[Federal Register Volume 72, Number 141 (Tuesday, July 24, 2007)]
[Notices]
[Pages 40290-40292]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E7-14252]


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DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

Energy Information Administration


Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collection; 
Comment Request

AGENCY: Energy Information Administration (EIA), Department of Energy 
(DOE).

ACTION: Agency information collection activities: proposed collection; 
comment request.

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SUMMARY: The EIA is soliciting comments on the proposed revision and 
three-year extension to the Coal Program package. The forms include the 
EIA-1, ``Weekly Coal Monitoring Report--General Industries and Blast 
Furnaces'' (Standby); EIA-3, ``Quarterly Coal Consumption and Quality 
Report--Manufacturing Plants;'' EIA-4, ``Weekly Coal Monitoring 
Report--Coke Plants'' (Standby); EIA-5,``Quarterly Coal Consumption and 
Quality Report--Coke Plants;'' EIA-6Q (Schedule Q), ``Quarterly Coal 
Report'' (Standby); EIA-7A, ``Coal Production Report;'' and EIA-20, 
``Weekly Telephone Survey of Coal Burning Utilities'' (Standby). The 
Standby forms are designed to be utilized under certain emergency 
conditions.

DATES: Comments must be filed by September 24, 2007. If you anticipate 
difficulty in submitting comments within that period, contact the 
person listed below as soon as possible.

ADDRESSES: Send comments to William Watson. To ensure receipt of the 
comments by the due date, submission by Fax (202-287-1944) or e-mail 
([email protected]) is recommended. The mailing address is Coal, 
Nuclear, and Renewables Division, EI-52, Forrestal Building, U.S. 
Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Ave., SW., Washington, DC 
20585.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Requests for additional information or 
copies of any forms and instructions should be directed to William 
Watson at the address listed above or [email protected] or 
(202) 586-1707, or to Frederick Freme, [email protected], 
(202) 586-1251.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Background
II. Current Actions
III. Request for Comments

I. Background

    The Federal Energy Administration Act of 1974 (Pub. L. No. 93-275, 
15 U.S.C. 761 et seq.) and the DOE Organization Act (Pub. L. No. 95-91, 
42 U.S.C. 7101 et seq.) require the EIA to carry out a centralized, 
comprehensive, and unified energy information program. This program 
collects, evaluates, assembles, analyzes, and disseminates information 
on energy resource reserves, production, demand, technology, and 
related economic and statistical information. This information is used 
to assess the adequacy of energy resources to meet near and longer term 
domestic demands.
    The EIA, as part of its effort to comply with the Paperwork 
Reduction Act of 1995 (Pub. L. 104-13, 44 U.S.C. Chapter 35), provides 
the general public and other Federal agencies with opportunities to 
comment on collections of energy information conducted by or in 
conjunction with the EIA. Any comments received help the EIA to prepare 
data surveys that maximize the utility of the information collected, 
and to assess the impact of collection requirements on the public. 
Also, the EIA will later seek approval by the Office of Management and 
Budget (OMB) under Section 3507(a) of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 
1995.
    Specific to the U.S. coal sector, EIA conducts surveys to collect 
information on coal reserves, coal production, distribution, receipts, 
consumption, quality, stocks, and prices. This information is used to 
support public policy analyses of the coal industry and is published in 
various EIA publications, including the Annual Coal Report, the Annual 
Energy Review, the Monthly Energy Review, and the Quarterly Coal 
Report. Respondents to the coal surveys include coal producers, coal 
distributors, and coal consumers.
    Please refer to the proposed forms and instructions for more 
information about the purpose, who must report, when to report, where 
to submit, the elements to be reported, detailed instructions, 
provisions for disclosure, and uses (including possible nonstatistical 
uses) of the information. For instructions on obtaining materials, see 
the FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section.

II. Current Actions

    EIA proposes to eliminate the EIA-6A survey, which currently 
collects data on coal distributed by coal producers and distributors/
brokers and data on stocks held by distributors/brokers. However,

