[Federal Register Volume 78, Number 158 (Thursday, August 15, 2013)]
[Notices]
[Pages 49730-49735]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2013-19858]
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CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY COMMISSION
[Docket No. CPSC-2010-0041]
Collection of Information; Proposed Extension of Approval;
Comment Request--Publicly Available Consumer Product Safety Information
Database
AGENCY: Consumer Product Safety Commission.
ACTION: Notice.
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SUMMARY: As required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA) (44
U.S.C. Chapter 35), the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC or
Commission) requests comments on a proposed extension of approval of a
collection of information for the Publicly Available Consumer Product
Safety Information Database. The Commission will consider all comments
received in response to this notice before requesting an extension of
approval of this collection of information from the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB).
DATES: The Office of the Secretary must receive comments not later than
October 15, 2013.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments, identified by Docket No. CPSC-2010-
0041, by any of the following methods:
Electronic Submissions: Submit electronic comments to the Federal
eRulemaking Portal at: http://www.regulations.gov. Follow the
instructions for submitting comments. The Commission does not accept
comments submitted by electronic mail (email), except through
www.regulations.gov. The Commission encourages you to submit electronic
comments by using the Federal eRulemaking Portal, as described above.
[[Page 49731]]
Written Submissions: Submit written submissions in the following
way: Mail/Hand delivery/Courier (for paper, disk, or CD-ROM
submissions), preferably in five copies, to: Office of the Secretary,
Consumer Product Safety Commission, Room 820, 4330 East-West Highway,
Bethesda, MD 20814; telephone (301) 504-7923.
Instructions: All submissions received must include the agency name
and docket number for this notice. All comments received may be posted
without change, including any personal identifiers, contact
information, or other personal information provided, to: http://www.regulations.gov. Do not submit confidential business information,
trade secret information, or other sensitive or protected information
that you do not want to be available to the public. If furnished at
all, such information should be submitted in writing.
Docket: For access to the docket to read background documents or
comments received, go to: http://www.regulations.gov, and insert the
docket number, CPSC-2010-0041, into the ``Search'' box, and follow the
prompts.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For further information contact:
Robert H. Squibb, Consumer Product Safety Commission, 4330 East-West
Highway, Bethesda, MD 20814; (301) 504-7815, or by email to:
[email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
A. Background
Section 212 of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008
(CPSIA) added section 6A to the Consumer Product Safety Act (CPSA),
which requires the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC or
Commission) to establish and maintain a publicly available, searchable
database on the safety of consumer products and other products or
substances regulated by the Commission (Database). Among other things,
section 6A of the CPSA requires the Commission to collect reports of
harm from the public for potential publication in the publicly
available Database and to collect and publish comments about reports of
harm from manufacturers.
On May 24, 2010, the Commission published a proposed rule on the
Database and announced that a proposed collection of information in
conjunction with the Database had been submitted to OMB for review and
clearance under 44 U.S.C. 3501-3520.75 FR 29156. The Commission issued
a final rule on the Database on December 9, 2010 (75 FR 76832). The
final rule interprets various statutory requirements in section 6A of
the CPSA pertaining to the information to be included in the Database
and also establishes provisions regarding submitting reports of harm;
providing notice of reports of harm to manufacturers; publishing
reports of harm and manufacturer comments in the Database; and dealing
with confidential and materially inaccurate information.
OMB approved the collection of information for the Database under
control number 3041-0146. OMB's approval will expire on January 31,
2014. The Commission now proposes to request an extension of approval
of this collection of information.
B. Information Collected Through the Database
The primary purpose of this information collection is to populate
the publicly searchable Database of consumer product safety information
mandated by section 6A of the CPSA. There are four components to the
information collection: Reports of harm, manufacturer comments,
branding information, and the Small Batch Manufacturer Registry (SBMR).
