71106 Federal Register / Vol. 71, No. 236 / Friday, December 8, 2006 / Proposed Rules 

Flight Standards Certificate Holding District 

Office. 

Related Information 

(m) EASA airworthiness directive 2006–

0223, dated July 21, 2006, also addresses the 

subject of this AD. 

Issued in Renton, Washington, on 

November 24, 2006. 

Kalene C. Yanamura, 

Acting Manager, Transport Airplane 

Directorate, Aircraft Certification Service. 

[FR Doc. E6–20851 Filed 12–7–06; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4910–13–P 

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 

Office of the Secretary 

14 CFR Part 399 

[Docket No. OST–2003–15759] 

RIN: 2105–AD25 

Actual Control of U.S. Air Carriers 

AGENCY: Office of the Secretary, DOT. 

ACTION: Withdrawal of certain proposed 

amendments. 

SUMMARY: Current law requires that U.S. 

citizens actually control each U.S. air 

carrier, that U.S. citizens own or control 

at least 75 percent of the shareholders’

voting interest, and that the president 

and two-thirds of the directors and the 

managing officers must be U.S. citizens. 

The Department interprets this law in 

conducting initial and continuing 

fitness reviews of U.S. air carriers. We 

are withdrawing a proposal to modify 

by regulation the standards we apply in 

those cases where ‘‘actual control’’ by 

U.S. citizens is at issue. 

The proposal being withdrawn would 

have narrowed the scope of our inquiry 

in such cases to those core matters 

affecting compliance with U.S. 

requirements affecting safety, security, 

national defense and corporate 

governance. These rationalized 

standards for deciding whether U.S. 

citizens maintained ‘‘actual control’’ of 

a carrier would have applied only to 

proposed transactions involving 

investors whose countries have an openskies air services agreement with the 

United States and offer reciprocal 

investment opportunities to U.S. 

citizens. Our interpretation of other 

aspects of the statutory citizenship 

requirement would have been 

unchanged. 

Although we are withdrawing the 

current proposal, we will continue to 

consider other ways to rationalize and 

simplify our domestic investment 

regime. The need for greater certainty 

and transparency in our requirements 

and administrative process has become 

very apparent. Indeed, public comment 

in this docket has only served to 

confirm the Department’s growing 

concern that the current regime is so 

unduly complex and burdensome that it 

needlessly inhibits the movement of 

capital that otherwise would flow into 

the U.S. airline industry and thus 

interferes with the legitimate needs of 

U.S. carriers to attract strategic investors 

from overseas markets. The Department 

notes that most of the American 

economy has progressed well beyond 

the antiquated notions that continue to 

apply to the airline industry because of 

our administrative interpretations of the 

current statute. In a modern, global 

industry such as aviation, we believe 

that the United States should not shut 

its doors to foreign investment by 

perpetuating archaic and timeconsuming administrative practices that 

serve neither a statutory purpose nor an 

identifiable policy interest of the United 

States. 

The Department had also proposed 

amendments to 14 CFR Part 204, the 

rules governing the data used in fitness 

determinations, and invited comment 

on the procedures used in fitness cases. 

The Department will publish a separate 

decision on those matters. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

William M. Bertram, Chief, Air Carrier 

Fitness Division (X–56), Office of 

Aviation Analysis, U.S. Department of 

Transportation, 400 7th Street, SW., 

Washington, DC 20590; (202) 366–9721. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

Introduction 

Under Title 49 of the U.S. Code, only 

‘‘citizens’’ of the United States may 

obtain certificate authority to provide 

air transportation within the United 

States or operate as a U.S. air carrier on 

international routes. (49 U.S.C. 41102 or 

41103.) The Department proposed to 

modify its interpretation of ‘‘actual 

control,’’ an element in the statutory 

definition of a citizen of the United 

States, 49 U.S.C. 40102(a)(15), because it 

believes that modernizing its policies so 

as to allow more foreign investment in 

U.S. carriers would better reflect the 

realities of a global aviation industry, 

strengthen the U.S. air transportation 

system, and encourage other countries 

to open their own air services and 

investment markets. 

