1625-0089 30-day FRN

[Federal Register: December 4, 2007 (Volume 72, Number 232)]

[Notices]

[Page 68171-68174]

From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

[DOCID:fr04de07-87]

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DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

Coast Guard

[USCG-2007-28578]

Collection of Information Under Review by Office of Management

and Budget: OMB Control Number: 1625-0089

AGENCY: Coast Guard, DHS.

ACTION: Thirty-day notice requesting comments.

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SUMMARY: In compliance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, this

request for comments announces that the U.S. Coast Guard is forwarding

one Information Collection Request (ICR), abstracted below, to the

Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) of the Office of

Management and Budget (OMB) requesting re-instatement, with change, of

a previously-approved collection of information: 1625-0089, National

Recreation Boating Survey. Our ICR describes the information we seek to

collect from the public. Review and comments by OIRA ensure we only

impose paperwork burdens commensurate with our performance of duties.

DATES: Please submit comments on or before January 3, 2008.

ADDRESSES: To make sure your comments and related material do not enter

the Coast Guard docket [USCG-2007-29070] or are received by OIRA more

than once, please submit them by only one of the following means:

(1) Electronic submission. (a) To Coast Guard docket at http://www.regulations.gov

. (b) To OIRA by e-mail to: nlesser@omb.eop.gov.

(2) Mail or Hand delivery. (a) To Docket Management Facility (M-

30), U.S. Department of Transportation, West Building Ground Floor,

Room W12-140, 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE., Washington, DC 20590-0001.

Hand deliver between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through

Friday, except Federal holidays. The telephone number is 202-366-9329.

(b) To OIRA, 725 17th Street, NW., Washington, DC 20503, to the

attention of the Desk Officer for the Coast Guard.

(3) Fax. (a) To Docket Management Facility at 202-493-2251.

(b) To OIRA at 202-395-6566. To ensure your comments are received

in time, mark the fax to the attention of Mr. Nathan Lesser, Desk

officer for the Coast Guard.

The Docket Management Facility maintains the public docket for this

notice. Comments and material received from the public, as well as

documents mentioned in this notice as being available in the docket,

will become part of this docket and will be available for inspection or

copying at room W12-140 on the West Building Ground Floor, 1200 New

Jersey Avenue, SE., Washington, DC, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday

through Friday, except Federal holidays. You may also find this docket

on the Internet at http://www.regulations.gov.

A copy of the complete ICR is available through this docket on the

Internet at http://www.regulations.gov. Additionally, copies are

available from Commandant (CG-611), U.S. Coast Guard Headquarters,

(Attn: Mr. Arthur Requina), 2100 2nd Street, SW., Washington, DC 20593-

0001. The telephone number is (202) 475-3523.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr. Arthur Requina, Office of

Information Management, telephone (202) 475-3523 or fax (202) 475-3929,

for questions on these documents. Contact Ms. Renee V. Wright, Program

Manager, Docket Operations, (202) 366-9826, for questions on the

docket.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

The Coast Guard invites comments on the proposed collection of

information to determine if it is necessary in the proper performance

of Departmental functions. In particular, the Coast Guard would

appreciate comments addressing: (1) The practical utility of the

collection; (2) the accuracy of the estimated burden of the collection;

(3) ways to enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of

information subject to the collection; and (4) ways to minimize the

burden of collection on respondents, including the use of automated

collection techniques or other forms of information technology.

Comments to the FDMS or OIRA must contain the OMB Control Number of

the ICR addressed. Comments must contain the docket number of this

request, [USCG 2007-28578]. For your comments to OIRA to be considered,

it is best if they are received on or before the January 3, 2008.

[[Page 68172]]

Public participation and request for comments: We encourage you to

respond to this request by submitting comments and related materials.

We will post all comments received, without change, to http://www.regulations.gov.

They will include any personal information you

provide. We have an agreement with DOT to use their Docket Management

Facility. Please see the paragraph on DOT's ``Privacy Act Policy''

below.

