[Federal Register Volume 75, Number 224 (Monday, November 22, 2010)]
[Notices]
[Pages 71069-71070]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2010-29396]


=======================================================================
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

Foreign-Trade Zones Board


Adopted Adjustments to Alternative Site Framework

SUMMARY: The Foreign-Trade Zones (FTZ) Board has adopted minor 
adjustments to its practice pertaining to the alternative site 
framework (ASF) originally adopted by the Board in December 2008 (74 FR 
1170, 01/12/09; correction 74 FR 3987, 01/22/09) as an option for 
grantees to designate and manage their general-purpose FTZ sites. The 
adjustments stem from a staff proposal published in August 2010 (75 FR 
46916, 8/4/2010). The adopted adjustments take into account comments 
received on the staff proposal.
    The comments received on the staff proposal and the FTZ Staff's 
analysis pertaining to the comments and the proposed adjustments are 
contained in a staff report available in the ``Reading Room'' section 
of the FTZ Board's Web site, which can be accessed via http://www.trade.gov/ftz. The two adjustments proposed by the staff and 
adopted by the Board are summarized as follows:
    (1) Eliminate the site-specific allotment of a given grantee's 
2,000-acre activation limit (including for FTZs already reorganized or 
with applications pending for reorganization under the ASF). Replace 
the site-specific allotment with a procedure--once the Online FTZ 
Information System (OFIS) currently under development is available and 
appropriate training has been provided to grantees--whereby the 
grantees use the OFIS online system to update information on each 
site's activated space.
    (2) For ASF applications, allow two general options for 
documentation pertaining to jurisdictions (ordinarily counties) within 
the service area:
    (a) Submitting letters from appropriate county officials 
acknowledging the proposed inclusion of their counties in the service 
area of the zone, and presenting their views on the proposal; or,
    (b) In the absence of letters from appropriate county officials, 
submission of evidence that appropriate officials of the affected 
counties were notified of the proposal and were provided information on 
how they could submit comments to the FTZ Board regarding the proposal. 
For this option, a grantee should be required to use standard language 
provided by the FTZ Board staff, thereby ensuring that clear 
explanation and instructions were given to appropriate officials of the 
affected counties.
    In the absence of governments at the county level, the publication 
of local public notice regarding the application should allow a full 
range of appropriate local public officials to be informed of the 
application and to submit comments if they wish to do so. However, if a 
grantee will be relying on the publication of local public notice due 
to an absence of governments at the county level, the grantee should 
explain that situation within the body of the ``application letter'' 
signed by an authorized grantee official.
    In response to a comment received, the FTZ Board has also adopted a 
recommendation to clarify that a site

[[Page 71070]]

can be designated as Usage-Driven so long at the site falls within the 
grantee's service area (i.e., meets the standard general-purpose FTZ 
adjacency requirement), has appropriate zoning (i.e., can accommodate 
the types of uses ordinarily associated with general-purpose FTZ 
activity) and is tied to a single operator's or user's use.

    Dated: November 16, 2010.
Andrew McGilvray,
Executive Secretary.
[FR Doc. 2010-29396 Filed 11-19-10; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE P