PRA Portion of the Final Rule

Paperwork Reduction Act

This final rule contains a new “collection of information” covered by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA), as amended, 44 U.S.C. 3501-3521. Under the PRA, a covered agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid control number assigned by OMB. 44 U.S.C. 3507(a)(3), 3512.

The information collection in this final rule requires covered facilities to retain certain specified information relating to sexual abuse prevention planning, responsive planning, education and training, and investigations, as well as to collect and retain certain specified information relating to allegations of sexual abuse within the facility.

At the time of the proposed rule, the Department submitted an information collection request to OMB for review and approval in accordance with the review procedures of the PRA.

As part of the comment process on the NPRM, the Department received a few comments pertaining to the PRA, mostly raising questions whether certain recordkeeping requirements of the PREA standards duplicated in part the recordkeeping requirements imposed by other Department regulations. These comments and the Department’s responses thereto are discussed above in the Supplementary Information portion of this preamble and in the RIA.

However, none of the comments received on the NPRM pertaining to the PRA aspects of the rule necessitated any changes in the PRA burden hours estimated by the Department. Accordingly, the Department has submitted to OMB a final information collection request for review and approval with burden estimates unchanged from the initial submission made at the proposed rule stage.