Federal Register / Vol. 73, No. 158 / Thursday, August 14, 2008 / Notices 47641 

preliminary alternatives, evaluation and 

screening of preliminary alternatives, 

and identification of final alternatives 

will be provided through direct mail, 

e-mail, the project Web site available at 

http://www.miltonmadisonbridge.com, 

and other media. Notification also will 

be sent to Federal, State, local agencies, 

persons and organizations that submit 

comments or questions. Precise 

schedules and locations for public 

meetings will be announced in the local 

news media and the project Web site. 

Interested individuals and organizations 

may request to be included on the 

mailing list for distribution of meeting 

announcements and associated 

information. 

Other Approvals for Federal Permits: 

The following approvals for Federal 

permits are anticipated to be required: 

The Navigational Permit Application 

from the U.S. Coast Guard and the 

Section 404 Permit from the Army 

Corps of Engineers. Additionally, 

Section 401 Permits may be required 

from the Kentucky Energy and 

Environment Cabinet and the Indiana 

Department of Environmental 

Management. 

(Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance 

Program No. 20.205, Highway Planning and 

Construction. The regulations implementing 

Executive Order 12372 regarding 

intergovernmental consultation on Federal 

programs and activities apply to the 

program.) 

Authority: 23 U.S.C. 315; 23 CFR 771.123; 

49 CFR 1.48. 

Issued on: July 30, 2008. 

Dennis Luhrs, 

Assistant Division Administrator, Federal 

Highway Administration, Frankfort, 

Kentucky. 

[FR Doc. E8–18832 Filed 8–13–08; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4910–22–P 

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 

Federal Motor Carrier Safety 

Administration 

Sunshine Act Meetings; Unified Carrier 

Registration Plan Board of Directors 

AGENCY: Federal Motor Carrier Safety 

Administration (FMCSA), DOT. 

Time and Date: September 4, 2008, 12 

noon to 3 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time. 

Place: This meeting will take place 

telephonically. Any interested person 

may call Mr. Avelino Gutierrez at (505) 

827–4565 to receive the toll free number 

and pass code needed to participate in 

these meetings by telephone. 

Status: Open to the public. 

Matters to be Considered: The Unified 

Carrier Registration Plan Board of 

Directors (the Board) will continue its 

work in developing and implementing 

the Unified Carrier Registration Plan 

and Agreement and to that end, may 

consider matters properly before the 

Board. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr. 

Avelino Gutierrez, Chair, Unified 

Carrier Registration Board of Directors at 

(505) 827–4565. 

Dated: August 11, 2008. 

William A. Quade, 

Associate Administrator for Enforcement and 

Program Delivery. 

[FR Doc. E8–18940 Filed 8–12–08; 4:15 pm] 

BILLING CODE 4910–EX–P 

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 

Federal Transit Administration 

[Docket No.: FTA–2008–0035] 

National Transit Database: Natural 

Disaster Adjustments for Urbanized 

Area Apportionments 

AGENCY: Federal Transit Administration 

(FTA), DOT. 

ACTION: Notice of Proposed New Policy 

on Natural Disaster Adjustments for 

Urbanized Area Formula Grant 

Apportionment Data 

SUMMARY: This notice provides 

interested parties with the opportunity 

to comment on the Federal Transit 

Administration’s (FTA) National Transit 

Database (NTD) proposed new policy on 

natural disaster adjustments to NTD 

data. If a transit provider suffers a 

marked decrease in transit service due 

to a natural disaster, FTA proposes to 

allow that transit provider to be ‘‘held 

harmless’’ in the apportionment of 

formula grants for urbanized areas. In 

this case, FTA would use the transit 

provider’s data from the NTD report 

year before the natural disaster in the 

apportionment, but use data from the 

current NTD report year for all other 

transit providers. Under this proposed 

policy, FTA would only make this 

adjustment upon the request of the 

affected transit provider or the 

designated recipient for the urbanized 

area, and FTA would grant this request 

at its discretion based on the disaster’s 

demonstrated severity and impacts. FTA 

proposes for this policy to take effect for 

the 2007 NTD Report Year, which is the 

data to be used in the FY 2009 

apportionment of formula grants for 

urbanized areas. 

DATES: Comments must be received on 

or before September 15, 2008. FTA will 

consider comments filed after this date 

to the extent practicable. 

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments 

[identified by FTA Docket ID Number 

FTA–2008–0035] at the Federal 

eRulemaking Portal at: http:// 

www.regulations.gov. Follow the online 

instructions for submitting comments. 

Fax: 202–493–2251. 