Submitting comments: If you submit a comment, please include the

docket number [USCG-2007-28578], indicate the specific section of the

document to which each comment applies, providing a reason for each

comment. We recommend you include your name, mailing address, and an e-

mail address or other contact information in the body of your document

to ensure you can be identified as the submitter. This also allows us

to contact you in the event further information is needed or if there

are questions. For example, if we cannot read your submission. You may

submit your comments and material by electronic means, mail, fax, or

delivery to the Docket Management Facility at the address under

ADDRESSES; but please submit them by only one means. If you submit them

by mail or delivery, submit them in an unbound format, no larger than

8\1/2\ by 11 inches, suitable for copying and electronic filing. If you

submit them by mail and would like to know that they reached the

Facility, please enclose a stamped, self-addressed postcard or

envelope. We will consider all comments and material received during

the comment period. We may change the documents supporting this

collection of information or even the underlying requirements in view

of them.

Viewing comments and documents: Go to http://www.regulations.gov to

view documents mentioned in this notice as being available in the

docket. Click on ``Search for Dockets,'' and enter the docket number

(USCG-2007-28578) in the Docket ID box, and click enter. You may also

visit the Docket Management Facility in room W12-140 on the West

Building Ground Floor, 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE., Washington, DC,

between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal

holidays.

Privacy Act: Anyone can search the electronic form of all comments

received in dockets by the name of the individual submitting the

comment (or signing the comment, if submitted on behalf of an

association, business, labor union, etc.). You may review the Privacy

Act Statement of DOT in the Federal Register published on April 11,

2000 (65 FR 19477), or you may visit http://DocketsInfo.dot.gov.

Previous Request for Comments

This request provides a 30-day comment period required by OIRA. The

Coast Guard has published the 60-day notice (72 FR 38839, July 16,

2007) required by 44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(2). That notice elicited 12

comments.

The Coast Guard issued an OMB Information Collection supporting

statement for its National Recreational Boating Survey for public

comment on July 16, 2007. The proposed information collection

activities are based on recommendations from a Scientific Advisory

Committee (SAC) as well as a Collaboratory of Partners (COP), two

groups that a grant recipient and the Coast Guard put in place to

assist with the development of the National Recreational Boating

Survey. The SAC was a group of methodologists whose role was to design

the survey. The COP, on the other hand, was a collaboration involving

groups such as various government agencies, boater associations, and

the National Association of State Boating Law Administrators. The

primary responsibility of the COP was to help Coast Guard define the

content of its survey questionnaires.

We reviewed each of the comments received with diligence, and made

some changes to our survey and its supporting statement where it was

deemed appropriate. The present document provides a summary of public

comments, our responses thereto, and changes made to the survey and its

supporting statement.

1. General Supportive Comments

Several comments in support of the National Recreational Boating

Survey indicated it has been substantially revised to reflect the need

for more targeted data in response to the elements included in the

National Recreational Boating Safety (RBS) Program's Strategic Plan,

which calls for collection of participation/exposure data to develop

reliable national/state-level measures of risk incidental to

recreational boating. In fact, valid comparisons of injury or fatality

rates across states or other geographic entities, which have always

been of interest, require the use of participation/exposure data as a

common base for calculating rates' denominators. This survey will make

exposure data available to the boating community, in addition to

collecting various other boating participation data broken down by boat

type and length.

2. Weighting of Survey Data

One commenter, while supporting the proposed survey process and the

idea of conducting it more frequently, indicated the suggested fixed

number of 400 per state would not yield valid national estimates. The

commenter's rationale is that the number of boats varies considerably

per state, and some sort of data weighting is warranted. Another

commenter pointed out the lack of discussion about weighting matters.

We do not intend to obtain a fixed predetermined number of 400

respondents per state. Our intention is to obtain approximately 30,000

respondents from the mail survey of registered boat owners, and 20,000

respondents from the Random Digit Dialing (RDD) data collection

targeting households that do not own a registered recreational vessel.

Each of these surveys is based on stratified samples, with proportional

allocation as described in the supporting statement for this survey. We

agree with the commenter that the survey must be weighted to account

for differential selection probabilities. We added an entire section in

the supporting statement that provides a detailed description of the

weighting process.

