Definition of Military Installation and the List of Military Installations in Regulations Pertaining to Certain Transactions by Foreign Persons Involving Real Estate in the United States

DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY <SUBAGY>Office of Investment Security</SUBAGY> <CFR>31 CFR Part 802</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket ID TREAS-DO-2024-0010]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1505-AC88</RIN> <SUBJECT>Definition of Military Installation and the List of Military Installations in Regulations Pertaining to Certain Transactions by Foreign Persons Involving Real Estate in the United States</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of Investment Security, Department of the Treasury. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This proposed rule would amend the regulations that implement the provisions relating to real estate transactions in section 721 of the Defense Production Act of 1950, as amended. Specifically, the proposed rule would amend the regulations by adding, moving, and removing certain military installations on the appendix at parts 1 and 2, and making corresponding revisions to the definition of the term “military installation.” The proposed rule would also make technical amendments to update the name or location information for certain military installations already listed on the appendix. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Written comments must be received by August 19, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Written comments may be submitted through one of two methods: • <E T="03">Electronic Submission:</E> Comments may be submitted electronically through the Federal government eRulemaking portal at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Electronic submission of comments allows the commenter maximum time to prepare and submit a comment, ensures timely receipt, and enables the Treasury Department to make the comments available to the public. • <E T="03">Mail:</E> Send to U.S. Department of the Treasury, Attention: Meena R. Sharma, Director, Office of Investment Security Policy and International Relations, 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20220. The Department of the Treasury encourages comments to be submitted via <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Please submit comments only and include your name and company name (if any) and cite “Amendments to the Definition of Military Installation and the List of Military Installations in Regulations Pertaining to Certain Transactions by Foreign Persons Involving Real Estate in the United States” in all correspondence. All comments submitted, including attachments and other supporting material, in response to this proposed rule will be made public, including any personally identifiable or confidential business information that is included in a comment. Therefore, commenters should submit only information that they wish to make publicly available. Commenters who wish to remain anonymous should not include identifying information in their comments. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Meena R. Sharma, Director, Office of Investment Security Policy and International Relations, at U.S. Department of the Treasury, 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20220; telephone: (202) 622-3425; email: <E T="03">CFIUS.Regulations@treasury.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> The regulations at part 802 to title 31 of the Code of Federal Regulations (part 802) implement the provisions in section 721 of the Defense Production Act of 1950, as amended (Section 721) and establish the process and procedures of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS or the Committee) with respect to reviewing transactions involving the purchase or lease by, or concession to, a foreign person of certain real estate in the United States. Section 721 authorizes the president or his designee ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> CFIUS) to review certain real estate transactions by foreign persons where the real estate at issue is located in the United States and (a) is located within, or will function as part of, an air or maritime port; or (b) is in close proximity to a United States military installation or another facility or property of the United States Government that is sensitive for reasons relating to national security; could reasonably provide the foreign person the ability to collect intelligence on activities being conducted at such an installation, facility, or property; or could otherwise expose national security activities at such an installation, facility, or property to the risk of foreign surveillance. The current regulations at part 802 identify a subset of military installations around which certain real estate transactions are covered under CFIUS's jurisdiction. The specific military installations are listed in appendix A by name and location (or township/range), and section 802.227 sets forth the category descriptions of the military installations identified in appendix A. The locations listed in appendix A are intended to aid in the identification of the relevant installations only and do not represent specific boundaries of the installations for purposes of determining whether a transaction is a covered real estate transaction. The preamble to the final rule establishing part 802 ( <E T="03">see</E> 85 FR 3158) noted that the military installations listed in the appendix were identified by the U.S. Department of Defense (Department of Defense) based upon an evaluation of national security considerations, and that the Department of Defense will continue on an ongoing basis to assess its military installations and the geographic scope established under the rules to ensure appropriate application in light of national security considerations. In 2023, as a result of the assessment of military installations by the Department of Defense at that time, amendments made to the regulations added eight military installations to appendix A and updated the names of five military installations ( <E T="03">see</E> 88 FR 57348, published August 23, 2023). Since then, the Department of Defense has completed a comprehensive assessment of its military installations through coordination across all military services, considering factors such as the operations, assets, missions, and training at each installation and appropriateness for coverage under Section 721. While the Department of Defense continuously evaluates its military installations to ensure appropriate application of Section 721 in light of national security considerations, the recent completion of this comprehensive assessment prompted the changes described in this proposed rule—namely, the addition of 40 military installations to part 1 of appendix A around which CFIUS's real estate jurisdiction generally extends one mile from the installation's boundary; the addition of 19 military installations to part 2 of appendix A around which CFIUS's real estate jurisdiction generally extends 100 miles from the installation's boundary; the movement of eight military installations from part 1 to part 2 of appendix A; the removal of one installation from part 1 and two installations from part 2; and corresponding revisions to the definition of the term “military installation.” Additionally, the names of 14 installations already in appendix A would be technically amended to reflect official installation name changes by the Department of Defense and the location of seven installations would be updated to more directly identify the installations' approximate location. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Discussion of the Rule</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Amendments to the Military Installations Listed in Appendix A</HD> The appendix to the regulations at part 802 identifies certain bases, ranges, and other installations that, for the purposes of the regulation, meet the definition of “military installation” at section 802.227 and, to assist in the identification of such installations, the related location (or township/range) information. The appendix is important in determining whether a transaction is a covered real estate transaction because of a nearby military installation. As relevant to this proposed rule, the installations identified in the appendix at part 1 meet one of the category descriptions in section 802.227 (b) to (o). Installations at part 2 meet one of the category descriptions in section 802.227 (h), (k), or (m). This proposed rule would revise appendix A to include the 59 military installations listed below as well as to remove eight military installations from part 1 of appendix A and add them to part 2 (as noted below). <HD SOURCE="HD3">Part 1</HD> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">• Anniston Army Depot, located in Anniston, Alabama</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">• Barter Island Regional Radar Site, located in Barter Island, Alaska</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">• Blue Grass Army Depot, located in Richmond, Kentucky</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">• Camp Blaz, located in Dededo, Guam</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">• Camp Navajo, located in Bellemont, Arizona</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">• Camp Roberts, located in San Miguel, California</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">• Cold Bay Regional Radar Site, located in Cold Bay, Alaska</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">• Detroit Arsenal, located in Warren, Michigan</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">• Hawthorne Army Depot, located in Hawthorne, Nevada</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">• Indian Mountain Regional Radar Site, located in Indian Mountain, Alaska</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">• Iowa Army Ammunition Plant, located in Middletown, Iowa</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">• Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, located in Arlington, Virginia</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">• Joint Systems Manufacturing Center—Lima, located in Lima, Ohio</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">• Kenai Regional Radar Site, located in Kenai, Alaska</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">• Kotzebue Regional Radar Site, located in Kotzebue, Alaska</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">• Lake City Army Ammunition Plant, located in Independence, Missouri</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">• Letterkenny Ar ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 48k characters. 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