and Best Practices

Iron Mountain, CSA, the Coalition,

and DoD expressed concern that we did

not ‘‘baseline’’ the standards against

current commercial best practices and

standards. These comments argued that

adherence to local building codes and

selected National Fire Protection

Association (NFPA) standards provide

sufficient protection for records in

commercial records centers. We did not

accept these comments, which also had

been made in response to the proposed

rule and initial regulatory flexibility

analysis. In the preamble to the

December 2, 1999, final rule, we

discussed at some length why we did

not share their views (see 64 FR 67635

and 67639–67640). In brief, the local

fire-safety components of building codes

are designed to protect the life and

safety of occupants, mitigate against the

spread of a fire to adjacent structures,

and to protect fire fighters, not to limit

the loss of valuable contents. The NFPA

standards cited by the industry

comments pertain to the protection of

facilities storing bulk quantities of blank

or waste paper, not records. NARA’s

standards supplement the building

codes to provide a safety level for the

items stored.

The commercial records storage

industry does not currently have any

widely accepted or ANSI-approved

standards. Unfortunately, they do have

a record of disastrous fires, each with

39818 Federal Register / Vol. 65, No. 125 / Wednesday, June 28, 2000 / Rules and Regulations

significant quantities of records

destroyed. A fire in a commercial

records storage facility in Chicago on

October 29, 1996, resulted in the loss of

over 220,000 boxes of records. The wet

pipe sprinkler system was reported to be

ordinary hazard, group II, with no

sprinklers under the catwalks in 28 foothigh shelving. Preliminary estimates

placed the loss at 50 million dollars or

more. More than a million boxes of

documents were destroyed in three

March 1997 fires at a nationwide

records storage company’s two facilities

in an industrial park in South

Brunswick, New Jersey. And a May 6,

1997, fire near Scranton, PA destroyed

another commercial center that stored

450,000 cubic feet of paper and

microfilm records. In comparison, the

two recent fires at NARA’s Washington

National Records Center in Suitland,

MD, demonstrated that NARA’s fire

protection and suppression system does

provide the level of fire safety required

by the NARA standard in Subpart K.

The first fire resulted in loss of 50 or

fewer cubic feet of records from fire.

The loss from the second fire was

limited to no more than 10 cubic feet of

records.

NARA fire safety requirements are

based on extensive live fire testing

conducted by nationally recognized

independent laboratories. These tests

demonstrate conclusively that the

NARA standards are effective and

practical. NARA has authorized the

unlimited publication of the test reports.

To our knowledge, no other U. S.

provider of records storage services has

conducted any such independent tests;

at least no reports have been published.

The NARA standards also reflect the

National Fire Protection Association’s

advisory Guide for Fire Protection for

Archives and Records Centers (NFPA/

ANSI 232A–1995), the most widely

accepted documentation of commercial

best practices. (The National Fire

Protection Association has recently

voted to change the advisory guide to a

mandatory standard.)

The related Iron Mountain comment

that NARA had conducted a fire test

subsequent to the final rule that used

the widely accepted industry fire

suppression standards was

misinformed. NARA’s successful fire

test of 28-foot high storage, conducted

by the independent Southwest Research

Institute, did not use the widely

accepted industry practice of ceilingonly sprinklers. Instead, NARA used

sprinklers at three levels: under the first

catwalk at approximately 16 feet; under

the second catwalk at approximately 24

feet, and at the ceiling. The test fire was

controlled by the under-catwalk

sprinklers and the ceiling sprinklers

never activated.

NARA Regulation is Inconsistent With

Acquisition Reform Inititatives

DoD, CSA, and the Coalition also

commented that the final rule is

inconsistent with the Government’s

acquisition reform efforts to eliminate

government unique standards, such as

military specifications in favor of

commercial standards and best

practices. We do not view the records

center regulation as contravening or

impeding the Government’s acquisition

reform initiative. As discussed in the

previous sections of this SUPPLEMENTARY

INFORMATION, there is no clear ANSIapproved industry fire-safety standard

for records centers that could be used in

place of the NARA standard. It is

important to realize that with regard to

fire safety and security issues, the new

regulation was written as a performance

standard, rather than a prescriptive

standard, and replaced Governmentspecific (MIL–SPEC and FED–STD)

references with ANSI-approved

references. We also took extensive steps

to assure full industry review and

comment, as noted in the

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section of

the December 2, 1999, final rule.

Other Comments

Several of the commenters either

enclosed copies of comments that had

been submitted in response to the

proposed rule, or repeated their earlier

comments. These comments generally

concerned issues of cost and

competition, and were addressed in the

December 2, 1999, final rule. The DoD

comment indicated a concern that

NARA was both the arbiter of the

standards and a competitor in the

marketplace. While we appreciate the

concern, NARA has taken action to

assure that the two functions remain

separate.

Conclusion

After carefully reviewing the

comments received in response to the

invitation for public comment on

§§ 1228.234, 1228.236, and 1228.238,

we determined that these three

provisions do not require further

amendment to carry out their intended

purpose: to allow Federal agencies and

the commercial records storage industry

more flexibility in meeting the NARA

requirements.

Dated: June 23, 2000.

John W. Carlin,

Archivist of the United States.

[FR Doc. 00–16308 Filed 6–27–00; 8:45 am]

BILLING CODE 7515–01–P

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Copyright Office

37 CFR Parts 201 and 202

[Docket No. RM 2000–5]

Copyright Rules and Regulations:

Copyright, Registration of Claims to

Copyright

AGENCY: Copyright Office, Library of

Congress.

ACTION: Final rule; technical

amendments.

SUMMARY: The Copyright Office has

reviewed its regulations and found nonsubstantive errors in its general

copyright provisions and its rules

governing registration of claims to

copyright. This document contains

technical amendments to correct these

errors.

EFFECTIVE DATE: June 28, 2000.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Marilyn J. Kretsinger, Assistant General

Counsel, Copyright GC/I&R, PO Box

70400, Southwest Station, Washington

DC 20024. Telephone: (202) 707–8380.

Fax: (202) 707–8366.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The

Copyright Office recently conducted an

extensive review of Parts 201 and 202 of

its regulations. This document is

published to update and correct minor

errors in the text to these parts as

published in the Code of Federal

Regulations.

List of Subjects

37 CFR Part 201

Copyright.

37 CFR Part 202

Claims, Copyright.

Final Rule

For the reasons set forth in the

preamble, 37 CFR Chapter II is amended

by making the following corrections and

amendments:

PART 201—GENERAL PROVISIONS

1. The authority citation for Part 201

continues to read as follows:

Authority: 17 U.S.C. 702.

§ 201.1 [Amended]

2. In § 201.1, paragraph (a) remove the

‘‘.’’ (period) after ‘‘SE’’.

3. In § 201.1, paragraphs (c) and (d)

are revised to read as follows:

§ 201.1 Communications with the

Copyright Office.

* * * * *