3. General Survey Design

One commenter expressed a concern that we did not adopt a rotating

panel design for our National Recreational Boating Survey. The

commenter stated the Coast Guard should justify its proposed continued

use of an ``antiquated'' cross-sectional survey approach, which he

feels will prevent the agency from obtaining useful and actionable data

on net changes in how individuals alter their boating-related

behaviors. Further, he opined that it will only allow for the

estimation of gross flows (or changes).

We disagree with the commenter that cross-sectional surveys provide

estimates of ``gross'' changes and not estimates of ``net''. The cross-

sectional surveys we are planning will provide estimates of ``net''

changes needed to observe trends, and not ``gross'' estimates. A

``net'' change represents, for example, the difference in overall

boating participation levels between two years (years 1 and 2); while a

``gross'' change quantifies specific movements of year 1 boaters (e.g.

those who stopped this activity in year 2). Consequently, obtaining

``gross'' change estimates requires tracking of individual level

adjustments over time, which has traditionally been achieved with panel

surveys. States may conduct local panel studies to further look into

the ``net''

[[Page 68173]]

changes revealed by Coast Guard's National Recreational Boating Survey.

The use of a rotating panel design is primarily justified if a key

objective of the survey program is to provide reliable information on

``gross'' as well as ``net'' changes. That is not the case with the

National Recreational Boating Survey. Nevertheless, we added a section

in the supporting statement that discusses the issue of change

estimation to provide a better justification of the proposed design.

4. Dual-Frame Issues

One commenter raised a concern about the use of the dual-frame

approach, and how sample data collected by telephone will be compared

to or combined with the mail survey data. The commenter would like us

to explain the handling of the overlap between the two approaches and

justify the use of two sampling frames.

In states that will provide boat registration data, we will

implement a dual-frame survey with two separate components:

The first component is a mail survey of households with a

member who owns a registered recreational vessel.

The second component is an RDD survey of boating

households with no registered recreational vessel owner.

The mail survey using registration data is an effective way to

collect the desired boating data with the possibility of targeting

users of a particular type of watercraft. However, users of

unregistered vessels constitute a significant portion of the boating

population. Although some unregistered vessel users and owners are in

households that also own registered vessels and are therefore included

in the mail survey target population, a sizeable number are believed to

reside without owning any registered recreational vessel. Since the

mail survey does not cover households that do not own a registered

vessel, an RDD household survey must be conducted to target them. The

RDD sample will be screened, and a sufficiently large sample of boating

households with no registered boat will be interviewed. It is a well

known fact that the dual-frame approach can be highly efficient for

surveying rare populations. For example, obtaining statistics on

personal watercrafts could be difficult if one has to rely solely on a

random national sample of households. Using the state boat registration

data, one can target specific boats more effectively. As far as

combining data from the mail and RDD surveys is concerned, we will

weight the units of analysis from each component independently and

obtain national/state level estimates by calculating the sums.

In states that will not provide boat registration data, the

National Recreational Boating Survey will be based exclusively on an

RDD sample; households, boats, and boaters will be weighted

accordingly. National-level estimates will be obtained by summing all

corresponding state-level estimates.

5. Mail Survey's Response Rates

A commenter indicated the projected response rate of 35 percent for

the mail survey is unduly low and cannot be expected to yield valid

estimates. He also stressed that some states will not provide any boat

registration data to the Coast Guard, leading to a poor and incomplete

sampling frame. Other concerns were also raised, ranging from not

referencing Dr. Dillman's works on survey response rate improvement to

failing to discuss standardization. For the 2002 National Recreational

Boating Survey, the response rate of the mail survey was 49 percent,

while that conducted telephonically was more than 61 percent. We

anticipate higher response rates in 2007 due to a increased data

collection budget, and a more systematic approach for converting non

respondents. Our estimate of 35 percent represents the response rate

with respect to the number of initial contacts, which include eligible

as well as ineligible households. Survey response rates as defined by

the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) are

calculated with respect to the number of eligible sample units. For the

purpose of quantifying the response burden, we used a response rate

with respect to the initial contacts (many of which are ineligible),

and deliberately decided to adopt a conservative approach by minimizing

our projections. When calculated with respect to the eligible sample

size, the response rate will be higher. Based on past experience, we

believe the proposed approach for reducing non-response will be

effective. Concerning the standardization of studies, we believe some

flexibility must be given to the data collection contractor

implementation of specific protocols to improve survey response rates,

and, not provide very detailed specifications to achieve this goal.

