New regs for Monday: Drug testing, sailboats, pensions

Monday’s edition of the Federal Register contains new rules for drug-testing pipeline workers, life jackets on sailboats, reporting the pension benefits of senior officers at banks, and reserve requirements for banks and credit unions. 

Here’s what is happening:

Bank reserves: The Federal Reserve is moving forward with changes to the reserve requirements for banks and credit unions.

{mosads}Under federal law, depository institutions like banks and credit unions are required to hold a certain amount of customers’ deposits at the bank, rather than lending it out, as an emergency source of funding.

But the Federal Reserve announced Friday it is raising the liability amount to $14.5 million for banks that are exempt from collecting reserve money. 

The changes go into effect in 30 days.

Pensions: The Farm Credit Administration is considering loosening the pension benefits reporting requirements for most employees at member banks and savings associations.

Senior officers will still be required to disclose information to shareholders and investors about their pension benefits. But lower-level employees who do not make as much money would not be subject to the same requirements, the agency proposed Friday.

“Such employees’ pension plans must have been available to all similarly situated employees on the same basis,” the agency wrote.

The public has 30 days to comment.

Drug testing: The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration is moving forward with a requirement for pipeline operators to drug test at least 25 percent of their employees.

The minimum random drug testing requirements apply to companies that operate gas, hazardous liquid and carbon dioxide pipelines.

“Operators of gas, hazardous liquid, and carbon dioxide pipelines and operators of liquefied natural gas facilities must randomly select and test a percentage of covered employees for prohibited drug use,” the agency wrote.

The rules go into effect in 2015.

Life jackets: The Coast Guard is correcting mistakes made in a rule it published about using life jackets on sailboats.

Sailboats that are used commercially must be equipped with enough life jackets for everyone on board, according to new rules published by the Coast Guard in September. The life jacket rules apply to all commercial sailboats, but not to recreation sailboats for personal use.

However, the Coast Guard is correcting errors made in that rule.

Drugs: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is correcting mistakes made in a list it published about drug products that have been removed from the market for safety reasons.

The FDA updated the list in July, but is going back now to correct errors.