Emergency Extension of Clearance Request Letter

Federal Housing Finance Agency
Constitution Center
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400 7 Street, SW,
Washington, D.C. 20024
Telephone: (202) 649-3804

September 30, 2013

BY ELECTRONIC SUBMISSION
The Office of Management and Budget
725 17th Street, N W
Washington, DC 20503
Dear OIRA Desk Officer:
Pursuant to 5 CFR 1320.13, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) hereby requests
emergency approval on or by September 30, 2013, of the use of the information collections as
described in the enclosed supporting statements. The first information collection is titled
"Capital Requirements for the Federal Home Loan Banks" and was previously approved by
OIRA on September 16, 2010, under OMB No. 2590-0002, with an expiration date of September
30, 2013. The second information collection is titled "Members of the Banks" and was
previously approved by OIRA on September 16, 2010, under OMB No. 2590-0003, with an
expiration date of September 30, 2013.
On July 1, 2013, FHFA published a 60-day day notice in the Federal Register for each collection
as required by 5 CFR 1320.8(d). See 78 FR 39292, 39293 (July 1, 2013). The comment periods
for both notices ended on August 30, 2013. During and after the comment periods, FHFA
canvassed several Federal Home Loan Banks (Banks), each of which in turn contacted several of
its member institutions, to obtain more accurate estimates of the burdens and costs imposed by
the information collections. Because of the broad-based outreach, it took longer than anticipated
to obtain useful responses. Once an adequate number of responses were received, it became
apparent that some of the calculations used in the burden calculations for the 2010 clearances for
the collections were incorrect. FHFA was required to re-confirm its data and calculations and to
write explanations for the new burden estimates. Unfortunately, the process of integrating and
reviewing these new burden estimates was not completed in time for the 30-day notices to be
published by the September 30 expiration date.
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Because of this, we request 14-day emergency extensions of the clearances for the existing
information collections to give the agency time to publish the 30-day notice for each request.
Pursuant to 5 CFR 1320.13(d), FHFA also requests a waiver of the notice requirement for this
emergency request because it anticipates filing the normal 30-day notice within the next week.

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The emergency clearance of these information collections is needed by September 30, 2013
because i f such clearance is not received, the information collection will expire and the Banks
will be unable to collect necessary capital stock and membership information until FHFA
completes another 60-day/3 0-day notice process. The Banks need to obtain capital stock
information from members on a daily basis in order to be able to make loans to those member
institutions. Similarly, the Banks must collect membership information many times per month in
order to process new Bank members as well as membership withdrawals. The Banks need to
carry out each of those collections in order to meet statutory and regulatory requirements and to
carry out their day-to-day businesses.
For the reasons stated, this clearance is needed prior to the expiration of time periods established
under 5 CFR part 1320. The agency cannot reasonably comply with the normal clearance
procedures under this part because use of normal clearance procedures is reasonably likely to
prevent or disrupt this crucial collection of information and, therefore, also the Banks' ability to
lend to their members and to process new members or member withdrawals. See 12 CFR
1320.13(a)(2)(iii).
FHFA is a small independent agency with major regulatory responsibilities, and on occasion the
agency's limited resources mean that it does not have adequate staff to deal with both these
regulatory responsibilities and with PRA matters in a timely fashion. Despite this, we are
constantly reviewing and revising our procedures to try to ensure that information collection
notices are filed in a timely fashion. We apologize for our failure to file the 30-day notices prior
to the September 30 deadline.
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The point of contact for questions about this request is Eric Raudenbush, Assistant General
Counsel, 202 649-3084.
Sincerely,

Kevin Winkler
Chief Information Officer
Enclosures