55204 Federal Register / Vol. 70, No. 181 / Tuesday, September 20, 2005 / Notices 

included in TVA’s financial statement 

report. 

Jacklyn J. Stephenson, 

Senior Manager, Enterprise Operations, 

Information Services. 

[FR Doc. 05–18684 Filed 9–19–05; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 8120–08–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. 

DATES: Public comments are due not 

later than Wednesday, November 16, 

2005. 

ADDRESSES: Submissions by electronic 

mail: FR0508@USTR.EOP.GOV. 

Submissions by facsimile: Gloria Blue, 

Executive Secretary, Trade Policy Staff 

Committee, Office of the United States 

Trade Representative, (202) 395–6143. 

The public is strongly encouraged to 

submit documents electronically rather 

than by facsimile. (See requirements for 

submissions below.) 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Questions regarding the report, its 

subject matter or procedural questions 

concerning submissions should be 

directed to Ms. Gloria Blue, Office of 

Policy Coordination, Office of the 

United States Trade Representative 

(202) 395–3475. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Last year’s 

report may be found on USTR’s Internet 

Home Page (http://www.ustr.gov) in the 

Document Library under the section on 

Reports/Publications. 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. 

Requirements for Submissions: In 

order to facilitate prompt processing of 

submissions, USTR strongly urge and 

prefers electronic (e-mail) submissions 

in response to this notice. In the event 

an e-mail submission is impossible, 

submissions should be made by 

facsimile. Facsimile submissions should 

not exceed a maximum of 20 pages. 

E-mail submissions should be single 

copy transmissions in English. 

Submissions should use the following 

subject line: ‘‘2006 National Trade 

Estimate Report—Submission by (sector, 

company, association). Documents must 

be submitted as either WordPerfect 

(‘‘WPD’’), MSWord (‘‘DOC’’), or text 

(‘‘TXT’’) file. Documents should not be 

submitted as electronic image files or 

contain imbedded images (for example, 

‘‘JPG’’, ‘‘PDF’’ ‘‘BMP’’, or ‘‘GIF’’), as 

these type of files are generally 

excessively large. Supporting 

Documentation submitted as 

spreadsheets are acceptable as Quattro 

Pro or Excel, pre-formatted for printing 

on 81⁄2 x 11 inch paper. To the extent 

possible, any data attachments to the 

submission should be included in the 

same file as the submission itself, and 

not as separate files. 

Petitions will be available for public 

inspection by appointment with the 

staff of the USTR Public Reading Room, 

except for information granted 

‘‘business confidential’’ status pursuant 

to 15 CFR 2003.6. If the submission 

contains business confidential 

information, a non-confidential version 

of the submission must also be 

submitted that indicates where 

Federal Register / Vol. 70, No. 181 / Tuesday, September 20, 2005 / Notices 55205 

confidential information was redacted 

by inserting asterisks where material 

was deleted. In addition, the 

confidential submission must be clearly 

marked ‘‘Business Confidential’’ in 

large, bold letters at the top and bottom 

of every page of the documents. The 

public version that does not contain 

business confidential information must 

be clearly marked either ‘‘Public 

Version’’ or ‘‘Non-Confidential’’ in 

large, bold letters at the top and bottom 

of every page. The file name of any 

documents containing business 

confidential information attached to an 

e-mail transmission should begin with 

the characters ‘‘BC-’’, and the file name 

of the public version should begin with 

the characters ‘‘P-’’. The ‘‘P-’’ or ‘‘BC-’’

should be followed by the name of the 

person or party submitting the petition. 

Submissions by e-mail should not 

include separate cover letters or 

messages in the message area of the email; information that might appear in 

any cover letter should be included 

directly in the submission. The e-mail 

address for submissions is 

FR0508@ustr.eop.gov. Public versions of 

all documents relating to this review 

will be available for review shortly after 

the due date by appointment in the 

USTR Public Reading Room, 1724 F 

Street, NW., Washington, DC. 

Availability of documents may be 

ascertained and appointments may be 

made from 9:30 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. 

to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday, by 

calling (202) 395–6186. 

Carmen Suro-Bredie, 

Chair, Trade Policy Staff Committee. 

[FR Doc. 05–18701 Filed 9–19–05; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 3190–W5–P 

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 

Federal Highway Administration 

Environmental Impact Statement: 

Multiple Counties, Alabama 

AGENCY: Federal Highway 

Administration (FHWA), DOT. 

ACTION: Notice of intent. 