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EIA intends to continue providing coal distribution and distributor/
broker stock data to the public. Therefore, EIA proposes substituting 
processes to obtain some of the data currently collected on the EIA-6A 
survey with other existing EIA surveys and the remaining data from a 
new proposed EIA survey, form EIA-8A ``Coal Stocks Report--
Distributors/Brokers.''
    The EIA-6A data survey--operating under an existing authorization--
collects information on coal distributed (by producers and 
distributors/brokers) to the electric power sector. On the EIA-423, 
FERC-423 and the EIA-860 survey forms, EIA currently collects data from 
electric power plants on the amount of coal received, including 
additional coal data such as State of origin, transport mode and 
destination State. EIA has compared the data currently collected from 
producers and distributors/brokers on the EIA-6A with the similar data 
collected from electric power consumers on the electric surveys and 
found close agreement. Accordingly, EIA has concluded that a practical 
and efficient alternative to surveying producers and distributors/
brokers is to develop information technology systems that capture and 
report the relevant coal data being collected from electric consumers. 
EIA has concluded that this alternative will maintain data quality and 
significantly reduce the burden on current respondents without causing 
any change to the burden of the applicable electric power sector 
consumers.
    EIA is concurrently proposing to combine data elements from the 
EIA-423, FERC-423, and EIA-860 forms into a new EIA-923 form. If that 
proposal is approved, EIA would then take its electric power sector 
data from the replacement EIA-923 survey for the alternative procedure 
described above.
    As a replacement for coal distributor data now collected on the 
EIA-6A form from coke plants and other industrial plants, EIA proposes 
to obtain comparable data from the EIA-5 survey of coke plants and the 
EIA-3 survey of manufacturing plants.
    Similarly, coal distributor data for the residential and commercial 
sector currently collected on the EIA-6A survey would be replaced by 
data collected on the EIA-3 survey by adding commercial and 
institutional coal users as respondents to the EIA-3 survey. EIA 
proposes to rename the residential and commercial sector as 
``commercial and institutional'' to more accurately reflect its makeup.
    By shifting to these alternate data sources, EIA will be able to 
post quarterly domestic coal distribution tables rather than the annual 
tables that it posts now. The quarterly data tables will be available 
approximately 90 days after the close of the latest quarter, which will 
substantially improve the timeliness of the coal distribution data.
    EIA proposes to collect annual data on distributor/broker coal 
stocks (now collected on the EIA-6A survey) on a new annual survey, 
which will be named form EIA-8A and which will be sent annually to 
distributors/brokers. The new EIA-8A form will request data on coal 
stock levels at the beginning of the year, at the end of the year and 
on inter-year adjustments. Using data reflecting producer coal stocks 
from the EIA-7A and the new EIA-8A, EIA will be able to continue to 
provide annual data to the public on the quantity of coal stocks held 
by producers and distributors/brokers.
    EIA also proposes to change a current data schedule, S1 on the EIA-
3 form, used to collect data from coal synfuel plants. The first 
modification is to add the transport mode (such as rail, barge, and so 
on) used to move the coal or derivative coal-based product from the 
processing plant to the final consumer. A second modification is to add 
data elements to measure the volume and quality of the coal going into 
the processing technology and the volume and quality of the product and 
byproducts produced by the processing technology.
    With the modified S1 schedule, EIA will be able to report to the 
public the amount of coal going by transport mode from the coal State 
of origin to the State where the processing plant is located, and the 
amount of processed product going from the processing plant by 
transport mode to the final consumer and the final consumer's 
destination State. Also, EIA would report to the public the total coal 
received, consumed, and transformed, coal quality, and volumes and 
quality for products and byproducts aggregated to the State level for 
all coal processing operations in a State.
    EIA proposes to add questions to determine the type of surface 
mining technology for each of the surface mines that report on the EIA-
7A. EIA will use the additional data to report to the public the amount 
of coal surface-mined by each type of technology. This will make EIA's 
data on surface-mined coal consistent with its underground-mined data.
    On the EIA-7A form, EIA proposes to include purchaser's contact 
name, telephone number and email address when coal is reported as sold 
to wholesale or retail coal dealers or brokers. EIA will use this 
information to update the survey frame and respondent contact 
information for its new EIA-8A survey (see above).
    On the EIA-5 form, EIA proposes to collect total revenue for the 
commercial sales of coke and breeze. EIA will use this new data to 
calculate and report the average value of coke and breeze ($ per short 
ton) to the public in EIA's Quarterly Coal Report.
    EIA proposes new disclosure provisions for the EIA-3, EIA-5, EIA-7A 
surveys and the new EIA-8A survey to make all data, except certain 
economic data, available to the public. After EIA completes its quality 
assurance process, the data, except for specific economic data, would 
be released for public use through EIA's normal web publication system. 
EIA proposes to release additional specific economic data nine months 
after the aggregated data are published in EIA reports (i.e., 2008 1st 
quarter economic data published in June 2008) will be made available to 
the public in March 2009; 2008 annual economic data (published in 
September 2009) will be made available to the public in June 2010. The 
data with a delayed release include: (1) Value of coal receipts 
reported on the EIA-3 and EIA-5 forms, (2) total revenue from 
commercial sales of coke and breeze reported on the EIA-5 form, and (3) 
recoverable reserves and total revenue from open and captive market 
sales reported on the EIA-7A form.
    EIA proposes the addition of a second level of respondent contact 
information to the EIA-7A form. Currently, only a single set of contact 
information is collected on the EIA-7A. EIA would use this information 
to contact firms when the first level respondent is no longer 
available. This information would help EIA provide data to the public 
in a timely manner.