Our proposal would not have and 

could not have altered the statutory test 

for citizenship nor was it an attempt to 

do so. We stated our intention to 

continue vigorous enforcement of the 

statute’s express requirements. We did 

propose, however, to eliminate certain 

additional citizenship restrictions that 

had been established administratively 

over the course of decades in individual 

fitness cases and that in our view are 

anachronistic, overly complex, and 

unduly burdensome. Accordingly, the 

net result of our proposal would have 

been to end a long-standing, extraneous 

administrative prohibition against 

foreign investors having even a 

‘‘semblance’’ of control over airline 

commercial decisions; the revised 

approach would have applied only to 

investors whose home countries had 

open-skies agreements with the United 

States and provided reciprocal 

investment opportunities for U.S. 

citizens. The proposal would have 

maintained the prohibition against 

foreign citizen control of decisions on 

corporate governance, safety, security, 

and participation in the Civil Reserve 

Air Fleet program and other national 

defense airlift programs (for simplicity, 

referred to as ‘‘CRAF’’ hereafter). To 

ensure control by U.S. citizens, as an 

added measure we would have required 

that any delegation of authority by U.S. 

citizens to foreign investors be fully 

revocable by the shareholders or board 

of directors. 

We provided several opportunities for 

interested parties to comment on the 

proposal, including a supplemental 

notice of proposed rulemaking (SNPRM) 

that further clarified our proposed 

modified interpretation of ‘‘actual 

control.’’ 71 FR 26425 (May 5, 2006). In 

the supplemental notice, we made 

refinements to our proposal reflecting 

further consultations with our Federal 

Aviation Administration (FAA), the 

Department of Homeland Security 

(DHS), and the Department of Defense 

(DOD). We also acknowledged requests 

by members of Congress, who wanted us 

to provide time for more public 

comment on the proposal and for 

Congressional hearings on the topic. 

The additional comments that we 

received in response to the SNPRM 

confirmed our earlier determination that 

the Department’s historic interpretation 

of the actual control requirement did 

not serve the public interest well. 

During the rulemaking we also 

proposed several technical changes to 

the rules governing the data for fitness 

determinations, 14 CFR Part 204. Those 

proposals were unopposed. We also 

requested public comment on the 

procedures used by us in resolving 

citizenship issues. We will publish our 

decision on those proposals in a 

separate rulemaking document. 

Background 

A firm may not be certificated as an 

air carrier to operate within the United 


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Federal Register / Vol. 71, No. 236 / Friday, December 8, 2006 / Proposed Rules 71107 

1We and the Board have always interpreted this 

part of the statute as ‘‘owned and controlled.’’

States or as a U.S. carrier on 

international routes unless it is a citizen 

of the United States. 49 U.S.C. 40102(a). 

We examine carrier citizenship 

primarily in two situations. First, when 

a firm applies for authority to operate as 

a U.S. carrier, we conduct an initial 

fitness review, which necessarily 

includes a review of the carrier’s 

citizenship. We conduct initial fitness 

reviews through adjudicatory 

proceedings for which a public record is 

maintained in our docket. Second, we 

conduct a continuing fitness review if a 

carrier undergoes a substantial change 

in ownership, operations, or 

management. We usually conduct 

continuing fitness investigations 

without a public proceeding and thus 

without a public record or an 

opportunity for public comment. In 

some continuing fitness cases, we may 

decide to use procedures that are more 

public so that there will be a public 

record and an opportunity for public 

comment. We may amend, modify, 

suspend, or revoke the carrier’s license, 

or begin an enforcement action if a 

carrier no longer meets the citizenship 

test. See 71 FR 26426–26427. The 

statute defines the requirements for 

United States citizenship. 49 U.S.C. 

