The Food and Nutrition Administration (FNA or the Agency), an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA or the Department), is issuing a rule proposing changes to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, the Program) regulations to modernize Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) technology and align EBT with consumer payment processing industry standards, improving both Program integrity and convenience for SNAP clients. These proposed changes will protect SNAP benefits from thieves and ensure benefits are accessible by approved households.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is issuing a final rule amending its Project-Level Predecisional Administrative Review Process regulations. These regulations establish the process by which the public may file objections seeking administrative review of proposed projects and activities implementing land management plans on national forests and grasslands. The Department is amending these regulations to consolidate and streamline processes, increase efficiency, and better align with the Agency's statutory obligations and recent rescissions and revisions to National Environmental Policy Act regulations.

The Rural Business-Cooperative Service (RBCS or the Agency), an agency of the Rural Development (RD) mission area within the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is issuing a final rule with comment period. Implementation of this action will simplify and streamline requirements and processes in the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP). Under the new REAP structure, projects must already be fully built and operational before the applicant ever applies. Applicants then apply, submitting actual energy production or savings data for the prior 12 months, alongside 12 months of pre-installation data. The Agency evaluates applications for completeness, eligibility, risk, and merit and will award grants subject to the availability of funds and criteria provided in an annual notice. This new approach changes the program to a post completion, performance validated model. All RES and EEI awards will now be based on actual documented output, energy savings, costs, and system performance. Bottlenecks leading to application processing backlogs such as the technical merit review clearance process have been removed from the Agency's purview. Multilocation projects and specific application of certain technologies are now ineligible, and the program proposes to eliminate state level competitions in favor of a single national scoring and selection process. The result is a streamlined but significantly different process intended to reduce risk to the program, simplify administration, and prioritize projects delivering verifiable results. The result of these changes, combined with the release of a planned online application portal, will significantly decrease burden for applicants by shortening application length and review times across the program.

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, this notice announces the intention of the Economic Research Service (ERS) to request an extension of a currently approved information collection titled "Data Security Requirements for Accessing Confidential Data." ERS plans to collect information from the public to fulfill its data security requirements when providing access to restricted use data for the purpose of evidence building. ERS's data security agreements and other paperwork along with the corresponding security protocols allow ERS to maintain careful controls on confidentiality and privacy, as required by law.