SUMMARY: The FHWA is issuing this 

notice to advise the public that an 

Environmental Impact Statement will be 

prepared for a proposed highway project 

that will traverse the west central 

section of the State of Alabama. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr. 

Joe D. Wilkerson, Division 

Administrator, Federal Highway 

Administration, 500 Eastern Boulevard, 

Suite 200, Montgomery, Alabama 

36117–2018, Telephone (334) 223–7370. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The 

FHWA, in cooperation with the State of 

Alabama Department of Transportation, 

will prepare an Environmental Impact 

Statement (EIS) for Project NCPD–

PE02(910). The proposed action is to 

construct a multi-lane, limited-access 

roadway to provide a connecting link in 

the freeway/Interstate system between 

I–59/I–20 near the Mississippi State line 

and I–85 in Montgomery, Alabama. The 

highway will have an approximate 

length of 140 miles. The study area 

includes large parts of six Black Belt 

Counties (Dallas, Hale, Lowndes, 

Marengo, Perry, and Sumter), as well as 

Autauga and Montgomery Counties. A 

new Interstate connector will improve 

system linkage, provide a safe and 

efficient transportation corridor, and 

enhance economic opportunities for the 

Black Belt and other areas in the region. 

Alternatives under consideration 

include: (1) alternate route locations and 

(2) a no-action or no-build alternative. 

The Alabama Department of 

Transportation and the Alabama 

Division Office of the Federal Highway 

Administration have begun a corridor 

study. Letters describing the proposed 

action and soliciting comments were 

sent to appropriate Federal, State, and 

local agencies and to private 

organizations and citizens who 

previously expressed or were known to 

have interest in this proposal. 

In addition to the early coordination 

already accomplished, additional 

meetings will be held as appropriate, 

and formal public hearings will be held. 

Public notice will be given of the time 

and place for the meetings and hearings. 

The Draft Environmental Impact 

Statement will be available for public 

and agency review and comment prior 

to the public hearings. 

To ensure that the full range of issues 

related to this proposed action are 

addressed and all significant issues are 

identified, comments and suggestions 

are invited from all interested parties. 

An interagency scoping meeting was 

scheduled for September 22, 2005, in 

Selma, Alabama. Comments or 

questions concerning this proposed 

action and the EIS should be directed to 

the FHWA at the address provided 

above. 

(Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance 

Program Number 20.205, Highway Planning 

and Construction. The regulations 

implementing Executive Order 12372 

regarding intergovernmental consultation on 

Federal programs and activities apply to this 

program.) 

Issued on: September 8, 2005. 

Joe D. Wilkerson, 

Division Administrator, Montgomery. 

[FR Doc. 05–18627 Filed 9–19–05; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4910–22–M 

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 

Surface Transportation Board 

[STB Ex Parte No. 658] 

The 25th Anniversary of the Staggers 

Rail Act of 1980: A Review and Look 

Ahead 

AGENCY: Surface Transportation Board, 

DOT. 

ACTION: Notice of public hearing. 

SUMMARY: The Surface Transportation 

Board will hold a public hearing 

beginning at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, 

October 19, 2005, at its offices in 

Washington, DC. The purpose of the 

public hearing will be to examine the 

impact, the effectiveness, and the future 

of the Staggers Rail Act of 1980 

(Staggers Act). Persons wishing to speak 

at the hearing should notify the Board 

in writing. 

DATES: The public hearing will take 

place on Wednesday, October 19, 2005. 

Any person wishing to speak at the 

hearing should file with the Board a 

written notice of intent to participate, 

and should identify the party, the 

proposed speaker, the time requested, 

and the topic(s) to be covered, as soon 

as possible but no later than October 7, 

2005. Each speaker should also file with 

the Board his/her written testimony by 

October 12, 2005. Written submissions 

by interested persons who do not wish 

to appear at the hearing will also be due 

by October 12, 2005. A list of speakers 

and time will be published by October 

14, 2005. 

ADDRESSES: All notices of intent to 

participate and testimony may be 

submitted either via the Board’s e-filing 

format or in the traditional paper 

format. Any person using e-filing should 

comply with the Board’s 

‘‘www.stb.dot.gov’’ Web site, at the ‘‘EFILING’’ link. Any person submitting a 

filing in the traditional paper format 

should send an original and 10 copies 

of the filing to: Surface Transportation 

Board, Attn: STB Ex Parte No. 658, 1925 

K Street, NW., Washington, DC 20423–

0001. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Joseph H. Dettmar, (202) 565–1609. 

[Assistance for the hearing impaired is 

available through the Federal 

Information Relay Service (FIRS) at: 

(800) 877–8339.]