Reports of Harm: Reports of harm communicate information regarding
an injury, illness, or death, or any risk (as determined by the
Commission) of injury, illness, or death, relating to the use of a
consumer product. Reports can be submitted to the CPSC by consumers;
local, state, or federal government agencies; health care
professionals; child service providers; public safety entities; and
others. Reports may be submitted in one of three ways: Via the CPSC Web
site (www.SaferProducts.gov), by telephone via a CPSC call center, or
by email, fax, or mail, using the incident report form (available for
download or printing via the CPSC Web site). Reports may also originate
as a free-form letter or email. Submitters must consent to inclusion of
their report of harm in the publicly searchable Database.
Manufacturer Comments: A manufacturer or private labeler may submit
a comment related to a report of harm if the report of harm identifies
the manufacturer or private labeler and the CPSC transmits such report
of harm to the manufacturer. Manufacturers' comments may be submitted
through the business portal, by email, mail, or fax. The business
portal is a feature of the Database that allows manufacturers who
register on the business portal to receive reports of harm and comment
on such reports through the business portal. Use of the business portal
expedites the receipt of reports of harm and business response times.
A manufacturer may request that the Commission designate
information in a report of harm as confidential. Such a request may be
made using the business portal, email, mail, or fax. Additionally, any
person or entity reviewing a report of harm or a manufacturer's comment
(either before or after publication in the Database) and who believes
that the report contains materially inaccurate information, may request
that the report or comment, or portions of the report or comment, be
excluded from the Database. Such a request may be submitted by email,
mail, or fax, and registered businesses also may utilize the business
portal for such requests.
Branding Information: Using the business portal, registered
businesses may voluntarily submit branding information to assist CPSC
in correctly and timely routing reports of harm. Brand names may be
licensed to an entity other than the manufacturer. CPSC's accurate
understanding of applicable licensing arrangements relating to consumer
products increases the likelihood that the correct manufacturer is
timely notified regarding a report of harm.
Small Batch Manufacturers Registry: The business portal also
contains the SBMR, which is the online mechanism by which small batch
manufacturers (as defined in the CPSA) can identify themselves to
obtain relief from certain third party testing requirements for
children's products. To register as a small batch manufacturer and
receive relief from third party testing, a business must attest that
the company's total gross revenue and the number of units of the
covered product manufactured both fall within the statutory limits.
C. Estimated Burden
1. Estimated Annual Burden for Respondents
We estimate the burden of this collection of information as
follows:
[[Page 49732]]
Table 1--Estimated Annual Reporting Burden for Reports of Harm
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Number of Response Total annual Minutes per Total burden,
Collection type respondents frequency \1\ responses response in hours \2\
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Reports of Harm--submitted 8,030 1.02 8,207 12 1,641
through Web site...............
Reports of Harm--submitted by 3,749 1.00 3,749 10 625
phone..........................
Reports of Harm--submitted by 904 6.71 6,067 20 2,022
mail, e-mail, fax..............
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Total....................... 12,683 .............. 18,023 .............. 4,288
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\1\ Frequency of responses is calculated by dividing the number
of responses by the number of respondents.
\2\ Numbers have been rounded.
Table 2--Estimated Annual Reporting Burden for Manufacturer Submissions
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Number of Response Total annual Minutes per Total burden,
Collection type respondents frequency \1\ responses response in hours \2\
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Manufacturer Comments--submitted 624 8.20 5,117 116 9,893
through Web site...............
Manufacturer Comments--submitted 132 1.25 165 146 402
by mail, email, fax............
Requests to Treat Information as 11 1.27 14 15 4
Confidential--submitted through
Web site.......................
Requests to Treat Information as 0 0 0 45 0
Confidential--submitted by
mail, email, fax...............
Requests to Treat Information as 231 2.46 568 438 4,146
Materially Inaccurate--
submitted through Web site.....
Requests to Treat Information as 83 1.25 104 468 811
Materially Inaccurate--
submitted by mail, email, fax..
Voluntary Brand Identification.. 545 2.25 1,227 10 205
Small Batch Manufacturer 578 1 578 10 96
Identification.................