40102(a)(15)(C). For many years that 

statute required only that the president 

and at least two-thirds of the board of 

directors and other managing officers be 

citizens of the United States, and that at 

least 75 percent of the voting interest be 

owned or controlled 1 by persons that 

are citizens of the United States. Our 

predecessor agency in administering 

this statute, the Civil Aeronautics Board 

(the Board), created an additional 

requirement not then required by the 

text of the statute: the requirement that 

U.S. citizens must ‘‘actually control’’

each U.S. carrier. Willye Peter 

Daetwyler, d.b.a. Interamerican Air 

Freight Co., Foreign Permit, 58 CAB 118, 

120–121 (1971). 

In order to determine citizenship to 

verify compliance with the actual 

control requirement, both the 

Department and the Board have 

employed a fact-specific method of 

inquiry. See 71 FR 26437, citing 68 FR 

44675, 44676 (July 30, 2003). Each 

decision considered the ‘‘totality of 

circumstances’’ of the airline’s 

organization, including its capital 

structure, management, and contractual 

relationships, in determining whether 

U.S. citizens actually control a carrier. 

We developed our policies on 

interpreting the actual control 

requirement through our decisions in 

individual cases, based on the facts and 

circumstances of each case, and did not 

establish a specific definition of ‘‘actual 

control’’ through any rulemaking. We 

have continually modified our 

interpretation over time in light of 

changing conditions. See 71 FR 27437, 

citing Northwest Airlines Acquisition by 

Wings Holdings, Order 91–1–41 

(January 23, 1991), and a more recent 

decision enabling Hawaiian Airlines to 

complete its reorganization with some 

foreign investment. 

Neither the Department nor the Board 

has administered the actual control 

requirement in a way that barred U.S. 

carriers from having substantial 

commercial relationships with foreign 

carriers and other foreign firms. For 

instance, we have held that a U.S. 

airline continued to satisfy the actual 

control requirement when it had an 

alliance relationship with a foreign 

airline that necessarily enabled the 

foreign partner airline to influence the 

U.S. airline’s commercial decisions. 

Acquisition of Northwest Airlines by 

Wings Holdings, Inc., Order 92–11–27 

(November 16, 1992), at 16–17. 

Nonetheless, the Department’s and 

the Board’s interpretations of ‘‘actual 

control,’’ by effectively prohibiting 

foreign investors from enjoying any 

meaningful participation in the 

decision-making of U.S. airlines, has left 

foreign investors with a very limited 

ability to protect their interests as 

minority investors. We at times 

implemented the ‘‘actual control’’

requirement as barring foreign investors 

from having any ‘‘semblance’’ of 

control, which effectively relegated 

them to being passive investors, unable 

to participate in carrier commercial 

decisions that affected the value of their 

own investment. 

Three years ago Congress amended 

the citizenship definition by expressly 

adding an actual control requirement to 

the statute. As a result, the statute 

provides that a corporation can only be 

a citizen of the United States if it is 

‘‘under the actual control of citizens of 

the United States.’’ Vision 100—Century 

of Aviation Reauthorization Act, P.L. 

108–176, § 807, 117 Stat. 2490 (2004). 

Congress chose not to define ‘‘actual 

control.’’

Notice of Proposed Rulemaking 

We proposed our modified 

interpretation of ‘‘actual control’’ in 

order to facilitate efforts by U.S. airlines 

to remain competitive in the global 

airline industry. We grounded our 

proposal on three premises: first, that in 

view of the changes taking place in the 

global economy, U.S. air carriers should 

have the broadest access to the global 

capital markets permitted by law; 

second, that our historical interpretation 

of the term ‘‘actual control’’ has failed 

to keep pace with the changes in the 

global economy; and third, that in order 

to provide U.S. carriers with more 

flexibility to compete in the global 

economy, we should not maintain an 

interpretation of ‘‘actual control’’ that is 

more restrictive than necessary to meet 

statutory requirements. 71 FR 26427–

26429; 70 FR 67393–67394. In sum, we 

acted on the policy that we should 

remove unnecessary restrictions on U.S. 

carriers seeking access to global capital 

markets. 

