Agencies will use the Federal Register on Thursday to announce new and proposed measures on fishing, agriculture and commercial furnaces, among other issues. Here's what to expect:

Agriculture:
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is changing the authorization measures to import plants that are otherwise prohibited but could have some experimental, therapeutic or developmental purpose. 

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved over-the-counter “Plan B“ emergency contraceptives for teens as young as 15, according to The Hill’s Healthwatch.

The regulator is also considering whether to impose new limits on caffeine in snacks, after the emergence of Wrigley’s Alert Energy Caffeine Gum, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has determined that a foreign firm is too heavily involved in plans to build a pair of reactors in Texas, according to The San Antonio Express-News.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) proposed $9,000 in fines against a Montana business for workplace violations after grizzly bears mauled a man cleaning their cage, Reuters reports.

The political arm of the product review magazine Consumer Reports on Tuesday urged lawmakers and federal regulators to take steps to eliminate antibiotic use in healthy animals.

The group, Consumers Union, says the overuse contributes to antibiotic drug-resistant “superbugs” in humans.

“The declining effectiveness of antibiotics has become a national health crisis,” said Ami Gadhia, the nonprofit organization’s senior policy counsel, said in a statement. “Approximately 80 percent of antibiotics sold in the United States are used in livestock production, often times on healthy animals. The use of antibiotics in livestock needs to be curbed so that consumers aren’t threatened by these superbugs that can’t be treated.”

Two government agencies are issuing a new guidance to help architects and construction workers comply with a federal law requiring their buildings be accessible for people with disabilities.

The guidance released on Tuesday from the Departments of Justice and Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which jointly enforce the Fair Housing Act, lays out a set of standards for accessible buildings. 

The Fair Housing Act, first passed in 1968, prohibits landlords and home sellers from discriminating against renters and buyers. A provision of the law also requires that some buildings must be accessible for people with disabilities, including regulations on doors, light switches and kitchen and bathroom layout.

The move will likely stir controversy among social conservatives, some of whom view Plan B as a form of abortion.

Support is growing within the private sector for a dramatic expansion of the national electronic worker verification program, a pair of business groups said Tuesday, citing the results of a new survey.

Known as E-Verify, the mostly voluntary program is designed to keep illegal immigrants out of American jobs by allowing employers to run potential hires through a federal database.

The program has come under fire, both from immigrant groups who warned that glitches in the system could wrongfully keep workers off the job, and from business groups, who said E-Verify would be burdensome.

Now as lawmakers weigh legislation in both chambers of Congress that would make the program mandatory for U.S. employers, there’s new evidence that companies have warmed to the idea.

The federal government's consumer finance watchdog is relaxing a rule on international money transfers that was seen to be overly restrictive.

On Tuesday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced a change to its regulation of the tens of billions of dollars that Americans send abroad each year. The rule, as required by the Dodd-Frank law, was first published in February 2012, and then supplemented later that year.

The revision relaxes some requirements for processors of the money transfers that banks and consumer advocates alike warned could prevent institutions from processing the remittances. 

Officials from the fertilizer industry fear the accident could trigger a flood of new regulations.

A Washington-area think tank with ties to the Koch brothers and a record of criticizing burdensome government rules said Tuesday that listing President Obama’s proposed regulatory chief as a resident expert was a mistake.

Howard Shelanski, tapped to serve as administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), has no affiliation with the Mercatus Center, apart from a 2011 speech he gave at an event hosted by the organization, according to center spokeswoman Leigh Harrington.