Fee Adjustments for Testing, Evaluation, and Approval of Mining Products

AGENCY:

Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), Labor.

ACTION:

Notice of fee adjustments.

SUMMARY:

This notice revises our [MSHA Approval and Certification Center (A&CC)] user fees. Fees compensate us for the costs that we incur for testing, evaluating, and approving certain products for use in underground mines. We based the 2005 fees on our actual expenses for fiscal year 2004. The fees reflect changes both in our approval processing operations and in our costs to process approval actions.

DATES:

This fee schedule is effective from January 1, 2005, through December 31, 2005.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Steven J. Luzik, Chief, Approval and Certification Center (A&CC), 304-547-2029 or 304-547-0400.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Background

On May 8, 1987 (52 FR 17506), we published a final rule, 30 CFR part 5—Fees for Testing, Evaluation, and Approval of Mining Products. The rule established specific procedures for calculating, administering, and revising user fees. We have revised our fee schedule for 2004 in accordance with the procedures of that rule and include this new fee schedule below. For approval applications postmarked before January 1, 2005, we will continue to calculate fees under the previous (2004) fee schedule, published on December 30, 2003.

Fee Computation

In general, we computed the 2005 fees based on fiscal year 2004 data. We calculated a weighted-average, direct cost for all the services that we provided during fiscal year 2004 in the processing of requests for testing, evaluation, and approval of certain products for use in underground mines. From this cost, we calculated a single hourly rate to apply uniformly across all of the product approval categories during 2005.

Note:

When the nature of the product requires that we test and evaluate it at a location other than our premises, you must reimburse us for the traveling, subsistence, and incidental expenses of our representative in accordance with standardized government travel regulations. This reimbursement is in addition to the fees charged for evaluation and testing.