In 2003, we issued an Advance Notice 

of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) that 

sought comment on our standards and 

procedures for determining whether 

U.S. citizens actually control a carrier. 

68 FR 44675 (July 30, 2003). After 

considering the comments, we issued a 

Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) 

concerning our interpretation of ‘‘actual 

control’’ and use of informal procedures 

in most continuing fitness reviews. 70 

FR 67389 (November 7, 2005). The 

Department proposed to update our 

interpretation of ‘‘actual control’’ so as 

to end restrictions on foreign 

involvement that, in our view, 

needlessly interfere with the ability of 

U.S. carriers to access international 

capital markets and thus to compete 

effectively in the global marketplace. 

Under our proposal, U.S. citizens would 

remain in control of the carrier through 

their authority over corporate 

governance and those areas of airline 

operations subject to significant 

government regulation: Safety, security, 

and CRAF participation. This 

modification would apply only if the 

foreign investors’ home country had an 

open-skies air services agreement with 

the United States and, further, provided 

investment reciprocity for U.S. citizens 

wishing to invest in that country’s 

airlines, or where the United States’

international obligations otherwise 

required the same approach. 

Supplemental Notice of Proposed 

Rulemaking 

We issued a Supplemental Notice of 

Proposed Rulemaking (SNPRM) to 

address comments received on the 

NPRM, and to propose additional 

refinements to the proposal in order to 

definitively clarify that U.S. citizens 

would still retain actual control of U.S. 

carriers under the Department’s 

proposal. 71 FR 26425 (May 5, 2006). 

The SNPRM retained our proposal to 

allow carriers to delegate decisionmaking responsibilities to foreign 

citizens (except for organizational 

documents, safety, security, and CRAF 


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71108 Federal Register / Vol. 71, No. 236 / Friday, December 8, 2006 / Proposed Rules 

participation matters). However, we 

added language to make clear that such 

delegations would have to be revocable 

by the board of directors or 

shareholders—whose votes would be 

controlled by U.S. citizens. The right to 

revoke delegations of management 

authority, we felt, was intrinsic to the 

requirement that U.S. citizens maintain 

actual control of the carrier. We further 

proposed in the SNPRM to broaden the 

scope of decision-making in the areas of 

safety, security, and CRAF participation 

that must remain under the actual 

control of U.S. citizens. The proposed 

revisions would unequivocally ensure 

that safety and security decisions 

generally, not just those related to FAA 

and TSA safety and security 

requirements, as well as all decisions on 

national defense airlift commitments, 

not just CRAF commitments, remained 

firmly under the actual control of U.S. 

citizens. Our refinement of our 

proposals on safety, security, and CRAF 

participation reflected as well our 

discussions with the FAA, DHS, TSA, 

and DOD. 

We determined that we have the 

authority to interpret the statutory 

definition of ‘‘actual control,’’ because 

we are responsible for administering it; 

that authority enables us to modify our 

interpretations when changing industry 

conditions and policies require doing 

so; and our proposed modified 

interpretation would be consistent with 

the language and purpose of the statute. 

We further stated that we should change 

our interpretation when the past 

interpretation has become inconsistent 

with commercial developments and the 

public policy goals set by our statute, 49 

U.S.C. 40101(a). Finally, we noted that 

neither the statute nor its legislative 

history indicated that Congress had 

intended to freeze our earlier 

interpretations of ‘‘actual control.’’ 71 

FR 26436–26439. 