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Total....................... 2,204 .............. 7,773 .............. 15,557
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Using the data in Tables 1 and 2 above, we estimate the annual
reporting cost to be $1,086,332. This estimate is based on the sum of
two estimated total figures for reports of harm and manufacturer
submissions. The estimated number of respondents and responses are
based on the actual responses received in FY 2012. We assume that the
number of responses and respondents will be similar in future years.
Reports of Harm: Table 1 sets forth the data used to estimate the
burden associated with submitting reports of harm. We had previously
estimated the time associated with the electronic and telephone
submission of reports of harm at 12 and 10 minutes, respectively, and
because we have had no indication that these estimates are not
appropriate or accurate, we used those figures for present purposes as
well. We estimate that the time associated with a paper or PDF form
would be 20 minutes, on average.
To estimate the costs for submitting reports of harm, we multiplied
the estimated total burden hours associated with reports of harm (1,641
hours + 625 hours + 2,022 hours = 4,288 hours) by an estimated total
compensation for all workers in private industry of $29.13 per hour,\3\
which results in an estimated cost of $124,909 (4,288 hours x $29.13
per hour = $124,909).
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\3\ U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Table
9 of the Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (ECEC), Private
Industry, goods-producing and service-providing industries, by
occupational group, March 2013 (data extracted on 07/24/2013 from
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ecec.t09.htm.
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Manufacturer Submissions: Table 2 sets forth the data used to
estimate the burden associated with manufacturers' submissions to the
Database. To gain information on how long it takes a manufacturer to
submit a general comment or a claim that a report contains materially
inaccurate information through the business portal, we contacted six
businesses registered on the business portal. We asked each company how
long it typically takes to research, compose, and enter a comment or a
claim of materially inaccurate information. We had observed that a
large percentage of the general comments come from a few businesses and
assumed that the experience of a business that submits many comments
each year would be different from one that submits only a few.
Accordingly, we divided all responding businesses into three groups
based on the number of general comments submitted in FY 2012, and then
selected two businesses from each group to contact. The first group we
contacted consisted of businesses that submitted 50 or more comments in
FY 2012, accounting for 46 percent of all general comments received.
The second group we contacted included businesses that submitted 6 to
49 comments, accounting for 36 percent of all general comments
received. The last group contacted included businesses that submitted
no more than five comments, accounting for 18 percent of all general
comments received.
To estimate the burden associated with submitting a general comment
regarding a report of harm through the business portal, we averaged the
burden provided by each company within each group and then calculated a
weighted average from the three groups, weighting each group by the
proportion of comments received from that group. We found that the
average time to submit a general comment regarding a report of harm is
116 minutes based on the data in Table 3 (((10 minutes + 180 minutes)/2
companies)*.46 + ((10 minutes + 30 minutes)/2 companies)*.36 + ((240
minutes + 480 minutes)/2 companies)*.18 = 116 minutes).
[[Page 49733]]
Table 3--Estimated Burden To Enter a General Comment in the Database
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General
Group Company comments
(minutes)
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Group 1............................. Company A............. 10
(>= 50 comments).................... Company B............. 180
Group 2............................. Company A............. 10
(6-49 comments)..................... Company B............. 30
Group 3............................. Company A............. 240
(<= 5 comments)..................... Company B............. 480
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Registered businesses generally submit comments through our Web
site. Unregistered businesses submit comments by mail, email, or fax.
We estimate that submitting comments in this way takes a little longer
because we often must ask the businesses to amend their submissions to
include the required certifications. Thus, we estimated that, on
average, comments submitted by mail, email, or fax take 30 minutes
longer than those submitted through our Web site (116 minutes + 30
minutes = 146 minutes).
The submission of a claim of materially inaccurate information is a
relatively rare event for all respondents, so we averaged all responses
together. Four of the businesses contacted had submitted claims of
materially inaccurate information during FY 2012. We found that the
average time to submit a claim that a report of harm contains a
material inaccuracy is 438 minutes ((10 minutes + 120 minutes + 180
minutes + 1440 minutes)/4 companies = 438 minutes).
