[Federal Register Volume 66, Number 108 (Tuesday, June 5, 2001)]
[Notices]
[Pages 30161-30162]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 01-14117]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE


Submission for OMB Review; Comment Request

    The Department of Commerce has submitted to the Office of 
Management and Budget (OMB) for clearance the following proposal for 
collection of information under the provisions of the Paperwork 
Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. Chapter 35).
    Agency: National Institute of Standards and Technology.
    Title: BEES Please.
    Form Number(s): None.
    OMB Approval Number: None.
    Type of Request: Regular submission.
    Burden Hours: 1875 hours.
    Number of Respondents: 30.
    Average Hours Per Response: 45 hours for questionnaire covering 6 
environmental impacts; 80 hours for questionnaire covering 10 
environmental impacts.
    Needs and Uses: Over the last six years, the Building and Fire 
Research Laboratory of the National Institute of Standards and 
Technology (NIST) has developed and automated an approach for measuring 
the life-cycle environmental and economic performance of building 
products. Known as BEES (Building for Environmental and Economic 
Sustainability), the tool reduces complex, science-based technical 
content (e.g., up to 400 material and energy flows from raw material 
extraction through product disposal) to decision-enabling results and 
delivers them in a visually intuitive graphical format. While the 
latest version, BEES 2.0, includes estimated environmental and economic 
performance data for 65

[[Page 30162]]

generic, industry-average building products, NIST has been asked by 
both EPA and BEES users to deliver more precision and practicality by 
adding data for manufacturer-specific products. The rationale is that 
purchasers buy actual products, not industry-averages (there is no such 
thing), and that actual products likely perform quite differently than 
their industry averages. The program encouraging collaboration with 
building product manufacturers so that their products may be 
scientifically evaluated by BEES is known as BEES Please.
    BEES directly supports Executive Order 13101 (9/98), ``Greening the 
Government Through Waste Prevention, Recycling, and Federal 
Acquisition,'' which encourages Federal agencies to purchase 
environmentally-preferable products. EO 13101 is administered by the 
U.S. EPA Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Program. In their 
Congressionally-mandated Final Guidance, which was published in the 
Federal Register (available at http://www.epa.gov/opptintr/epp/finalguidancetoc.htm), BEES is listed as one of only two life-cycle 
based resources that Federal agency personnel may find useful in 
implementing environmentally preferable purchasing. NIST needs 
information from building product manufacturers so that Federal 
personnel may consider their products in their environmentally-
preferable purchase decisions.
    Affected Public: Business and other for-profit organizations.
    Frequency: Once.
    Respondent's Obligation: Required to obtain or retain benefits.
    OMB Desk Officer: David Rostker, (202) 395-3897.
    Copies of the above information collection proposal can be obtained 
by calling or writing Madeleine Clayton, Departmental Paperwork 
Clearance Officer, (202) 482-3129, Department of Commerce, Room 6086, 
14th and Constitution Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20230 (or via the 
Internet at [email protected]).
    Written comments and recommendations for the proposed information 
collection should be sent within 30 days of publication of this notice 
to David Rostker, OMB Desk Officer, Room 10202, New Executive Office 
Building, Washington, DC 20503.

    Dated: May 31, 2001.
Madeleine Clayton,
Departmental Paperwork Clearance Officer, Office of the Chief 
Information Officer.
[FR Doc. 01-14117 Filed 6-4-01; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-13-P