67776 Federal Register / Vol. 75, No. 212 / Wednesday, November 3, 2010 / Notices 

eligibility to apply for Trade Adjustment 

Assistance (TAA) applicable to workers 

and former workers of the subject public 

agency. The determination was issued 

on June 17, 2010, and the Notice of 

Determination was published in the 

Federal Register on July 1, 2010 (75 FR 

38142). 

Pursuant to 29 CFR 90.18(c) 

reconsideration may be granted under 

the following circumstances: 

(1) If it appears on the basis of facts 

not previously considered that the 

determination complained of was 

erroneous; 

(2) If it appears that the determination 

complained of was based on a mistake 

in the determination of facts not 

previously considered; or 

(3) If in the opinion of the Certifying 

Officer, a mis-interpretation of facts or 

of the law justified reconsideration of 

the decision. 

The negative determination of the 

TAA petition filed on behalf of workers 

at Washington Department of 

Transportation, Olympic Division, 

Aberdeen Maintenance Office, Chehalis 

Drawbridge Tenders, Aberdeen, 

Washington, was based on the finding 

that the public agency (the Chehalis 

Drawbridge) that is the subject of this 

case did not acquire services like or 

directly competitive to drawbridge 

operation and maintenance services 

from a foreign country. 

In the request for reconsideration the 

petitioning union official stated that the 

workers of the subject firm should be 

eligible for TAA because the initial 

decision was based on a 

misinterpretation of the new language 

for certification of public entities. The 

petitioner alleged that the bridge tenders 

lost their jobs due to the closure of 

several upstream facilities (notably the 

Weyerhaeuser complex, for which there 

are several current certifications), and 

those plant closures lessened river 

traffic to the point that the bridge 

operated by the workers laid off by the 

subject agency could go unattended. 

The petitioner refers to the bridge and 

its tenders as a secondary supplier 

which he believes should qualify for 

benefits because of their relationship to 

the certified Weyerhaeuser facilities 

upriver from the bridge. 

The group eligibility requirements for 

workers of a Public Agency can only be 

satisfied if the criteria as depicted in the 

initial decision are met. 

The petitioner did not supply facts 

not previously considered; nor provide 

additional documentation indicating 

that there was either (1) a mistake in the 

determination of facts not previously 

considered or (2) a misinterpretation of 

facts or of the law justifying 

reconsideration of the initial 

determination. 

After careful review of the request for 

reconsideration, the Department 

determines that 29 CFR 90.18(c) has not 

been met. 

Conclusion 

After review of the application and 

investigative findings, I conclude that 

there has been no error or 

misinterpretation of the law or of the 

facts which would justify 

reconsideration of the Department of 

Labor’s prior decision. Accordingly, the 

application is denied. 

Signed in Washington, DC, this 8th day of 

October, 2010. 

Elliott S. Kushner, 

Certifying Officer, Office of Trade Adjustment 

Assistance. 

[FR Doc. 2010–27762 Filed 11–2–10; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4510–FN–P 

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR 

Bureau of Labor Statistics 

Comment Request; Review of 

Productivity Statistics 

ACTION: Notice of solicitation of 

comments. 

SUMMARY: The Department of Labor 

through the Bureau of Labor Statistics 

(BLS) is responsible for publishing 

measures of labor productivity and 

multifactor productivity for major 

sectors and industries of the United 

States economy. BLS periodically 

conducts formal reviews of its programs 

in order to assess their content, 

methodology, efficiency, and 

effectiveness. To enhance the quality 

and relevance of productivity data, BLS 

is soliciting comments on the scope and 

coverage of these data, on the methods 

used in constructing them, and on areas 

of interest for future program 

development. 

DATES: Written comments must be 

submitted to the office listed in the 

Addresses section of this notice on or 

before December 3, 2010. 

ADDRESSES: Send comments to Michael 

J. Harper, Office of Productivity and 

Technology, Bureau of Labor Statistics, 

Room 2150, 2 Massachusetts Avenue, 

NE., Washington, DC 20212 or by e-mail 

to: optfeedback@bls.gov. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Michael J. Harper, Office of Productivity 

and Technology, Bureau of Labor 

Statistics, telephone number 202–691– 

5600, or by e-mail at 

optfeedback@bls.gov. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. Background 

The Department of Labor through the 

Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is 

responsible for publishing measures of 

labor productivity and multifactor 

productivity for major sectors and 

industries of the United States economy. 