Mail: Docket Management Facility: 

U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 

New Jersey Avenue, SE., West Building, 

Ground Floor, Room W12–140, 

Washington, DC 20590–0001. 

Hand Delivery or Courier: West 

Building Ground Floor, Room W12–140, 

1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE, between 

9 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET, Monday through 

Friday, except Federal holidays. 

Instructions: When submitting 

comments you must use docket number 

FTA–2008–0035. This will ensure that 

your comment is placed in the correct 

docket. If you submit comments by 

mail, you should submit two copies and 

include the above docket number. Note 

that all comments received will be 

posted, without change, to http:// 

www.regulations.gov including any 

personal identifying information. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For 

program issues, John D. Giorgis, Office 

of Budget and Policy, (202) 366–5430 

(telephone); (202) 366–7989 (fax); or 

john.giorgis@dot.gov (e-mail). For legal 

issues, Richard Wong, Office of the 

Chief Counsel, (202) 366–0675 

(telephone); (202) 366–3809 (fax); or 

richard.wong@dot.gov (e-mail). 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. Background 

The National Transit Database (NTD) 

was established by Congress ‘‘to help 

meet the needs of * * * the public for 

information on which to base public 

transportation service planning * * *’’

(49 U.S.C 5335). To support this goal, 

recipients or beneficiaries of Urbanized 

Area Formula Grants (Section 5307) or 

Other Than Urbanized Area Formula 

(Section 5311) Grants are required to 

report to the NTD. Other providers of 

transit service in urbanized areas report 

voluntarily to the NTD. Currently, over 

650 transit agencies in urbanized areas 

report to the NTD through an Internetbased reporting system. Each year, 

performance data from these 

submissions are used to apportion over 

$5 billion of FTA funds under the 

Urbanized Area Formula Grants and 

Fixed-Guideway Modernization Grants 

Programs. These data are also used in 

the annual National Transit Summaries 

and Trends report, the biennial 

Conditions and Performance Report to 

Congress, and in meeting FTA’s 

obligations under the Government 

Performance and Results Act. 


sroberts on PROD1PC70 with NOTICES
47642 Federal Register / Vol. 73, No. 158 / Thursday, August 14, 2008 / Notices 

1See 49 U.S.C. 10704(a)(2),(3); Standards for 

Railroad Revenue Adequacy, 364 I.C.C. 803 (1981), 

modified, 3 I.C.C.2d 261 (1986), aff’d sub nom. 

Consolidated Rail Corp. v. United States, 855 F.2d 

78 (3d Cir. 1988). 

FTA currently allows a transit 

provider that is severely impacted by a 

natural disaster to request a waiver from 

reporting to the NTD for the current 

year. This policy is based on the NTD 

Rule (49 CFR Part 630), which provides 

for a waiver from the mandatory NTD 

reporting requirements if reporting to 

the NTD would cause ‘‘unreasonable 

expense or inconvenience.’’ When FTA 

grants such a waiver to an urbanized 

area reporter that has previously 

reported to the NTD, FTA automatically 

includes data from the last-available 

NTD report year for the reporter in the 

apportionment of formula grants for 

urbanized areas. However, FTA does not 

currently have policies or procedures 

that would allow it to use NTD data 

from a prior report year in the 

apportionment of formula grants for 

urbanized areas for a transit provider 

that is able to report for the current year. 

II. Proposed Policy Change 

If a transit provider suffers a marked 

decrease in transit service due to a 

natural disaster, FTA proposes to allow 

that transit provider to be ‘‘held 

harmless’’ in the apportionment of 

formula grants for urbanized areas. The 

affected provider may request that their 

data from the NTD report year before the 

natural disaster occurred be used in 

place of data for the current report year 

in the apportionment. FTA would 

continue to use data from the current 

NTD report year for all other transit 

providers in the apportionment. The 

designated recipient for an urbanized 

area may also make this request on 

behalf of an affected provider. This 

adjustment would not be automatic, and 

FTA will not make this adjustment 

unless requested by the affected 

provider or the designated grant 

recipient for the urbanized area. 

Under the proposed policy, FTA 

would approve or deny the request for 

the adjustment at its discretion. FTA 

will base its decision on the following 

factors: (1) Whether a Federal disaster 

declaration was in place for all or part 

of the current report year, for either all 

or part of the transit provider’s service 

area; (2) whether the adjustment request 

demonstrates that the decrease in transit 

service from the report year before the 

natural disaster is in large part due to 

the ongoing impacts of the natural 

disaster; and (3) whether the decrease in 

transit service reasonably appears to be 

temporary, and thus not reflective of the 

true transit needs of the urbanized area. 

