[Federal Register Volume 87, Number 161 (Monday, August 22, 2022)]
[Notices]
[Pages 51450-51452]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2022-17993]


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OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET


Request for Information To Support the Development of a Strategic 
Plan on Statistics for Environmental-Economic Decisions

AGENCY: Office of Management and Budget.

ACTION: Request for Information (RFI).

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SUMMARY: The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB)--on 
behalf of the co-chairs of the Interagency Policy Working Group on 
Statistics for Environmental-Economic Decisions (Working Group), the 
Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), and Department of 
Commerce (DOC)--requests information and comments on questions posed by 
the Working Group to help inform the development of Government-wide 
natural capital accounts and standardized environmental-economic 
statistics. The Working Group has developed a draft Strategic Plan that 
recommends short- and long-term strategic goals, as well as objectives 
and proposed strategies to achieve a routinely produced set of 
Government-wide natural capital accounts and standardized 
environmental-economic statistics that complement and operate in 
alignment with core national economic accounts and statistics. To 
support the Strategic Plan, OMB seeks information on likely and 
potential applications for U.S. natural capital accounts, established 
statistics and accounts that would strengthen the U.S. system, relevant 
external factors that may affect implementation of the Strategic Plan, 
and relevant ancillary or indirect consequences of developing natural 
capital accounts or associated statistics.

DATES: Interested persons and organizations are invited to submit 
comments by October 21, 2022.

ADDRESSES: Submit comments through www.regulations.gov--a Federal E-
Government website that allows the public to find, review, and submit 
comments on documents that agencies

[[Page 51451]]

have published in the Federal Register and that are open for comment. 
Enter ``OMB-2022-0009'' (in quotes) in the search box and follow the 
instructions for submitting comments. Please include the Docket ID 
(OMB-2022-0009) and the phrase ``RFI-Natural Capital'' at the beginning 
of your comments. Please also indicate which questions from the 
INFORMATION REQUESTED section of this notice is addressed in your 
comments.
    Comments submitted in response to this notice may be made available 
to the public and subject to disclosure under the Freedom of 
Information Act. For this reason, please do not include in your 
comments information of a confidential nature, such as sensitive 
personal information or proprietary information. If you send an email 
comment, your email address will be automatically captured and included 
as part of the comment that is placed in the public docket; however, 
www.regulations.gov does include the option of commenting anonymously. 
Please note that responses to this public comment request containing 
any routine notice about the confidentiality of the communication will 
be treated as public comments that may be made available to the public 
notwithstanding the inclusion of the routine notice.
    Electronic Availability: Federal Register notices are available 
electronically at www.federalregister.gov/. The draft Strategic Plan is 
available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Natural-Capital-Accounting-Strategy.pdf.
    Public Review Procedure: All comments and proposals received in 
response to this notice will be available for public inspection.