Registered businesses generally submit claims through the business
portal. Unregistered businesses submit claims by mail, email, or fax.
We estimate that submitting claims in this way takes a little longer
because we often must ask the businesses to amend their submissions to
include the required certifications. Thus, we estimated that on
average, claims submitted by mail, email, or fax take 30 minutes longer
than those submitted through our Web site (438 minutes + 30 minutes =
468 minutes).
We previously had estimated that confidential information claims
submitted through our Web site would take 15 minutes because the
information to be entered would be readily accessible by the
respondent. We have found that confidential information claims are very
rare, and the few such claims that we have received have been submitted
through our Web site. That limited experience did not suggest the need
for any update of the estimate for Web site submission of confidential
information claims. Although we have not received any confidential
information claims by mail, email, or fax, based on our experience with
comments and claims of materially inaccurate information, we estimate
that a confidential information claim submitted by mail, email, or fax
would take 30 minutes longer than those submitted through our Web site
(15 minutes + 30 minutes = 45 minutes).
For voluntary brand identification, we estimate that a response
would take 10 minutes, on average. Most responses consist only of the
brand name and a product description. In many cases a business will
submit multiple entries in a brief period of time, and we can see from
the date and time stamps on these records that an entry often takes
less than two minutes. CPSC staff enters the same data in a similar
form based on our own research, and that experience was also factored
into our estimate.
For small batch manufacturer identification, we estimate that a
response would take 10 minutes, on average. The form consists of three
check boxes, and the information should be readily accessible to the
respondent.
The responses summarized in Table 2 are generally submitted by
manufacturers. To avoid underestimating the cost associated with the
collection of this data, we assigned the higher hourly wage associated
with a manager or professional in goods-producing industries to these
tasks. To estimate the cost of manufacturer submissions, we multiplied
the estimated total burden hours in Table 2 (15,557 hours) by an
estimated total compensation for a manager or professional in goods-
producing industries of $61.80 per hour,\4\ which results in an
estimated cost of $961,423 (15,557 hours x $61.80 per hour = $961,423).
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\4\ U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Table
9 of the Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (ECEC), Private
Industry, goods-producing and service-providing industries, by
occupational group, March 2013 (data extracted on 07/24/2013 from
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ecec.t09.htm.
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Therefore, the total estimated annual cost to respondents is
$1,086,332 ($124,909 burden for reports of harm + $961,423 burden for
manufacturer submissions = $1,086,332).
2. Estimated Annual Burden on Government
We estimate the annualized cost to the CPSC to be $1,028,794. This
figure is based on the costs for four categories of work for the
Database: Reports of Harm, Materially Inaccurate Information Claims,
Manufacturer Comments, and Small Batch Identification. Each category is
described below. No government cost is associated with Voluntary Brand
Identification because this information is entered directly into the
Database by the manufacturer with no processing required by the
government. The information assists the government in directing reports
of harm to the correct manufacturer. We did not attempt to calculate
separately the government cost for claims of confidential information
because the number of claims is so small. The time to process these
claims is included with claims of materially inaccurate information.
Reports of Harm: The Reports of Harm category includes many
different tasks. Some costs related to this category are from a data
entry contract. Tasks related to this contract include clerical coding
of the report, such as identifying the type of consumer product
reported and the appropriate associated hazard, as well as performing
quality control on the data in the report. The contractor spends an
estimated 3,380 hours per year performing these tasks. With an hourly
rate of $32.57 for contracter services, the annual cost to the
government is $110,087.
The Reports of Harm category also includes sending consent for
reports when necessary, processing that consent when CPSC receives it,
determining whether a product is out of CPSC's jurisdiction, and
checking that pictures and attachments do not have any personally
identifiable information. The Reports category also entails notifying
manufacturers when one of their products is reported, completing a risk
of harm determination form for every report eligible for publication,
referring some reports to a Subject Matter Expert (SME) within the CPSC
for a determination on whether the reports meet the requirement of
having a risk of harm, and determining whether a report meets all the
statutory and regulatory requirements for publication. Detailed costs
are described in Table 4.