FTA will not grant adjustment requests 

that do not address all of these factors. 

Adjustment requests should include 

sufficient documentation to allow FTA 

to evaluate the request based on these 

factors. FTA may request additional 

information from an applicant for an 

adjustment to evaluate the request based 

on these factors. If the adjustment 

request is granted, the NTD data in all 

publicly-available data sets and data 

products would remain unadjusted, and 

would reflect the actual NTD 

submission for the transit provider. The 

only adjustment would be in the data 

sets used for the apportionments of 

formula grants for urbanized areas. 

FTA proposes for this policy to take 

effect for the 2007 NTD Report Year, 

which is the data to be used in the FY 

2009 apportionment of formula grants 

for urbanized areas. This policy would 

remain in effect for the 2008 NTD 

Report Year, and will be included in the 

NTD Annual Manual for the 2009 

Report Year. 

Issued in Washington, DC, this 8th day of 

August 2008. 

James S. Simpson, 

Administrator. 

[FR Doc. E8–18939 Filed 8–12–08; 4:15 pm] 

BILLING CODE 4910–57–P 

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 

Surface Transportation Board 

[STB Ex Parte No. 664 (Sub-No. 1)] 

Use of a Multi-Stage Discounted Cash 

Flow Model in Determining the 

Railroad Industry’s Cost of Capital 

AGENCY: Surface Transportation Board. 

ACTION: Notice. 

SUMMARY: The Board proposes to use a 

multi-stage Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) 

model to complement its use of the 

Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) in 

determining the cost-of-equity 

component of the railroad industry’s 

cost of capital. 

DATES: Comments are due on or before 

September 15, 2008. Reply comments 

are due on or before October 14, 2008. 

ADDRESSES: Comments may be 

submitted either via the Board’s e-filing 

format or in traditional paper format. 

Any person using e-filing should attach 

a document and otherwise comply with 

the instructions at the E-FILING link on 

the Board’s Web site at http:// 

www.stb.dot.gov. Any person submitting 

a filing in the traditional paper format 

should send an original and 10 copies 

referring to STB Ex Parte No. 664 (SubNo. 1) to: Surface Transportation Board, 

395 E Street, SW., Washington, DC 

20423–0001. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Paul 

Aguiar, (202) 245–0323. [Assistance for 

the hearing impaired is available 

through the Federal Information Relay 

Service (FIRS) at 1–800–877–8339.] 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Each year 

the Board measures the cost of capital 

for the railroad industry in the prior 

year. The Board then uses this cost-ofcapital figure for a variety of regulatory 

purposes. It is used to evaluate the 

adequacy of individual railroads’

revenues for that year.1 It is also 

employed in cases involving rail rate 

review, feeder line applications, rail line 

abandonment proposals, trackage rights 

compensation cases, and rail merger 

review, as well as in our Uniform Rail 

Costing System (URCS). 

The Board calculates the cost of 

capital as the weighted average of the 

cost of debt and the cost of equity, with 

the weights determined by the capital 

structure of the railroad industry (i.e., 

the proportion of capital from debt or 

equity on a market-value basis). While 

the cost of debt is observable and 

readily available, the cost of equity (the 

expected return that equity investors 

require) can only be estimated. How 

best to calculate the cost of equity is the 

subject of a vast amount of literature. 

Because the cost of equity cannot be 

directly observed, estimating the cost of 

equity requires adopting a finance 

model and making a variety of 

simplifying assumptions. 

In Methodology to be Employed in 

Determining the Railroad Industry’s 

Cost of Capital, STB Ex Parte No. 664 

(STB served Jan. 17, 2008), the Board 

changed the methodology that it uses to 

calculate the railroad industry’s cost of 

equity. We concluded that the time had 

come to modernize our regulatory 

process and replace the aging singlestage DCF model that had been 

employed since 1981. After a thorough 

rulemaking process, we decided to 

calculate the cost of equity using CAPM. 

During that process, several parties 

urged the Board to use a multi-stage 

DCF in conjunction with CAPM. We 

elected to adopt a stand-alone CAPM 

approach because the record in that 

proceeding did not support adopting 

any particular DCF model. But, we did 

not want to foreclose the possibility of 

augmenting CAPM with a DCF 

approach. As we explained in the 

January 2008 decision (footnotes 

omitted): 

There may be merit to the idea of using 

both models to estimate the cost of equity. 

While CAPM is a widely accepted tool for 

estimating the cost of equity, it has certain 


sroberts on PROD1PC70 with NOTICES