After we issued the SNPRM, the 

Aviation Subcommittee of the Senate 

Committee on Commerce, Science, and 

Transportation held a hearing on our 

proposal on May 9, 2006. The Aviation 

Subcommittee of the House 

Transportation and Infrastructure 

Committee had held a hearing on our 

proposal on February 8, 2006, based on 

the NPRM. Jeffrey N. Shane, the 

Department’s Under Secretary for 

Policy, testified at both hearings. 

Several members of Congress have 

written letters to the Secretary that 

contend that our proposal is unwise and 

a significant departure from what they 

perceive as existing precedent. These 

concerns were also raised at hearings 

and in proposed legislation. 

Summary of Comments 

We invited comments on the proposal 

as refined by our SNPRM. We received 

21 comments on the SNPRM from 

carriers, labor parties, and industry 

associations, and three comments from 

individuals. 

The majority of commenters 

supported the policy change as a way to 

strengthen the U.S. airline industry and 

encourage the liberalization of 

international aviation. The Department 

received general support for its 

proposed changes from Airports Council 

International— Europe (ACI), Airports 

Council International— North America 

(ACI–NA), Association of European 

Airlines (AEA), bmi, Delta Air Lines 

(Delta), DePaul University College of 

Law International Aviation Law 

Institute (DePaul), Federal Express 

(FedEx), Hawaiian Airlines (Hawaiian), 

International Air Transport Association 

(IATA), United Air Lines (United), 

United Parcel Service (UPS), United 

States Airports for Better International 

Air Service (USA–BIAS), U.S. Airways, 

and the Washington Airports Task Force 

(WATF). 

Other commenters—notably the 

Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal 

Association (AMFA), Air Line Pilots 

Association (ALPA), British Airways, 

Continental Airlines (Continental), 

Independent Pilots Association (IPA), 

Transportation Trades Department 

AFL–CIO (TTD), and Virgin Atlantic 

Airways (Virgin Atlantic)—opposed our 

proposal, claiming that the proposed 

rule would be unlawful, impracticable, 

ineffective in achieving the desired 

result, or harmful to the airline industry 

and its unionized employees. 

Both supporters and opponents of our 

proposal asserted that the rule, as 

proposed, provided inadequate 

guidance to carriers and potential 

foreign investors and that our final 

decision should provide examples of the 

kind of business relationships that 

would or would not be permitted by a 

final rule. See, e.g., AEA Comments at 

4; British Airways Comments at 3–4; 

IATA Comments at 6; Virgin Atlantic 

Comments at 5–6; ACI Comments at 2. 

Other commenters asserted that it was 

not clear whether our proposed 

revocability requirement—the 

requirement that a U.S. carrier have the 

practicable ability to revoke any 

delegation of decision-making authority 

to a foreign investor—would be 

consistent with standard commercial 

practices in other industries, which 

make a firm’s ability to revoke a contract 

with its investors subject to conditions 

limiting the ability to revoke in order to 

protect the investors’ legitimate 

interests. See, e.g., FedEx Comments at 

7–9; ACI–NA Comments at 4; DePaul 

Comments at 4; US–BIAS Comments. 

Some commenters contended that our 

proposals were too restrictive; Delta, for 

example, asserted that the revocation 

requirement was ‘‘flatly inconsistent’’

with our goal of encouraging foreign 

investment. Delta Comments at 6–7. 

Our Final Decision 

We have decided to withdraw the 

proposal on interpretation of ‘‘actual 

control.’’ We still believe there are 

significant benefits to be realized by 

liberalizing and rationalizing our 

domestic investment regime for U.S. air 

carriers. Nonetheless, our policy could 

gain from additional public insight into 

the practical advantages and drawbacks 

of particular administrative reforms. 

We maintain that our past 

administration of the ‘‘actual control’’

requirement is obsolete and the notion 

has needlessly precluded foreign 

investment in the U.S. airline industry 

to its detriment. In the Department’s 

view, retention of the anachronistic 

administrative standard for determining 

actual control serves no discernible 

policy interest of the United States. 

