Section 16 of the Shipping Act of
1984, 46 U.S.C. § 40103, authorizes the Commission to exempt by
order or regulation “any class of agreements between persons
subject to this [Act] or any specified activity of those persons
from any requirement of this [Act] if the Commission finds that the
exemption will not result in substantial reduction in competition
or be detrimental to commerce.” The Commission may attach
conditions to any exemption and may, by order, revoke an exemption.
In 46 CFR Part 532, the Commission exempted non-vessel-operating
common carriers (NVOCCs) from the tariff rate publication
requirements of Part 520, and allowed an NVOCC to enter into an
NVOCC Negotiated Rate Arrangement (NRA) in lieu of publishing its
tariff rate(s), provided the NVOCC posts a prominent notice in its
rules tariff invoking the NRA exemption and provides electronic
access to its rules tariff to the public free of charge. This
information collection corresponds to the rules tariff prominent
notice and the requirement to make its tariff publicly available
free of charge.
US Code:
46
USC 40103 Name of Law: Shipping Act of 1984
US Code: 46
USC 41109(e) Name of Law: Shipping Act of 1984
The burden estimate for this
collection has decreased substantially since it was last submitted.
The Commission extended the tariff publication exemption contained
in 46 CFR part 532 to foreign-based registered NVOCCs, the number
of which is currently 1,405. Accordingly, NVOCCs eligible to take
advantage of the exemption and use negotiated rate arrangements was
increased by 1,405 since the Commission issued its last rulemaking
amending part 532. It was expected that this additional group of
NVOCCs, who were granted the ability to utilize this exemption,
could raise the percentage of NVOCCs using it considerably;
however, this has not been the case. In fact, although it was
anticipated that the majority of all NVOCCs would use the
exemption, only 25% of NVOCCs, which is 1,295 NVOCCs in total, both
licensed and foreign registered, have published the requisite rule
to use NRAs. In addition, of those 25%, only 3% opted to use NRAs
exclusively. The remaining 22% of NVOCCs utilize a combination of
tariff rates and NRAs. The recordkeeping burden associated with
tariff rates is already accounted for under the information
collection in Part 520, Carrier Automated Tariffs, thus the prior
burden estimate was higher than appropriate. For these reasons, the
number of annual instances and thereby the respondent burden has
been reduced from the previous 5,970 person-hours to 1,365
person-hours.
On behalf of this Federal agency, I certify that
the collection of information encompassed by this request complies
with 5 CFR 1320.9 and the related provisions of 5 CFR
1320.8(b)(3).
The following is a summary of the topics, regarding
the proposed collection of information, that the certification
covers:
(i) Why the information is being collected;
(ii) Use of information;
(iii) Burden estimate;
(iv) Nature of response (voluntary, required for a
benefit, or mandatory);
(v) Nature and extent of confidentiality; and
(vi) Need to display currently valid OMB control
number;
If you are unable to certify compliance with any of
these provisions, identify the item by leaving the box unchecked
and explain the reason in the Supporting Statement.
0071 2016 OMB Extension FR 30 day notice - FINAL.docx
Modification of Tariff Invoking Exemption - NRAs exclusively