[Federal Register Volume 83, Number 14 (Monday, January 22, 2018)]
[Notices]
[Pages 2992-2994]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2018-00980]


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FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION


Agency Information Collection Activities; Proposed Collection; 
Comment Request

AGENCY: Federal Trade Commission (FTC or Commission).

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The information collection requirements described below will 
be submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review, 
as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA). The FTC seeks public 
comments on its proposal to extend for three years the current PRA 
clearances for information collection requirements contained in the 
Commission's rules and regulations under the Textile Fiber Products 
Identification Act (Textile Rules). The clearance expires on April 30, 
2018.

DATES: Comments must be received on or before March 23, 2018.

ADDRESSES: Interested parties may file a comment online or on paper by 
following the instructions in the Request for Comments part of the 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section below. Write ``Textile Rules: FTC 
File No. P072108'' on your comment, and file your comment online at 
https://ftcpublic.commentworks.com/ftc/textilerulespra1 by following 
the instructions on the web-based form. If you prefer to file your 
comment on paper, mail or deliver your comment to the following 
address: Federal Trade Commission, Office of the Secretary, 600 
Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Suite CC-5610 (Annex J), Washington, DC 20580, 
or deliver your comment to the following address: Federal Trade 
Commission, Office of the Secretary, Constitution Center, 400 7th 
Street SW, 5th Floor, Suite 5610 (Annex J), Washington, DC 20024.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Requests for copies of the collection 
of information and supporting documentation should be addressed to Jock 
K. Chung, Attorney, Division of Enforcement, Bureau of Consumer 
Protection, Federal Trade Commission, Mail Code CC-9528, 600 
Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20580, (202) 326-2984.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

Proposed Information Collection Activities

    Under the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA), 44 U.S.C. 3501-3520, 
federal agencies must get OMB approval for each collection of 
information they conduct, sponsor, or require. ``Collection of 
information'' means agency requests or requirements to submit reports, 
keep records, or provide information to a third party. 44 U.S.C. 
3502(3); 5 CFR 1320.3(c). As required by section 3506(c)(2)(A) of the 
PRA, the FTC is providing this opportunity for public comment before 
requesting that OMB extend the existing PRA clearance for the 
information collection requirements associated with the Commission's 
rules and regulations under the Textile Fiber Products Identification 
Act (Textile Rules), 16 CFR part 303 (OMB Control Number 3084-0101).
    The FTC invites comments on: (1) Whether the proposed collection of 
information is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of 
the agency, including whether the information will have practical 
utility; (2) the accuracy of the agency's estimate of the burden of the 
proposed collection of information, including the validity of the 
methodology and assumptions used; (3) ways to enhance the quality, 
utility, and clarity of the information to be collected; and (4) ways 
to minimize the burden of the collection of information on those who 
are to respond. All comments must be received on or before March 23, 
2018.

Burden Estimates

    Staff's burden estimates are based on data from the Department of 
Commerce's Bureau of the Census, the International Trade Commission, 
the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), and data or 
other input from the main industry association, the American Apparel 
and Footwear Association (AAFA), and from SICCode.com, which 
specializes in the business classification of SIC (Standard Industrial 
Classification) and NAICS (North American Industry Classification 
System) codes for business identification, verification, and targeting. 
The AAFA, a national trade association which represents U.S. apparel, 
footwear and other sewn products companies and their suppliers, has 
stated that ``[t]he use of labels on textiles and apparels is 
beneficial to consumers, manufacturers, and business in general as it 
allows for the necessary flow of information along the supply chain.'' 
\1\ The relevant information collection requirements in these rules and 
staff's corresponding burden estimates follow. The estimates address 
the number of hours needed and the labor costs incurred to comply with 
the requirements. Staff believes that a significant portion of hours 
and labor costs currently attributable to burden below are time and 
financial resources usually and customarily incurred by persons in the 
course of their regular activity (e.g., industry participants already 
have and/or would have fiber content labels regardless of the rule(s)) 
and could be excluded from PRA-related burden.\2\
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    \1\ Page one from comment by Kevin M. Burke, President and CEO, 
American Apparel & Footwear Association, March 26, 2012, Advance 
Notice of Proposed Rulemaking; Request for Public Comment; Rules and 
Regulations under the Wool Products Labeling Act of 1939; 77 FR 4498 
(Jan. 30, 2012).
    \2\ 5 CFR 1320.3(b)(2).
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    The Textile Fiber Products Identification Act (``Textile Act'') \3\ 
prohibits the misbranding and false advertising of textile fiber 
products. The Textile Rules establish disclosure requirements that 
assist consumers in making informed purchasing decisions,