Instead, it has prevented U.S. carriers 

from entering into sound and desirable 

business relationships with foreign 

allies ‘‘relationships that U.S. corporate 

management concluded would benefit 

their carrier, their employees and 

shareholders. See, e.g., FedEx 

Comments at 2; Atlas & Polar Comments 

on NPRM at 3; United Comments at 3. 

We continue to believe we need a way 

to enable strategic investors ‘‘interested 

in long-term gain, not short-term 

arbitrage—to participate more 

meaningfully in the decision-making at 

U.S. carriers, as such investors would 

‘‘more likely be concerned about a U.S. 

airline’s product quality, market 

strategy, and its capital reinvestment 

plans than short-term investors who 

view airlines merely as trading 

vehicles.’’ 71 FR 26428. An up-to-date 

approach towards administering the 

‘‘actual control’’ requirement that takes 

into account the realities of modern 

capital markets would permit our 

carriers to catch up with increasingly 

competitive and financially stronger 

foreign airlines in terms of integrating 

their operations and services with those 

of marketing partners. It would also 

enable investments abroad by U.S. air 

carriers and the formation of durable 

business relationships with foreign 

carriers, such as Continental, for 

example, enjoys with COPA, a leading 

Latin American airline. Continental 

Airlines, SEC Report on Form 10–Q 

(July 21, 2006) at 34. In our view, we 


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Federal Register / Vol. 71, No. 236 / Friday, December 8, 2006 / Proposed Rules 71109 

should encourage additional foreign 

investment in the U.S. airline industry, 

give U.S. carriers freedom in developing 

beneficial business relationships across 

borders and eliminate outdated 

restrictions on business conduct. 

Our proposal has become 

controversial, as to both the questions of 

whether our interpretation of ‘‘actual 

control’’ should be changed and 

whether our specific proposal will 

effectively accomplish our objectives. In 

addition, as noted, letters sent by 

members of Congress have urged the 

Department not to adopt the proposal 

without further discussion. In this 

particular instance, we have concluded 

that the expressions of concern support 

the concept that more public discussion 

of the underlying issues is warranted. 

By withdrawing the proposal, we will 

be free to engage in broad-ranging 

dialogue without the constraints of a 

specific rulemaking proposal. 

Rulemaking Analyses and Notices 

Regulatory Flexibility Act 

The Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA) 

(5 U.S.C. 601–612), as amended by the 

Small Business Regulatory Enforcement 

Fairness Act of 1996, requires federal 

agencies, as part of each rule, to 

consider regulatory alternatives that 

minimize the impact on small entities 

while achieving the objectives of the 

rulemaking. Because we are 

withdrawing our proposal, we are not 

adopting any final rule requiring a 

regulatory flexibility analysis. 

Trade Impact Assessments 

The Trade Agreement Act of 1979 

prohibits federal agencies from 

establishing any standards or engaging 

in related activities that create 

unnecessary obstacles to the foreign 

commerce of the United States. 

Legitimate domestic objectives, such as 

safety, are not considered unnecessary 

obstacles. The statute also requires 

consideration of international standards 

and, where appropriate, that U.S. 

standards be compatible. The 

Department has assessed the potential 

effect of this withdrawal of the proposed 

rule and has determined that it will 

have no effect on any trade-sensitive 

activity. 

International Compatibility 

In keeping with U.S. obligations 

under the Convention on International 

Civil Aviation, it is the Department’s 

policy to comply with International 

Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) 

Standards and Recommended Practices 

to the maximum extent practicable. The 

Department has determined that there 

are no ICAO Standards and 

Recommended Practices that 

correspond to this withdrawal notice. 

Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 

1995 

The Unfunded Mandates Reform Act 

of 1955 (the Act) is intended, among 

other things, to curb the practice of 

imposing unfunded Federal mandates 

on State, local, and tribal governments. 

