[Federal Register Volume 72, Number 189 (Monday, October 1, 2007)]
[Notices]
[Pages 55797-55799]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E7-19277]


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DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

Transportation Security Administration


TSA's Migration to the Federal Docket Management System (FDMS)

AGENCY: Transportation Security Administration, DHS.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announces the 
migration of data and a service disruption to our automated public 
dockets, now managed by the Department of Transportation's (DOT's) 
Docket Management System (DMS). Effective September 30, 2007, DOT's DMS 
electronic dockets will be replaced by the Federal Docket Management 
System (FDMS), a government-wide, electronic docket management system. 
In preparation for the data migration from DMS to FDMS, effective 
Thursday, September 27, 2007 at 5 p.m., DOT's DMS will no longer accept 
electronic comments/submissions. DOT will continue to accept, as well 
as process, faxed and other paper documents after the migration to 
FDMS.
    On Monday, October 1, 2007, FDMS will begin accepting electronic 
submissions for all currently open DMS dockets, including open TSA 
dockets. Between October 1 and October 31, closed DMS dockets will 
still be accessible through the DMS Web site. By October 31, the full 
migration of all electronic dockets currently in DMS is expected to be 
completed.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: DOT: Renee V. Wright, Program Manager, 
Docket Operations, Office of Information Services, Office of the 
Assistant Secretary for Administration, Office of the Secretary, M-30, 
1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE., West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140, 
Washington, DC 20590; telephone number: (202) 493-0402; fax number 
(202) 493-2251; e-mail address: [email protected].
    TSA: Marisa Mullen, Docket Liaison, Office of the Chief Counsel, 
TSA-2, 601 South 12th Street, Arlington, VA 22202-4220; telephone (571) 
227-2706.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

Background

TSA Docket Operations

    TSA's official regulatory dockets are currently maintained in 
electronic form at DOT's DMS docket facilities at http://www.dms.dot.gov. Although the electronic form of TSA's dockets will be 
migrated to FDMS at http://www.regulations.gov on September 30, 2007, 
DOT's DMS will continue to process TSA's dockets and provide a physical 
facility and assistance to the public. The DOT Docket Operations 
facility, equipment, and staff is located on the West Building Ground 
Floor, Room W12-140 at 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE., Washington, DC 
20590. Hours for the facility are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through 
Friday, excluding legal holidays. The Docket Operations telephone 
number is (202) 366-9826.

Federal Docket Management System (FDMS)

    FDMS is a major component of the President's eRulemaking 
Initiative, which provides easy access to the public dockets maintained 
by Federal agencies, while streamlining and increasing the efficiency 
of internal procedures for agencies that did not already have 
electronic internet-accessible systems. FDMS is designed so that the 
public has a single point of access to the public dockets across the 
Federal Government. FDMS offers a standard, online procedure for 
Federal agencies to handle and process documents. The Initiative 
reduces costs by eliminating duplicative information systems and 
technical infrastructures.
    FDMS is a full-featured electronic docket management system that 
gives Federal personnel and docket managers the ability to manage their 
rulemakings, adjudications, and other docketed program activities 
better. With this system, more than 30 Federal departments and agencies 
can post documents, supporting materials, and public comments/
submissions on the Internet and the public will have a one-stop site to 
search, view, and download documents, as well as to submit comments or 
other documents to the agency dockets. Although all Federal agencies 
are required to use FDMS for their rulemaking dockets, FDMS will also 
handle and process public docket materials for other purposes. TSA will 
use it for all of the material currently docketed in DMS.
    1. Accessing and Using FDMS. You may access FDMS on the Internet at 
http://www.regulations.gov. You may use FDMS to access available public 
docket materials online, as well as submit electronic comments or other 
documents to a particular docket available in FDMS.
    2. Searching FDMS. The home screen in FDMS allows you to search and 
submit comments to open dockets. You may quickly narrow your search 
parameters for open dockets by agency or department by using the drop 
down selection lists. If you want to search all open TSA dockets, you 
should select ``TRANSPORTATION SECURITY ADMINISTRATION'' from the drop 
down list; or if you want all open DHS agency dockets, you should 
select ``DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY--ALL''. You may also search 
for an available public docket or for particular docket material. FDMS 
provides two basic methods of searching to retrieve dockets and docket 
materials that are available in the system, as follows:
     ``Quick Search'' to search using a full-text search 
engine.
     ``Advanced Search,'' which displays various indexed 
fields, such as the docket name, docket identification number, phase of 
the action, initiating office, date of issuance, document title, 
document identification number, type of document, Federal Register 
reference, CFR citation. You may search each data field in the advanced 
search independently or in combination with other fields, as desired. 
Each search yields a simultaneous display of all available information 
found in FDMS that is relevant to the requested subject or topic.
    3. Making Submissions to FDMS. TSA rulemaking documents, notices, 
and other documents published in the Federal Register will usually 
identify whether a docket has been established in FDMS. You may also 
search FDMS to determine if a docket has been established. You may 
submit comments/submissions to TSA dockets through FDMS, when a 
particular docket is open for public submissions, using any one of the 
following methods:
     Electronic. You may submit documents electronically 
through the online FDMS docket Web site at http://www.regulations.gov. 
This site is TSA's preferred method for receiving comments/submissions. 
Follow the online instructions for submissions.