Instructions

    Response to this RFI is voluntary. Each responding entity 
(individual or organization) is requested to submit only one response. 
OMB welcomes any responses to inform and guide the work of OMB and the 
Working Group. Please feel free to respond to one or as many prompts as 
you choose. Submission should use 12-point or larger font, with a page 
number provided on each page. Respondents are encouraged, though not 
required, to include the name of the person(s) or organization(s) 
filing the comment; the respondent type (e.g., academic, advocacy, 
professional society, community-based organization, industry, trainee/
student, member of the public, government, other); and the respondent's 
role in the organization (e.g., researcher, faculty, student, program 
manager, journalist). For comments containing references, studies, 
research, and other empirical data that are not widely published, 
respondents are encouraged to include copies or electronic links of the 
referenced materials, in a machine-readable format to the degree 
possible. No business proprietary information, copyrighted information, 
or sensitive personally identifiable information should be submitted in 
response to this RFI. Please be aware that comments submitted in 
response to this RFI may be released publicly.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For additional information, contact: 
Andrew Stawasz, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of 
Management and Budget, New Executive Office Building, Washington, DC 
20503, Email: [email protected], Telephone: (202) 
881-7051.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 
    Background: Existing national economic accounts data for the United 
States--the organized data describing the U.S. economy, often 
summarized as Gross Domestic Product (GDP)--provide an incomplete view 
of the Nation's environmental and natural assets,\1\ and the changing 
value of these important assets remains disconnected from broader 
economic statistics. As a result, while the Federal statistical system 
generally reflects how many economic sectors interact, it does not 
reflect how the environment affects and responds to economic sectors 
and vice versa.
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    \1\ Environmental or natural assets are durable physical or 
biological elements of nature that persist through time to 
contribute to current or future economic production, human 
enjoyment, or other services people value.
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    Natural capital or natural assets, the environmental or ecosystem 
services they generate, and expenditures to secure and protect nature 
are foundational elements of economic progress and growth, future 
opportunity, and sustainable development. Measuring natural assets and 
maintaining statistical series--that is, conducting repeated 
measurement over time that relates the environment with the economy--
can inform planning tools for the American economy, contributing to 
goals like job creation and international competitiveness. The 
international community has demonstrated a growing interest in rapidly 
developing natural capital accounting methodologies, and the private 
sector has shown a growing demand for natural capital data to reduce 
uncertainty and ensure competitiveness. Therefore, there is demand for 
U.S. Federal leadership to develop natural capital accounts and 
standardized environmental-economic statistics to provide a centralized 
domestic framework and to promote international norms.
    On Earth Day 2022, the Biden-Harris Administration announced an 
initiative to develop and maintain the first U.S. natural capital 
accounts and standardized environmental-economic statistics. An 
interagency Working Group--co-chaired by OMB, OSTP, and DOC, with 
participation from the Council of Economic Advisors, Council on 
Environmental Quality, Domestic Climate Policy Office, National 
Economic Council, National Security Council, Departments of 
Agriculture, Interior, Labor, State, and Treasury, Environmental 
Protection Agency, and National Aeronautics and Space Administration--
developed a strategy for producing natural capital accounts that work 
within the U.S. standard national accounting system. These natural 
capital accounts would be able to measure the economic value that 
natural assets provide to society.
    The Working Group has developed a Strategic Plan divided into five 
main sections:
    (1) The Need for a System of Statistics for Environmental-Economic 
Decisions details how the development of natural capital accounts and 
standardized environmental-economic statistics are expected to 
contribute to sustainable development of the U.S. macro-economy; 
encourage more informed Federal decision-making; increase the 
competitiveness of American firms; and support enhanced resilience of 
states, communities, territories, and tribes.
    (2) Renewing U.S. Leadership and Building on Strength outlines the 
importance of U.S. leadership in environmental-economic statistics and 
describes the history of the development of environmental-economic 
statistics in the United States.
    (3) Connecting Natural Capital and Environmental-Economic 
Statistics with National Economic Accounts provides systematic 
recommendations for the development of natural capital accounts and 
environmental-economic statistics, placing them in the context of the 
U.S. statistical system and in the context of the development of 
international standards.
    (4) Developing a U.S. System of Statistics for Environmental-
Economic Decisions: Targets, Timelines, and Tasks identifies headline 
summaries and products, the pathway to production-grade accounts and 
core statistical products, supporting activities necessary to develop 
and

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manage the system, the environmental sectors the working group 
recommends be developed into natural capital accounts, a proposed 
timeline for developing individual accounts (e.g., an air account, a 
land account), and additional research and guidance needs. This section 
also identifies the data and expertise within the U.S. Government 
needed to produce sustained natural capital accounts and environmental-
economic statistics.
    (5) Administrative Coordination Across the Government details how 
interagency coordination for developing the initiative would be carried 
out by the Chief Statistician of the United States and processes to 
facilitate data sharing to ensure interoperability across the Federal 
Government. This section also summarizes the legal authority for 
developing natural capital accounts and standardized environmental-
economic statistics.
    This request for information aims to support the Working Group's 
continued effort to develop and implement a strategy for developing 
statistics for environmental-economic decisions. OMB is interested in 
hearing from a diversity of stakeholders, sectors, and members of the 
public.

Information Requested

    OMB is issuing this notice in order to facilitate robust 
interaction with the public on this new U.S. Government endeavor. Input 
is welcome from stakeholders and members of the public representing all 
backgrounds and perspectives. Through this RFI, OMB seeks information 
and feedback on the Strategic Plan for Statistics for Environmental-
Economic Decisions in order to realize natural capital accounts and 
associated environmental-economic statistics, including on the 
following topics:
     Likely and potential applications for U.S. natural capital 
accounts and associated environmental-economic statistics that would 
improve government or private-sector decision making that are not 
described in the draft Strategic Plan;
     Comments related to established and widely recognized 
systems of environmental-economic statistics or natural capital 
accounts that could strengthen the U.S. system;
     External factors that may affect the Federal Government's 
ability to implement the Strategic Plan; and
     Ancillary or indirect consequences of developing natural 
capital accounts or associated environmental-economic statistics.

K. Sabeel Rahman,
Senior Counselor, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.
[FR Doc. 2022-17993 Filed 8-18-22; 8:45 am]
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