The Office of Productivity and 

Technology (OPT) differs from other 

BLS programs in that it does not 

conduct surveys to collect data. Instead, 

it produces productivity estimates from 

published and unpublished data 

collected and compiled by other BLS 

programs, the Bureau of Economic 

Analysis, the Census Bureau, other 

Federal statistical agencies, and the 

Board of Governors of the Federal 

Reserve System. 

Labor productivity is defined as 

output per hour worked. BLS reports 

quarterly on productivity growth and its 

components (output and hours) and on 

other measures, such as unit labor costs 

and hourly compensation. These 

measures are produced for the business, 

nonfarm business, and manufacturing 

sectors, and for nonfinancial 

corporations. The quarterly measures 

are designated by the Office of 

Management and Budget as a Principal 

Federal Economic Indicator. BLS also 

produces annual measures of labor 

productivity for about 400 detailed 

industries. BLS labor productivity data 

are available at the following Internet 

address: http://www.bls.gov/lpc/. 

BLS also produces estimates of 

multifactor productivity (MFP), which 

is defined as output per unit of 

combined inputs. The combined inputs 

include hours and capital services; in 

some cases, additional inputs include 

labor composition and intermediate 

goods and services. BLS reports MFP 

growth, along with its components 

(output, capital, hours, etc.) and other 

measures such as capital-labor ratios, 

capital user costs, and labor 

composition indexes. These measures 

are designed to analyze the effects of 

technological change on economic 

growth, the substitutability of inputs, 

and changes in the composition of 

inputs and outputs. BLS produces 

annual measures of multifactor 

productivity for private business, 

private nonfarm business, and 

manufacturing sectors and for many 

detailed industries. BLS MFP data are 

available at the following Internet 

address: http://www.bls.gov/mfp/. 

II. Productivity Coverage and Methods 

The quarterly nonfarm business labor 

productivity measures are constructed 

within the conceptual framework of the 


jlentini on DSKJ8SOYB1PROD with NOTICES
Federal Register / Vol. 75, No. 212 / Wednesday, November 3, 2010 / Notices 67777 

U.S. National Income and Product 

Accounts (NIPAs) published by the 

Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). 

The output data are based on a valueadded concept and come from productside estimates of Gross Domestic 

Product. 

The primary source of hours data is 

the BLS Current Employment Statistics 

(CES) program, which collects hours 

paid for nonsupervisory workers. These 

data are adjusted using data from the 

Current Population Survey, the National 

Compensation Survey, and other 

sources to account for differences 

between the desired concept of hours 

(hours worked for all employed persons) 

and the CES concept (hours paid for 

production and nonsupervisory 

employees). 

For detailed industries, annual output 

measures represent the total value of 

goods and services produced, and are 

based primarily on data from the U.S. 

Census Bureau. These measures use a 

sectoral output concept, which differs 

from real gross output in that it excludes 

output that is shipped to other 

establishments in the same industry. As 

with the nonfarm business sector 

productivity, industry hours are 

constructed primarily from payroll data 

from the BLS CES survey, supplemented 

with data from the CPS and other 

Federal data sources. 

Multifactor productivity is estimated 

in a conceptual framework based on the 

economic theory of the firm. This 

framework guides the construction and 

interpretation of the measures. For the 

private business and nonfarm business 

sectors, value added output is compared 

to inputs of labor and capital. For 

detailed industries, sectoral output is 

compared to capital and labor inputs as 

well as intermediate inputs of energy, 

non-energy materials and business 

services provided by establishments 

outside of each industry or sector. 

III. Desired Focus of Comments 

Comments and recommendations are 

requested from the public on the 

following aspects of the BLS 

productivity measurement program: 

• The scope and amount of detail 

covered by and published in the 

productivity datasets. 

• The concepts and frameworks used 

in measuring outputs, inputs, and 

productivity. 

• The sources of data used in 

productivity measurement. 

• Areas of research that the BLS 

productivity program should 

emphasize. 

In your recommendations to the 

productivity program, it would be 

particularly helpful if you could explain 

how the changes would make the data 

more accurate or more useful. 

Signed at Washington, DC, this 28th day of 

October 2010. 

