[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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