Title II of the Act requires each Federal 

agency to prepare a written statement 

assessing the effects of any Federal 

mandate in a proposed or final agency 

rule that may result in an expenditure 

of $100 million or more (adjusted 

annually for inflation) in any one year 

by State, local, and tribal governments, 

in the aggregate, or by the private sector; 

such a mandate is deemed to be a 

‘‘significant regulatory action.’’ This 

withdrawal notice is not a final or 

proposed rule. The requirements of Title 

II of the Act, therefore, do not apply. 

Executive Order 13132, Federalism 

This action has been analyzed in 

accordance with the principles and 

criteria contained in Executive Order 

13132, dated August 4, 1999 (64 FR 

43255). This withdrawal notice does not 

have a substantial direct effect on, or 

significant federalism implications for 

the States, nor would it limit the 

policymaking discretion of the States. 

It will not directly preempt any State 

law or regulation, or impose burdens on 

the States. This action will have not a 

significant effect on the States’ ability to 

execute traditional State governmental 

functions. The agency has therefore 

determined that this withdrawal notice 

does not have sufficient federalism 

implications to warrant either the 

preparation of a federalism summary 

impact statement or consultations with 

State and local governments. 

Paperwork Reduction Act 

The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 

(PRA) (44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.) requires 

federal agencies to obtain approval from 

the Office of Management and Budget 

(OMB) for each collection of 

information they conduct, sponsor, or 

require through regulation. Because this 

is a withdrawal notice, it will not 

impose any additional requirements. 

Thus, there is no change in the 

paperwork collection, as it currently 

exists. 

Issued in Washington, DC on December 5, 

2006. 

Andrew B. Steinberg, 

Assistant Secretary for Aviation and 

International Affairs. 

[FR Doc. 06–9603 Filed 12–5–06; 12:39 pm] 

BILLING CODE 4910–62–P 

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE 

COMMISSION 

17 CFR Part 240 

[Release No. 34–54863; File No. S7–19–06] 

RIN 3235–AJ41 

Proposed Amendments to Municipal 

Securities Disclosure 

AGENCY: Securities and Exchange 

Commission (‘‘Commission’’). 

ACTION: Proposed rule. 

SUMMARY: The Commission is 

publishing for comment proposed 

amendments to a rule under the 

Securities Exchange Act of 1934 

(‘‘Exchange Act’’) relating to municipal 

securities disclosure which would 

delete references to the Municipal 

Securities Rulemaking Board (‘‘MSRB’’) 

as a recipient of material event notices 

filed by or on behalf of issuers of 

municipal securities or other obligated 

persons. 

DATES: Comments should be received on 

or before January 8, 2007. 

ADDRESSES: Comments may be 

submitted by any of the following 

methods: 

Electronic Comments 

• Use the Commission’s Internet 

comment form (http://www.sec.gov/ 

rules/proposed.shtml); or 

• Send an e-mail to rulecomments@sec.gov. Please include File 

No. S7–19–06 on the subject line; or 

• Use the Federal eRulemaking Portal 

(http://www.regulations.gov). Follow the 

instructions for submitting comments. 

Paper Comments 

• Send paper comments in triplicate 

to Nancy M. Morris, Secretary, 

Securities and Exchange Commission, 

100 F Street, NE., Washington, DC 

20549–1090. 

All submissions should refer to File No. 

S7–19–06. This file number should be 

included on the subject line if e-mail is 

used. To help us process and review 

your comments more efficiently, please 

use only one method. The Commission 

will post all comments on the 

Commission’s Internet Web site (http:// 

www.sec.gov/rules/proposed.shtml). 

Comments are also available for public 

inspection and copying in the 

Commission’s Public Reference Room, 

100 F Street, NE., Washington, DC 

20549. All comments received will be 

posted without change; we do not edit 

personal identifying information from 

submissions. You should submit only 

information that you wish to make 

available publicly. 


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