[[Page 2993]]

and recordkeeping requirements that assist the Commission in enforcing 
the Rules. The Rules also contain a petition procedure for requesting 
the establishment of generic names for textile fibers.
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    \3\ 15 U.S.C. 70 et seq.
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    Estimated annual hours burden: 37,007,147 hours (782,600 
recordkeeping hours + 36,224,547 disclosure hours).
    Recordkeeping: Staff estimates that approximately 12,040 textile 
firms are subject to the Textile Rules' recordkeeping requirements. 
Based on an average burden of 65 hours per firm, the total 
recordkeeping burden is 782,600 hours.
    Disclosure: Approximately 10,744 textile firms, producing or 
importing about 20.8 billion textile fiber products annually, are 
subject to the Textile Rules' disclosure requirements.\4\ Staff 
estimates the burden of determining label content to be 65 hours per 
year per firm, or a total of 698,360 hours and the burden of drafting 
and ordering labels to be 80 hours per firm per year, or a total of 
859,520 hours.\5\ Staff believes that the process of attaching labels 
is now fully automated and integrated into other production steps for 
about 40 percent of all affected products. For the remaining 12.48 
billion items (60 percent of 20.8 billion), the process is semi-
automated and requires an average of approximately ten seconds per 
item, for a total of 34,666,667 hours per year. Thus, the total 
estimated annual disclosure burden for all firms is 36,224,547 hours 
(698,360 hours to determine label content + 859,520 hours to draft and 
order labels + 34,666,667 hours to attach labels).\6\ Staff believes 
that any additional burden associated with advertising disclosure 
requirements or the filing of generic fiber name petitions would be 
minimal (less than 10,000 hours) and can be subsumed within the burden 
estimates set forth above.
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    \4\ The estimated consumption of garments in the U.S. in 2012 
was 19.4 billion. However, staff estimates that 1 billion garments 
are exempt from the Textile Act (i.e., any kind of headwear and 
garments made from something other than a textile fiber product, 
such as leather) or are subject to a special exemption for hosiery 
products sold in packages where the label information is contained 
on the package. Based on available data, staff estimates that an 
additional 3 billion household textile products (non-garments, such 
as sheets, towels, blankets) were consumed. However, approximately 
0.6 billion of all of these garments and household products are 
subject to the Wool Act, not the Textile Act, because they contain 
some amount of wool. Thus, the estimated net total products subject 
to the Textile Act is 20.8 billion (19.4-1 + 3 = 21.4-0.6 = 20.8 
billion).
    \5\ In 2007, Congress amended the Wool Act to explicitly define 
``cashmere'' and certain terms used to describe superfine wool 
(e.g., ``Super 80s,'' ``Super 90s,'' etc.). See Public Law 109-428. 
In 2014, the Commission revised the Wool Rules to incorporate these 
amendments as well as to clarify and streamline certain provisions 
and to allow more flexibility in marketing wool products (e.g., 
allowing the use of certain hang-tags that do not disclose a 
product's full fiber content). The Commission sought comment on the 
increased burden, if any, imposed by these changes but did not 
receive any comments asserting that the amendments would increase 
compliance costs. See 79 FR 32157 (June 4, 2014).
    \6\ The Commission revised the Textile Rules in 2006 in response 
to amendments to the Textile Act. See 70 FR 73369 (Dec. 12, 2005). 
These amendments concerned the placement of labels on packages of 
certain types of socks and, therefore, do not place any additional 
disclosure burden on covered entities. In 2014, the Commission 
revised the Textile Rules to clarify and streamline certain 
provisions and to allow more flexibility in marketing textile 
products (e.g., allowing the use of certain hang-tags that do not 
disclose the product's full fiber content). The Commission sought 
comment on the increased burden, if any, imposed by these changes 
but did not receive any comments asserting that the amendments would 
increase compliance costs. See 79 FR 18766 (Apr. 4, 2014).
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    Estimated annual cost burden: $239,778,909 (solely relating to 
labor costs). The chart below summarizes the total estimated costs.

