[Federal Register Volume 86, Number 87 (Friday, May 7, 2021)]
[Notices]
[Pages 24591-24593]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2021-09676]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration


Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission to the 
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for Review and Approval; Comment 
Request; A Coastal Management Needs Assessment and Market Analysis for 
Financing Resilience

    The Department of Commerce will submit the following information 
collection request to the Office of

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Management and Budget (OMB) for review and clearance in accordance with 
the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, on or after the date of 
publication of this notice. We invite the general public and other 
Federal agencies to comment on proposed, and continuing information 
collections, which helps us assess the impact of our information 
collection requirements and minimize the public's reporting burden. 
Public comments were previously requested via the Federal Register on 
January 28, 2021 (86 FR 7365) during a 60-day comment period. This 
notice allows for an additional 30 days for public comments.
    Agency: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 
Commerce.
    Title: A Coastal Management Needs Assessment and Market Analysis 
for Financing Resilience.
    OMB Control Number: 0648-XXXX.
    Form Number(s): None.
    Type of Request: Regular submission [new information collection].
    Number of Respondents: 36
    Average Hours per Response: 1.5 hours.
    Total Annual Burden Hours: 54.
    Needs and Uses: NOAA's Office of Coastal Management (OCM) and its 
regional, state, federal, and non-profit partners have worked closely 
with coastal managers across the country to increase the resilience of 
our coastal communities, economies and ecosystems. Per the Coastal Zone 
Management Act of 1972 (CZMA), OCM provides financial and technical 
assistance to states and territories, including that which helps its 
customers (coastal managers) develop hazard mitigation and climate 
adaptation plans that include strategies for short-term responses to 
immediate threats (e.g., flooding, hurricanes) as well as long-term 
responses to gradual changes (e.g., sea level rise, drought). Services 
are provided through outreach, training, funding, resource, and tool 
development.
    Solutions to these resilience challenges are often complex and 
cross-sectoral. Therefore, coastal decision-makers regularly point to 
the need for more substantial, coordinated, sustained and creative 
funding opportunities to support these efforts. The results of an 
initial review of more than 200 resources that NOAA conducted in 
support of this effort, and informal conversations with NOAA customers 
and other stakeholders indicate that there is no comprehensive 
inventory or guide to understanding and selecting appropriate funding 
options or financing strategies. These findings have been further 
confirmed in subsequent informal discussions with coastal resilience 
and finance practitioners at national venues such as the National 
Adaptation Forum in April 2019 and Social Coast Forum in February 2020. 
NOAA's coastal management partners have requested support on this 
topic.
    The financing world is one that is constantly evolving new products 
and retiring others. The range of funding and financing options, from 
grants and low-interest loans to more innovative private-public 
partnerships and emerging bonds, presents an ever-changing and complex 
array of choices. In initial internal communications conducted between 
June and September 2018, NOAA customers indicated that these 
opportunities and mechanisms are not well understood, and are generally 
inaccessible to coastal managers, particularly in small to mid-sized 
communities, rural areas, and tribal communities.
    In many coastal communities, investment in mitigation and 
resilience measures remains either limited or reactive in response to a 
catastrophic event. While there are no data on the number of adaptation 
plans that have been implemented, lack of funding is a frequently cited 
barrier to implementation. At the same time, it has been estimated that 
investing in mitigation can save communities $6 for every $1 spent 
through mitigation grants from agencies including the Federal Emergency 
Management Agency, Department of Housing and Urban Development, and 
Economic Development Administration (according to the National 
Institute of Building Sciences' October 2018 report, Natural Hazard 
Mitigation Saves: Utilities and Transportation Infrastructure). 
Understanding the suite of funding and financing options available at 
the time resilience planning is undertaken, and then incorporating 
financial strategies into the planning process and recommendations, 
will help ensure that these plans are implemented. Section 310 of the 
Coastal Zone Management Act allows for technical assistance and 
management-oriented research to develop and implement state coastal 
management program amendments.
    NOAA is in the process of developing a needs assessment to define 
the types of funding, financing m mechanisms, and associated resources 
that its state and local coastal manager customers need for coastal 
resilience activities and a market analysis of existing funding and 
financing programs and mechanisms. Simultaneously, NOAA is identifying 
existing resources and partnership opportunities for state and local 
coastal managers and NOAA's non-profit, academic, and other customers.
    This request is for a set of related interviews to facilitate this 
research. NOAA will perform interviews with state and local coastal 
managers, as well as representatives from non-profit organizations, 
academia, the federal government, and the finance industry. The 
interviews will collect relevant information from interviewees on their 
experiences with coastal resilience funding and financing mechanisms, 
challenges and opportunities related to funding and financing coastal 
resilience, and technical support needs and opportunities that NOAA can 
address.
    The information provided by interviewees will be synthesized into 
the needs assessment, which will address needs and information gaps 
partitioned by region, financial scale, time scale, and scope/sector. 
The information provided by interviewees will also be used to help 
inform an inventory of existing entities providing resources for 
resilience funding, as well as a summary of existing and emerging 
funding sources and financial tools and mechanisms for coastal 
resilience. Finally, the interviews will inform recommendations on 
NOAA's potential niche in addressing the identified needs and gaps.
    The resulting research (and any subsequent resources or tools 
developed by NOAA to address identified gaps) will provide much needed 
information to NOAA's customers on funding and financing coastal 
resilience efforts, including available resources and mechanisms, best 
practices and strategies, real world success stories, and opportunities 
for technical and financial partnerships with private and public 
entities.
    Affected Public: State and local government, federal government, 
non-profit organizations, academic institutions, business or other for-
profit enterprises.
    Frequency: Once.
    Respondent's Obligation: Voluntary.
    Legal Authority: None.
    This information collection request may be viewed at 
www.reginfo.gov. Follow the instructions to view the Department of 
Commerce collections currently under review by OMB.
    Written comments and recommendations for the proposed information 
collection should be submitted within 30 days of the publication of 
this notice on the following website www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain. 
Find this particular information collection by selecting ``Currently 
under 30-day

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Review--Open for Public Comments'' or by using the search function and 
entering the title of the collection.

Sheleen Dumas,
Department PRA Clearance Officer, Office of the Chief Information 
Officer, Commerce Department.
[FR Doc. 2021-09676 Filed 5-6-21; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-JS-P