III. Request for Comments

    Prospective respondents and other interested parties should comment 
on the actions discussed in Item II. The following guidelines are 
provided to assist in the preparation of comments. Please indicate to 
which form(s) your comments apply.

General Issues

    A. Is the proposed collection of information necessary for the 
proper performance of the functions of the agency and does the 
information have practical utility? Practical utility is defined as the 
actual usefulness of information to or for an agency, taking into 
account its accuracy, adequacy, reliability, timeliness, and the 
agency's

[[Page 40292]]

ability to process the information it collects.
    B. What enhancements can be made to the quality, utility, and 
clarity of the information to be collected?

As a Potential Respondent to the Request for Information

    A. What actions could be taken to help ensure and maximize the 
quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of the information to be 
collected?
    B. Are the instructions and definitions clear and sufficient? If 
not, which instructions need clarification?
    C. Can the information be submitted by the due date?
    D. Public reporting burden for each of the coal surveys is shown 
below as an average hour(s) per response. The estimated burden includes 
the total time necessary to provide the requested information. In your 
opinion, how accurate is this estimate?

--Form EIA-1, ``Weekly Coal Monitoring Report--General Industries and 
Blast Furnaces'' (Standby); 1 hour per response (no change from 
existing estimate of 1 hour)
--Form EIA-3, ``Quarterly Coal Consumption and Quality Report--
Manufacturing Plants;''

    1 hour per response, manufacturing plants (no change from existing 
estimate of 1 hour)
    1.5 hours per response, coal processing plants (new schedule for 
respondent, existing estimate without new schedule is 1 hour)

--Form EIA-4, ``Weekly Coal Monitoring Report--Coke Plants'' (Standby); 
1 hour per response (no change from existing estimate of 1 hour)
--Form EIA-5, ``Quarterly Coal Consumption and Quality Report--Coke 
Plants;'' 1.5 hours per response (no change from existing estimate of 
1.5 hours)
--Form EIA-6Q, ``Quarterly Coal Report'' (Standby); 1 hour per response 
(no change from existing estimate of 1 hour)
--Form EIA-7A, ``Coal Production Report;''

    1 hour per response (no change from existing estimate of 1 hour)

--Form EIA-8A, ``Coal Stocks Report--Distributors/Brokers;'' 0.5 hours 
per response (new survey)
--Form EIA-20, ``Weekly Telephone Survey of Coal Burning Utilities'' 
(Standby); 1 hour per response (no change from existing estimate of 1 
hour)

    Forms EIA-1, 4, 6Q, and 20 are Standby surveys. The above estimates 
reflect the anticipated burden per response in the event these surveys 
are implemented.
    E. The agency estimates that the only cost to a respondent is for 
the time it will take to complete the collection. Will a respondent 
incur any start-up costs for reporting, or any recurring annual costs 
for operation, maintenance, and purchase of services associated with 
the information collection?
    F. What additional actions could be taken to minimize the burden of 
this collection of information? Such actions may involve the use of 
automated, electronic, mechanical, or other technological collection 
techniques or other forms of information technology.
    G. Does any other Federal, State, or local agency collect similar 
information? If so, specify the agency, the data element(s), and the 
methods of collection.

As a Potential User of the Information To Be Collected

    A. What actions could be taken to help ensure and maximize the 
quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of the information 
disseminated?
    B. Is the information useful at the levels of detail to be 
collected?
    C. For what purpose(s) would the information be used? Be specific.
    D. Are there alternate sources for the information and are they 
useful? If so, what are their weaknesses and/or strengths?
    Comments submitted in response to this notice will be summarized 
and/or included in the request for OMB approval of the form. They also 
will become a matter of public record.

    Statutory Authority: Section 3507(h)(1) of the Paperwork 
Reduction Act of 1995 (Pub. L. No. 104-13, 44 U.S.C. Chapter 35).

    Issued in Washington, DC, July 18, 2007.
Jay H. Casselberry,
Agency Clearance Officer, Energy Information Administration.
[FR Doc. E7-14252 Filed 7-23-07; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6450-01-P