Kimberley Hill, 

Chief, Division of Management Systems, 

Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

[FR Doc. 2010–27727 Filed 11–2–10; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4510–24–P 

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

[Docket No. 2010–4] 

Copyright Office; Federal Copyright 

Protection of Sound Recordings Fixed 

Before February 15, 1972 

AGENCY: Copyright Office, Library of 

Congress. 

ACTION: Notice of inquiry. 

SUMMARY: Congress has directed the 

Copyright Office to conduct a study on 

the desirability and means of bringing 

sound recordings fixed before February 

15, 1972, under Federal jurisdiction. 

Currently, such sound recordings are 

protected under a patchwork of State 

statutory and common laws from their 

date of creation until 2067. This notice 

requests written comments from all 

interested parties regarding Federal 

coverage of pre-1972 sound recordings. 

Specifically, the Office seeks comments 

on the likely effect of Federal protection 

upon preservation and public access, 

and the effect upon the economic 

interests of rights holders. The Office 

also seeks comments on how the 

incorporation of pre-1972 sound 

recordings into Federal law might best 

be achieved. 

DATES: Initial written comments must be 

received in the Office of the General 

Counsel of the Copyright Office no later 

than December 20, 2010. Reply 

comments must be received in the 

Office of the General Counsel of the 

Copyright Office no later than December 

3, 2010. 

ADDRESSES: The Copyright Office 

strongly prefers that comments be 

submitted electronically. A comment 

page containing a comment form is 

posted on the Copyright Office Web site 

at http://www.copyright.gov/docs/

sound/comments/comment-submissionindex.html. The Web site interface 

requires submitters to complete a form 

specifying name and organization, as 

applicable, and to upload comments as 

an attachment via a browse button. To 

meet accessibility standards, each 

comment must be uploaded in a single 

file in either the Adobe Portable 

Document File (PDF) format that 

contains searchable, accessible text (not 

an image); Microsoft Word; 

WordPerfect; Rich Text Format (RTF); or 

ASCII text file format (not a scanned 

document). The maximum file size is 6 

megabytes (MB). The name of the 

submitter and organization should 

appear on both the form and the face of 

the comments. All comments will be 

posted on the Copyright Office Web site, 

along with names and organizations. 

If electronic submission of comments 

is not feasible, comments may be 

delivered in hard copy. If hand 

delivered by a private party, an original 

and five copies of a comment or reply 

comment should be brought to the 

Library of Congress, U.S. Copyright 

Office, Room LM–401, James Madison 

Building, 101 Independence Ave., SE., 

Washington, DC 20559, between 8:30 

a.m. and 5 p.m. The envelope should be 

addressed as follows: Office of the 

General Counsel, U.S. Copyright Office. 

If delivered by a commercial courier, 

an original and five copies of a comment 

or reply comment must be delivered to 

the Congressional Courier Acceptance 

Site (‘‘CCAS’’) located at 2nd and D 

Streets, SE., Washington, DC between 

8:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. The envelope 

should be addressed as follows: Office 

of the General Counsel, U.S. Copyright 

Office, LM–403, James Madison 

Building, 101 Independence Avenue, 

SE., Washington, DC 20559. Please note 

that CCAS will not accept delivery by 

means of overnight delivery services 

such as Federal Express, United Parcel 

Service or DHL. 

If sent by mail (including overnight 

delivery using U.S. Postal Service 

Express Mail), an original and five 

copies of a comment or reply comment 

should be addressed to U.S. Copyright 

Office, Copyright GC/I&R, P.O. Box 

70400, Washington, DC 20024. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

David O. Carson, General Counsel, or 

Chris Weston, Attorney Advisor. 

Copyright GC/I&R, P.O. Box 70400, 

Washington, DC 20024. Telephone: 

(202) 707–8380. Telefax: (202) 707– 

8366. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

Introduction 

The Copyright Office is conducting a 

study on ‘‘the desirability of and means 

for bringing sound recordings fixed 

before February 15, 1972, under federal 

jurisdiction.’’ When it enacted the 

Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009, 

Congress directed the Register of 

Copyrights to conduct such a study and 

seek comments from interested parties. 

H. Comm. On Appropriations, H.R. 

1105, Public Law 111–8 [Legislative 

Text and Explanatory Statement] 1769 


jlentini on DSKJ8SOYB1PROD with NOTICES