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                              Task                                  Hourly rate    Burden hours     Labor cost
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Determine label content.........................................          $28.00         698,360     $19,554,080
Draft and order labels..........................................           18.00         859,520      15,471,360
Attach labels...................................................        \7\ 5.50      34,666,667     190,666,669
Recordkeeping...................................................           18.00         782,600      14,086,800
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    Total.......................................................  ..............  ..............     239,778,909
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    Staff believes that there are no current start-up costs or other 
capital costs associated with the Textile Rules. Because the labeling 
of textile products has been an integral part of the manufacturing 
process for decades, manufacturers have in place the capital equipment 
necessary to comply with the Rules' labeling requirements. Industry 
sources indicate that much of the information required by the Textile 
Act and Rules would be included on the product label even absent their 
requirements. Similarly, recordkeeping, invoicing, and advertising 
disclosures are tasks performed in the ordinary course of business; 
therefore, covered firms would incur no additional capital or other 
non-labor costs as a result of the Rules.
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    \7\ For imported products, the labels generally are attached in 
the country where the products are manufactured. According to 
information compiled by an industry trade association using data 
from the U.S. Department of Commerce, International Trade 
Administration and the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately 97.5% of 
apparel used in the United States is imported. With the remaining 
2.5% attributable to U.S. production at an approximate domestic 
hourly wage of $11 to attach labels, staff has calculated a weighted 
average hourly wage of $5.50 per hour attributable to U.S. and 
foreign labor combined. The estimated percentage of imports supplied 
by particular countries is based on trade data for the year ending 
in September 2014 compiled by the Office of Textiles and Apparel, 
International Trade Administration. Wages in major textile exporting 
countries, factored into the above hourly wage estimate, were based 
on 2012 data from the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor 
Statistics. See Table 1.1 Indexes of hourly compensation costs in 
manufacturing, U.S. dollar basis, 1996-2012 (Index, U.S. = 100) 
available at: http://www.bls.gov/fls/#compensation.
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Request for Comments

    You can file a comment online or on paper. March 23, 2018. Write 
``Textile Rules: FTC File No. P072108'' on your comment. Your comment--
including your name and your state--will be placed on the public record 
of this proceeding, including, to the extent practicable, on the public 
Commission website, at https://www.ftc.gov/policy/public-comments. 
Postal mail addressed to the Commission is subject to delay due to 
heightened security screening. As a result, we encourage you to submit 
your comments online. To make sure that the Commission considers your 
online comment, you must file it at https://ftcpublic.commentworks.com/ftc/textilerulespra1 by following the instructions on the web based 
form. If this Notice appears at https://www.regulations.gov, you also 
may file a comment through that website.
    If you file your comment on paper, write ``Textile Rules: FTC File 
No. P072108'' on your comment and on the envelope, and mail your 
comment to the following address: Federal Trade Commission, Office of 
the Secretary, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Suite CC-5610 (Annex C), 
Washington, DC 20580, or deliver your comment to the following address: 
Federal Trade

[[Page 2994]]

Commission, Office of the Secretary, Constitution Center, 400 7th 
Street SW, 5th Floor, Suite 5610, Washington, DC 20024. If possible, 
submit your paper comment to the Commission by courier or overnight 
service.
    Because your comment will be placed on the publicly accessible FTC 
website at https://www.ftc.gov, you are solely responsible for making 
sure that your comment does not include any sensitive or confidential 
information. In particular, your comment should not include any 
sensitive personal information, such as your or anyone else's Social 
Security number; date of birth; driver's license number or other state 
identification number, or foreign country equivalent; passport number; 
financial account number; or credit or debit card number. You are also 
solely responsible for making sure that your comment does not include 
any sensitive health information, such as medical records or other 
individually identifiable health information. In addition, your comment 
should not include any ``trade secret or any commercial or financial 
information which . . . is privileged or confidential''--as provided by 
Section 6(f) of the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. 46(f), and FTC Rule 4.10(a)(2), 
16 CFR 4.10(a)(2)--including in particular competitively sensitive 
information such as costs, sales statistics, inventories, formulas, 
patterns, devices, manufacturing processes, or customer names.
    Comments containing material for which confidential treatment is 
requested must be filed in paper form, must be clearly labeled 
``Confidential,'' and must comply with FTC Rule 4.9(c). In particular, 
the written request for confidential treatment that accompanies the 
comment must include the factual and legal basis for the request, and 
must identify the specific portions of the comment to be withheld from 
the public record. See FTC Rule 4.9(c). Your comment will be kept 
confidential only if the General Counsel grants your request in 
accordance with the law and the public interest. Once your comment has 
been posted on the public FTC website--as legally required by FTC Rule 
4.9(b)--we cannot redact or remove your comment from the FTC website, 
unless you submit a confidentiality request that meets the requirements 
for such treatment under FTC Rule 4.9(c), and the General Counsel 
grants that request.
    Visit the Commission website at https://www.ftc.gov to read this 
Notice. The FTC Act and other laws that the Commission administers 
permit the collection of public comments to consider and use in this 
proceeding as appropriate. The Commission will consider all timely and 
responsive public comments that it receives on or before March 23, 
2018. You can find more information, including routine uses permitted 
by the Privacy Act, in the Commission's privacy policy, at https://www.ftc.gov/site-information/privacy-policy.

David C. Shonka,
Acting General Counsel.
[FR Doc. 2018-00980 Filed 1-19-18; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 6750-01-P