New regs for Tuesday: Food stamps, nondiscrimination rules and pumps

Tuesday’s edition of the Federal Register contains news rules from the Department of Agriculture for state agencies when verifying an applicant’s eligibility for food stamps, proposed updates from the Department of Labor to nondiscrimination regulations and new efficiency standards for pumps from the Department of Energy.

Here’s what to look for:

Food stamps: USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service is moving forward with a rule that will require state agencies to verify a food stamp applicant’s employment data through the National Directory of New Hires when determining their eligibility and the correct amount of benefits they should receive.

The rule also forces states to submit program and budget summaries quarterly instead of annually.

The agency said it’s trying to reduce the risk of improper payments due to unreported or misreported income among participants of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps.

Nondiscrimination regulations: The Labor Department is proposing updates to existing nondiscrimination and equal opportunity regulations under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act.

The proposed rules will update the meaning of sex as a prohibited basis for discrimination to include pregnancy, childbirth and related medical conditions, sex stereotyping, transgender status and gender identity.

The proposed rule will also replace all references in the regulations to “he” or “she” with “the individual,” “person,” or another appropriate identifier.

“Our nation’s workforce system should reflect our commitment to diversity and the idea that America works best when we field a full team,” Labor Secretary Thomas Perez said in a news release. “Protecting workers from discrimination based on disability, pregnancy, language proficiency, gender identity and other factors is the right thing to do. This proposed rule provides welcome clarity on how to achieve that in the workforce system.”

The public will have 60 days to comment on the proposed changes.

Pumps: The Energy Department is finalizing a rule to establish energy conservation standards for pumps.

The agency said the new standards will result in a significant conservation of energy and are technologically feasible and economically justified. Under the new rules, pumps with a pump efficiency rating (PER) greater than 1.00 would not comply, while values less than 1.00 would indicate a pump is more efficient than the standards require.

A PER is the weighted average of the electric input power supplied to the pump over a specified load power, represented in united of horsepower.

The rules will take effect in 60 days.

Regulatory burdens: The U.S. Department of Agriculture is continuing to review its regulatory programs and evaluate not only how effective, but how burdensome they are. The agency is asking the public to comment on which regulations should be modified, expanded, streamlined or repealed.

The public will have 60 days to weigh in.