[Federal Register Volume 78, Number 25 (Wednesday, February 6, 2013)]
[Notices]
[Page 8490]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2013-02607]
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DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Economic Research Service
Notice of Intent To Request Revision of the Previously Requested
Experimental Economic Research--A New Generic Clearance for Information
Collection
AGENCY: Economic Research Service.
ACTION: Notice of changes and request for comments.
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SUMMARY: In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 and
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) implementing regulations, this
notice announces changes that the Economic Research Service intends to
make to a previously request for a new generic clearance vehicle for
information collection, namely Experimental Economic Research. On
December 2, 2011 and April 24, 2012, ERS published two Notices of
solicitation of comments on the aforementioned new information
collection in the Federal Register (76 FR 75521-75522, December 2,
2011; 77 FR 24455, April 24, 2012). Although ERS did not receive any
comments from the general public during the respective commenting
periods, it has, since then, engaged in extensive discussions with the
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) regarding the nature and scope of
the study and the appropriateness and practicability of the proposed
protection for respondent information. As a result, ERS intends to make
four changes to the aforementioned information collection. Details of
the changes are discussed in the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section
below.
DATES: Comments on this notice must be received by March 8, 2013 to be
assured consideration.
ADDRESSES: Address all comments concerning this notice to Nathaniel
Higgins, Resource and Rural Economics Division, Economic Research
Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1400 Independence Ave. SW.,
Mail Stop 1800, Washington, DC 20250-1800. Comments may also be
submitted via fax at 202-245-4847 or via email to
[email protected].
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Nathaniel Higgins, using the contact
information listed in the ADDRESSES section above.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On 2 December 2011 the Economic Research
Service (ERS) published a notice and request for comments pursuant to
its intent to seek Office of Management and Budget Approval for a new
information collection (76 FR 75521-75522) [``60-day notice'']. In that
notice ERS stated that a number of research techniques, including
laboratory and field techniques, exploratory interviews, pilot
experiments and respondent debriefing, would be used to collect to
inform or evaluate policies. ERS stated that the number of respondents
would be 1,800 and the maximum total burden hours would be 2,300.
Additionally, ERS stated that it complies with OMB Implementation
Guidance, ``Implementation Guidance for Title V of the E-Government
Act, Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act
of 2002 (CIPSEA)'' (72 FR 33362, June 15, 2007). In a subsequent notice
announcing that the collection had been submitted to OMB for
consideration (77 FR 24455-34456, April 24, 2012) [``30-day notice'']
ERS stated that the number of respondents would be 5,400 and the total
burden hours would be 6,900.
The intent of this notice is to announce four changes to the
clearance sought by ERS: (1) The request is being sought as a pilot of
the concept of using a generic approval mechanism for the type of
experiments listed above and, as such, experiments will be limited to
only two topic areas at this time (conservation and nutrition); (2) ERS
does not intend to use the information collected under this approval
for purposes of developing or evaluating policy; (3) ERS does not
intend to invoke CIPSEA for the collection, but instead intends to
protect respondent information under the Privacy Act of 1974 and the E-
Government Act of 2002, (4) ERS would like to amend the number of
respondents to 6,900 and the number of burden hours to 7,025.
The complexity and cost necessary to invoke CIPSEA is not justified
given the nature of the collection; the collections would include a
very limited amount of personally-identifiable information (PII), and
would generally be designed to be hosted in university computer labs,
where CIPSEA compliance could not be assured. Consistent with the
Privacy Act and the E-Government Act, a Systems of Records Notice
(SORN) and a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) will be submitted for
approval, as appropriate. The SORN and PIA will document the ways in
which participant personally identifiable information will be
collected, stored, and accessed. Data will be managed for research
purposes only.
Specific details regarding information handling will be specified
in individual submissions under this generic clearance, but will
conform to these broad guidelines.
This notice gives the public the opportunity to comment on: (1) The
appropriate and reasonable invocation of the Privacy Act of 1974, as
amended and the E-Government Act of 2002 to assure that personal
information collected by Federal agencies is protected, and (2) the
increase in the number of respondents and the burden hours proposed by
ERS. Comments should be sent to the address in the preamble. All
responses to this notice will be summarized and included in the request
for OMB approval. All comments will also become a matter of public
record.
Dated:January 29, 2013.
Mary Bohman,
Administrator, Economic Research Service.
[FR Doc. 2013-02607 Filed 2-5-13; 8:45 am]
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