[[Page 49734]]
Table 4--Estimated Costs for Reports of Harm Task
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Total
Grade level Number of compensation Total annual
hours (annual) per hour cost
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Contract........................................................ 3380 $32.57 $110,086.60
7............................................................... 1560 33.03 51,526.80
9............................................................... 832 40.53 33,720.96
12.............................................................. 6396 58.78 375,956.88
13.............................................................. 884 69.67 61,588.28
14.............................................................. 2053 82.60 169,577.80
15.............................................................. 421 96.84 40,769.64
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Total....................................................... 12146 .............. 843,226.96
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Materially Inaccurate Information (MII) Claims: The MII Claims
category includes reviewing and responding to claims, participating in
meetings where the claims are discussed, and completing a risk of harm
determination on reports when a company alleges that a report does not
describe a risk of harm. Detailed costs are described in Table 5.
Table 5--Estimated Costs for MII Claims Task
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Total
Grade level Number of compensation Total annual
hours (annual) per hour cost
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12.............................................................. 364 $58.78 $21,395.92
13.............................................................. 1040 69.67 72,456.80
14.............................................................. 378 82.60 31,222.80
15.............................................................. 151 96.84 14,622.84
SES............................................................. 104 103.91 10,806.64
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Total....................................................... 2037 .............. 150,505
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Manufacturer Comments: The Comments category includes reviewing and
accepting or rejecting comments. Detailed costs are described in Table
6.
Table 6--Estimated Costs for Manufacturer Comments Task
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Total
Grade level Number of compensation Total annual
hours (annual) per hour cost
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12.............................................................. 104 $58.78 $6,113.12
13.............................................................. 182 69.67 12,679.94
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Total....................................................... 286 .............. 18,793.06
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Small Batch Manufacturer Identification: The Small Batch
Manufacturer Identification category includes time spent posting the
list of small batch registrations, as well as answering manufacturers'
questions on registering as a Small Batch company and what the
implications to that company of small batch registration. Detailed
costs are described in Table 7.
Table 7--Estimated Costs for Small Batch Task
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Total
Grade level Number of compensation Total annual
hours (annual) per hour cost
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15.............................................................. 168 $96.84 $16,269.12
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Total....................................................... 168 .............. 16,269.12
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[[Page 49735]]
We estimate the annualized cost to the CPSC of $1,028,794 by adding the
four categories of work related to the Database summarized in Tables 4
through 7 (Reports of Harm ($843,226.96) + MII Claims ($150,505.00) +
Manufacturer Comments ($18,793.06) + Small Batch Identification
($16,269.12) = $1,028,794.14).
This information collection renewal request based on an estimated
19,845 burden hours per year for the Database is a decrease of 17,284
hours since this collection of information was last approved by OMB in
2011. The decrease in burden is due primarily to the fact that the
number of responses estimated in our original request overstated the
number of actual responses submitted; we thus lowered the estimated
number of responses based on actual experience since the original
request.
D. Request for Comments
The Commission solicits written comments from all interested
persons about the proposed collection of information. The Commission
specifically solicits information relevant to the following topics:
Whether the collection of information described above is
necessary for the proper performance of the Commission's functions,
particularly with respect to the Database, including whether the
information would have practical utility;
Whether the estimated burden of the proposed collection of
information is accurate;
Whether the quality, utility, and clarity of the
information to be collected could be enhanced; and
Whether the burden imposed by the collection of
information could be minimized by use of automated, electronic, or
other technological collection techniques, or other forms of
information technology.
Dated: August 12, 2013.
Todd A. Stevenson,
Secretary, Consumer Product Safety Commission.
[FR Doc. 2013-19858 Filed 8-14-13; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6355-01-P