6. Survey Questionnaires

A commenter suggested the tabularized format of some

questions may lead different survey vendors to translate questions into

different Computer-Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI) questions. When

developing the survey questionnaires, our goal was not to write

detailed specifications for a CATI programmer. Our primary objective

was to provide questionnaires that are sufficiently clear for any CATI

programmer to understand the exact nature of data items to be

collected. Moreover, different CATI programmers may organize questions

in different ways without it being problematic so long as the data item

needed is properly collected.

A commenter suggested the timeframe for collecting the

data should be from October of the initial year to September of the

following year, which will supposedly reduce the recall bias. We are

not aware of any study which would support the commenter's statement.

The commenter indicated the survey questionnaires are

flawed based on the following issues:

The absence of ``Don't know'' or ``Refusal'' options in

the yes/no questions;

The number of household members listed on the

questionnaire; and

The special order in which household members are listed.

We appreciate these comments and will work with selected

contractors to address these concerns. The proposed survey

questionnaire is not to be seen as a detailed specification memorandum

to be sent by mail to a CATI programmer, but, should rather be

considered as a document that will be explained and discussed with the

data collection contractor.

Concerning question 5 of the screener questionnaire for states not

sharing registration data, an answer (yes or no) is mandatory since

that information is used to determine eligibility for the detailed

survey. Therefore the ``Don't know'' option is unacceptable. The

interviewer may need to talk to a more knowledgeable person if

necessary. For those survey questions we can modify prior to selecting

the contractor, we did so. Here are the changes:

Concerning the collection of data on ethnicity, we have

modified the questionnaires to comply with OMB standards.

In the screener and detailed questionnaires, an adult is

now defined as someone aged 16 or older. This modification was made

following a comment by the same commenter.

The number of home-use telephone numbers in the household

is now collected.

A commenter raised concerns about the pre-testing of the

questionnaires. The National Recreational Boating Survey was last

conducted in 2002, and many questions in the 2007

[[Page 68174]]

questionnaire were taken and thoroughly tested. The other questions in

the 2007 questionnaire not used in the 2002 version were also used on

several occasions by various boating researchers to collect subject

data. The collection contractor is expected to conduct a limited pre-

test to identify possible unforeseen problems.

7. Data Analysis

A commenter indicated that very little was said in the supporting

statement about how the data collection contractor will analyze the

data. In response to this comment, we expanded the data analysis

section to show how national, state, and regional estimates will be

calculated. However, the contractor will essentially provide the Coast

Guard with basic contingency tables showing weighted counts describing

various aspects of the boating population and their activities during

2007. We may conduct further analyzes internally after receiving the

micro-data file.

Information Collection Request

Title: National Recreational Boating Survey.

OMB Control Number: 1625-0089.

Type of Request: Reinstatement, with change, of a previously

approved collection for which approval has expired.

Affected Public: Recreational boating participants and owners of

recreational vessels.

Abstract: The Federal Boat Safety Act of 1971 determined the

framework of the Coast Guard RBS program. This program as set forth in

46 U.S.C., Chapter 131, requires the Coast Guard to ``encourage greater

state participation and uniformity in boating safety efforts, and

particularly to permit the states to assume the greater share of

boating safety education, assistance, and enforcement activities.'' See

46 U.S.C. 13101. The Coast Guard Office of Boating Safety achieves

these goals by providing timely and relevant information on activities

that occur in each respective jurisdiction. The boating information

provided by the Coast Guard enables each state agency to tailor and

implement safety initiatives addressing specific needs of boaters in

local jurisdictions. The primary objective of this collection is to

provide the Coast Guard with the required information in a format

suitable to effectively manage the program.

Burden Estimate: This is a biennial requirement. In the year the

survey is conducted, the burden is estimated to be 67,619 hours.

Dated: November 26, 2007.

D.T. Glenn,

Rear Admiral, U.S. Coast Guard, Assistant Commandant for Command,

Control, Communications, Computers and Information Technology.

[FR Doc. E7-23401 Filed 12-3-07; 8:45 am]

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