[[Page 55798]]

     Mail/Hand-Delivery. You may submit documents by mail or 
hand-delivery to the Docket Management Facility, U.S. Department of 
Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE., West Building Ground 
Floor, Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590-0001. DOT will scan the 
submission and post it to FDMS.
     Fax. You may fax your submissions to 202-493-2251. DOT 
will scan the submission and post it to FDMS.
    4. Identification of Persons Making a Submission. As with DMS, FDMS 
is an ``anonymous access'' system, which means TSA will not know your 
identity, e-mail address, or other contact information unless it is 
provided in the body of your submission. We recommend that you include 
your name, mailing address, and an e-mail address or other contact 
information in the body of your document to ensure that you can be 
identified as the submitter. This also allows TSA to contact you in the 
event further information is needed or if there are questions. For 
example, if TSA cannot read your submission due to technical 
difficulties and you cannot be contacted, your submission may not be 
considered. Note that it is TSA's policy not to edit your submission; 
all documents received will be posted without change to http://www.regulations.gov, including any personal information provided. 
Therefore, any identifying or contact information provided in the body 
of a submission will be included in the official public docket, and 
made available to the public.
    5. Confidential and Proprietary Information, and Sensitive Security 
Information (SSI). Do not submit comments/submissions that include 
trade secrets, confidential commercial or financial information, or SSI 
to FDMS. Please make such submissions separately from other comments on 
a rulemaking. Submissions containing this type of information should be 
appropriately marked as containing such information and submitted by 
mail or hand delivery to the Docket Management Facility, U.S. 
Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE., West 
Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590-0001.
    Upon receipt of such submissions, TSA will not place them in the 
public docket and will handle them in accordance with applicable 
safeguards and restrictions on access. TSA will hold them in a separate 
file to which the public does not have access, and place a note in the 
public docket that TSA has received such materials from the commenter. 
If TSA receives a request to examine or copy this information, TSA will 
treat it as any other request under the Freedom of Information Act 
(FOIA) (5 U.S.C. 552) and the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS') 
FOIA regulation found in 6 CFR part 5.
    6. FDMS Privacy Issues. As with DMS, anyone is able to search the 
electronic form of all submissions entered into any of our dockets in 
FDMS by the name of the individual submitting the document, or signing 
the document, if submitted on behalf of an association, business, labor 
union, etc. You may review the applicable Privacy Act Statement 
published in the Federal Register on April 11, 2000 (65 FR 19477), or 
you may visit http://DocketsInfo.dot.gov, which will be available by 
October 1, 2007.
    7. FDMS vs. DMS List Serve/Email Notification Capabilities. The 
capabilities of the DMS ``list serve,'' called ``email notifications'' 
in FDMS, are different. A person may ask to be placed on an e-mail 
listing to be alerted automatically when activity occurs in specific 
regulations or dockets of information at the designated frequency 
(daily, weekly, monthly), without having to manually access the 
information online. You must re-register and set up your e-mail 
notification criteria in FDMS to receive these alerts.
    FDMS will only allow users to sign up for specific regulations or 
specific dockets. Users will not be able to sign up for categories of 
dockets, such as all TSA's rulemakings. Users will also not be able to 
sign up for the subject areas currently allowed in DMS, for example, 
Federalism. Some features that were available in DMS will not work in 
FDMS. For example, the list serve in DMS can search behind the DOT 
firewall for data necessary to respond to a list serve request; FDMS 
cannot search behind the DOT firewall. Some reports and other 
information will be available on http://DocketsInfo.dot.gov.

