[Federal Register Volume 77, Number 235 (Thursday, December 6, 2012)]
[Notices]
[Pages 72815-72816]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2012-29418]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE


Submission for OMB Review; Comment Request

    The Department of Commerce will submit 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: U.S. Census Bureau.
    Title: Boundary and Annexation Survey.
    OMB Control Number: 0607-0151.
    Form Number(s): BAS 1, BAS 2, BAS 3, BAS 4, BAS 5, BAS 6, BAS ARF, 
BASSC-1, BASSC-2.
    Type of Request: Revision of a currently approved collection.
    Burden Hours: 169,368.
    Number of Respondents: 84,464.
    Average Hours per Response: 2 hours.
    Needs and Uses: The Boundary and Annexation Survey (BAS) is 
conducted to provide information documenting the creation of newly 
incorporated municipalities, minor civil divisions (MCDs), counties, 
federally recognized

[[Page 72816]]

American Indian areas (AIAs, which include reservations and/or off-
reservation trust lands), and Alaska Native Regional Corporations 
(ANRCs), the dissolution of incorporated municipalities and MCDs, and 
changes in the boundaries of municipalities, MCDs, counties, AIAs, and 
ANRCs. The BAS information is used to provide an appropriate record for 
reporting the results of the decennial and economic censuses; annual 
surveys to support the annual population estimates program, and the 
American Community Survey, to update the municipal, MCD, county, AIA, 
and ANRC inventory for compliance with responsibilities specified in 
the OMB Circular A-16 Governmental Units and Administrative and 
Statistical Boundaries Data Theme that supports the spatial data 
steward responsibilities of the OMB E-Gov, Data.gov, The National Map, 
and to update the Geographic Names Information Systems (GNIS).
    The BAS universe and mailing materials vary depending both upon the 
needs of the Census Bureau in fulfilling its censuses and household 
surveys, and upon budget constraints.
    Counties or equivalent entities federally recognized American 
Indian reservations, off-reservation trust lands, and tribal 
subdivisions are included in every BAS.
    In the years ending in 8, 9 and 0, the BAS includes all 
governmentally active counties and equivalent entities, incorporated 
places, and legally defined minor civil divisions, and legally defined 
federally recognized American Indian and Alaska Native areas (including 
the Alaska Native Regional Corporations). Each governmental entity 
surveyed will receive materials covering its jurisdiction and one or 
more forms. These three years coincide with the Census Bureau's 
preparation for the decennial census. There are less than 40,000 
governments in the universe each year.
    In all other years, the BAS reporting universe includes all legally 
defined federally recognized American Indian and Alaska Native areas, 
all governmental counties and equivalent entities, minor civil 
divisions in the six New England States and those incorporated places 
that have a population of 2,500 or greater. The reporting universe is 
approximately 14,000 governments. The Census Bureau follows up on a 
subset of governments designated as the reporting universe.
    In the years ending in 1 through 7, the Census Bureau may enter 
into agreements with individual States to modify the universe of minor 
civil divisions and/or incorporated places to include additional 
entities that are known by that State to have had boundary changes, 
without regard to population size. Each year, the BAS will also include 
each year a single respondent request for municipio, barrio, barrio-
pueblo, and subbarrio boundary and status information in Puerto Rico 
and Hawaiian Homeland boundary and status information in Hawaii.
    No other Federal agency collects these data nor is there a standard 
collection of this information at the State level. The Census Bureau's 
BAS is a unique survey providing a standard result for use by federal, 
state, local, and tribal governments and by commercial, private, and 
public organizations.
    As part of our partnerships developed with state and county 
governments, the universe is modified with local knowledge to target 
those governments known to have changes and delete governments with no 
changes to minimize unnecessary burden.
    The final stage is our newly added quality assurance State 
Certification program, allowing the state level agencies to verify that 
the status and boundary updates received through the annual BAS were 
accomplished according to state law. During each cycle of this program, 
Governor-designated State Certifying Officials (SCO) review listings of 
legal boundary changes reported to the BAS during the previous year. 
The SCO is able to certify, edit, add, or reverse reported annexations, 
and they may mark a legal boundary change as a duplicate of a 
previously reported change.
    In addition, we are removing the Boundary Validation Program (BVP) 
from the clearance. The BVP is conducted only for the year of the 
decennial census.
    The BAS information is used to: (1) Classify data collected in the 
periodic decennial and economic censuses and annual surveys; (2) serve 
as the primary source of information regarding new incorporations, 
disincorporations, and other changes in the local and tribal government 
inventory for the FIPS and GNIS programs, state and local officials, 
and private data users, (3) update its estimates of the population as a 
result of the creation of new governments, the dissolution of 
governments, or changes in boundaries for existing local or tribal 
governments, (4) serve as the source for governmental unit boundary 
information as a framework layer of the National Spatial Data 
Infrastructure for The National Map and the data.gov Web site.
    Affected Public: State, local, or Tribal governments.
    Frequency: Annually.
    Respondent's Obligation: Voluntary.
    Legal Authority: Title 13 U.S.C., Section 6.
    OMB Desk Officer: Brian Harris-Kojetin, (202) 395-7314.
    Copies of the above information collection proposal can be obtained 
by calling or writing Jennifer Jessup, Departmental Paperwork Clearance 
Officer, (202) 482-0336, Department of Commerce, Room 6616, 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 Brian Harris-Kojetin, OMB Desk Officer either by fax (202-395-7245) 
or email ([email protected]).

    Dated: November 30, 2012.
Glenna Mickelson,
Management Analyst, Office of the Chief Information Officer.
[FR Doc. 2012-29418 Filed 12-5-12; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-07-P