Migration From DMS to FDMS

Phased Migration

    Using a phased approach, all dockets currently contained in DMS 
will be moved to FDMS. All open TSA dockets (dockets to which TSA or 
the public may still submit documents or comments) will be available in 
FDMS on September 30, 2007. Due to the tremendous amount of data to be 
transferred from DOT's DMS to FDMS, the migration of the remaining 
dockets will occur over the month of October and is expected to be 
completed by October 31, 2007. During this time, DMS will remain online 
for searching, viewing, and downloading documents in these remaining 
DOT dockets.
    Beginning October 1, 2007, any electronic filing to an open docket 
must go to the FDMS at http://www.regulations.gov. Until 12 noon on 
Friday, September 28, 2007, DMS will process all remaining September 27 
electronic submissions. DMS will continue to accept, as well as 
process, faxed and paper documents before and after that date. 
Documents submitted until 12 noon on Friday, September 28, 2007, will 
be posted to DMS, and later transferred to FDMS with the rest of the 
docket. Any faxed or paper submissions received after that time, or not 
processed by 12 noon Friday, September 28, 2007, will be processed on 
Monday, October 1 in FDMS.

Docket ID Numbers

    When DOT migrates TSA's DMS data to FDMS, docket numbers that were 
assigned in DMS (called legacy numbers), will remain the same in FDMS, 
and DMS will provide online public access to all existing, legacy 
dockets in DMS. For example, DMS Docket No. TSA-2002-11602-1 will 
remain the same in FDMS. The makeup of this docket number is as 
follows: the agency (TSA), followed by the year the docket was created 
(2002), then the sequence number automatically assigned upon creation 
(11602), and lastly the document sequence within this particular docket 
(1).
    Any docket opened after September 27, 2007, will receive a docket 
ID in FDMS format. A TSA Docket ID in FDMS will be formatted as TSA-
YYYY-00XX-00XX (Agency, Year, 4-digit yearly Docket sequence number per 
agency, 4-digit document sequence number within docket).

FDMS Submissions and Docket IDs

    Currently in DMS, the public may submit comments and other 
documents, such as applications, petitions, exemptions, waivers, and 
other documents without knowing the actual docket number. In FDMS, you 
are not allowed to submit a document without a docket ID. To handle 
this, DOT Docket Operations will place documents without docket IDs 
into ``shell dockets''. A ``shell docket'' will be a ``catch all'' for 
submissions, such as applications, petitions, exemptions, and/or 
waivers, and data quality without a docket ID. Docket Operations staff 
will review the documents in the ``shell docket'' and file them 
appropriately. However, to assure that submissions are placed in the 
appropriate FDMS dockets, it is best that each submission include a 
docket ID.

[[Page 55799]]

FDMS Docket Types

    FDMS dockets are divided into two types, ``Rulemaking'' and ``Non-
Rulemaking.'' To review dockets or make submissions, please use the 
``Search the Docket'' tab. Select the department or agency and use the 
docket type ``non-rulemaking'' for all dockets other than rulemaking; 
from there you can select the appropriate sub-type, such as ``Peer 
Review.''

Additional Information on Use of FDMS

    Additional details about FDMS, as well as detailed instructions and 
assistance for using the system, are available at http://www.regulations.gov. DOT will also have available online by October 1, 
2007, a new site that will provide helpful information about the use of 
FDMS for DOT's DMS dockets. The site will also contain other helpful 
information, such as reports that were available on DMS but will not be 
available on FDMS. The site will be at http://DocketsInfo.dot.gov.
    In addition, if you are interested in attending informational 
sessions regarding FDMS that DOT will be offering on October 3, 2007, 
(2-4 p.m. for the public) and October 4, 2007, (9-11 a.m. for the 
public) in the DOT Conference Center/Multi-Media Room, West Building, 
Room W11-130 at 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE., Washington, DC. Sign up is 
available at http://www.dms.dot.gov. The DOT DMS Web site will contain 
a link where you will be referred to FDMS for docket submissions.

    Issued in Arlington, Virginia, on September 25, 2007.
Mardi Ruth Thompson,
Deputy Chief Counsel (Regulations).
 [FR Doc. E7-19277 Filed 9-28-07; 8:45 am]
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