Federal Register Notice

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Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 54 / Wednesday, March 22, 2017 / Notices

Total Burden Hours: 1,841.
Charlene Parker,
Departmental Information Clearance Officer.
[FR Doc. 2017–05697 Filed 3–21–17; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3410–08–P

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Forest Service
Information Collection; Interagency
Generic Clearance for Federal Land
Management Agencies Collaborative
Visitor Feedback Surveys on
Recreation and Transportation Related
Programs and Systems
Forest Service, USDA.
Notice; request for comment.

AGENCY:
ACTION:

In accordance with the
Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, the
Forest Service is seeking comments
from all interested individuals and
organizations on the renewal of an
information collection, Federal Land
Management Agencies (FLMAs)
Collaborative Visitor Transportation
Information Collections.
DATES: Comments must be received in
writing on or before May 22, 2017 to be
assured of consideration. Comments
received after that date will be
considered to the extent practicable.
ADDRESSES: Comments concerning this
notice should be addressed to Margaret
Petrella, The Volpe Center (RVT–321),
55 Broadway Street, Cambridge, MA
02142. All responses to this notice will
be summarized and included in the
request for Office of Management and
Budget (OMB) approval. All comments
will become a matter of public record.
Comments also may be submitted via
facsimile to (617) 494–3522 or by email
to: Margaret.Petrella@dot.gov.
The public may inspect comments
received at 55 Broadway Street,
Cambridge, MA 02142 in Room 3–67
during normal business hours. Visitors
are encouraged to call ahead to 617–
494–3582 to facilitate entry to the
building.
SUMMARY:

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FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Margaret Petrella, Social Scientist, U.S.
Department of Transportation, The
Volpe Center, (617) 494–3582.
Individuals who use
telecommunication devices for the deaf
(TDD) may call the Federal Relay
Service (FRS) at 1–800–877–8339
twenty-four hours a day, every day of
the year, including holidays.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Title: Interagency Generic Clearance
for Federal Land Management Agencies
Collaborative Visitor Feedback Surveys

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on Recreation and Transportation
Related Programs and Systems.
OMB Number: 0596–0236.
Expiration Date of Approval:
November 30, 2017.
Type of Request: Renewal and
revision of currently approved
collection.
Abstract: From time to time,
individual or combined units or
subunits of various Federal Land
Management Agencies (FLMAs) and/or
FLMA Research Station units need to
acquire direct visitor and authorized
user feedback about site- or area-specific
services, facilities, road and/or travel
systems, needs, programs,
demographics, management of FLMA
lands, and/or other quantitative
information on FLMA lands in crossjurisdictional landscapes. FLMAs
include, but are not limited to: USDAForest Service; National Park Service;
Bureau of Land Management; US Fish &
Wildlife Service; US Geological Survey;
US Army Corps of Engineers; Presidio
Trust and Bureau of Reclamation. This
direct feedback is vital to establish and/
or revise goals and objectives for FLMA
recreation-related transportation system
programs to and within FLMA
recreation sites/opportunities, to inform
land management plans, and to facilitate
interagency coordination across
multijurisdictional landscapes, which
will better meet the needs of the public
and the resources under FLMA
management.
The benefits of an FLMA interagency
generic Information Collection (IC)
would include significant public and
agency time and cost savings. If
multiple FLMAs in an area or landscape
work jointly on one quantitative visitor
feedback information collection under a
generic clearance from OMB, there
would be significant savings in
government time and costs related to
survey development and OMB survey
approval, as well as savings in the costs
of survey administration and data
processing. In particular, the public
burden would be diminished as the
public would only need to respond to
one jointly-sponsored survey, instead of
to multiple similar surveys at multiple
units in an area.
Under the following authorities, the
participating FLMAs are obligated to
actively solicit public input to improve
public lands management to better serve
the public:
1. Forest Service Administration
Organic Act of 1897 [16 U.S.C. 473–478,
479–482, and 551] as amended by the
Transfer Act of 1905 [16 U.S.C. 472,
524, 554];
2. Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act
of 1960 [Pub. L. 86–15, § 3];

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3. Forest and Rangeland Renewable
Resources and Planning Act of 1974
[Pub. L. 93–378 § 3(2,3)] as amended;
4. National Forest Management Act of
1976 [Pub. L. 94–588, §§ 2(3), 6(d)], as
amended;
5. Government Performance and
Results Act of 1993 [Pub. L. 103–62] as
amended;
6. Executive Order 12862 of
September 11, 1993;
7. Executive Order 13571 of April 27,
2011;
8. Executive Act 12996 of March 25,
1996;
9. National Park Services Act of 1916;
10. National Wildlife Refuge System
Administration Act;
11. National Wildlife Refuge System
Centennial Act [Pub. L. 106–408];
12. The Federal Land Policy and
Management Act (FLPMA) of 1976;
13. General Survey Act of 1824; and
14. National Environmental Policy
Act of 1969.
Survey respondents would include
visitors and potential visitors to FLMA
units or subunits, and residents of
communities in or near FLMA units.
Since many of the FLMA surveys are
similar in terms of the populations
being surveyed, the types of questions
being asked, the research methodologies
being used, and the database structures
and data being utilized, the FLMAs
propose a generic Interagency
Information Collections clearance from
OMB to obtain quantitative and/or
qualitative visitor/user feedback
utilizing collection mechanisms such as
surveys, focus groups, and/or
interviews.
Information collection could occur at
one location, several locations, across
FLMA units, across regions, across the
nation, and could be multijurisdictional at any of these levels.
Information collection activities could
occur once, could occur as iterative
collections over a limited period of
time, or could occur over long periods
of time at some periodic, planned time
interval. Direct visitor feedback could be
collected through facilitated focus
groups or through surveys or individual
interviews (qualitative or quantitative),
with either electronically-recorded or
hand-written responses, via mail-back,
or via internet, apps, or social media
electronic surveys (e.g., Quick Response
(QR) codes on Smartphones). Survey or
interview information could be
collected at pertinent site(s) or access
point(s) as visitors arrive or complete
their visit(s) or are in the midst of their
activities; and could be collected pre- or
post-visit.
In general, questions will relate to
visitor experience at one or more

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Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 54 / Wednesday, March 22, 2017 / Notices
specific locations or locales (one
FLMA’s lands or multi-jurisdictional)
and could address one or more of the
following key categories, identified as
goal areas in FLMA planning
documents:
• Mobility and access (for example,
different modes used to access sites;
satisfaction with transportation related
services and facilities; use and
satisfaction with traveler information;
reasons for non-visitation)
• System management (for example,
support for different management
policies)
• Safety (for example, safety concerns
prior or during trip, safety-related
incidents that occurred)
• Environment (for example, visitor
priorities with respect to natural and
cultural resources; perceptions related
to sound)
• Economic development (for
example, amount visitors spend within
the area)
• Visitor/user demographics (for
example, home city and state, age group,
gender, race, number of people/vehicles
in party)
• Trip characteristics (for example,
length of trip, trip purpose, activities
and destinations)
To ensure anonymity, if any personallyidentifiable information (PII) is
collected, PII will not be stored with
contact information at any time, and
contact information will be purged from
researchers’ files once data collections
are complete.
Participation in surveys will be
strictly voluntary. The information
could be collected by FLMA personnel,
or by private contractors, other
government agency partners, or
universities or other educational
institutions conducting the information
collection on behalf of the FLMAs. The
data collected would provide managers
with reliable information to better serve
the public, by better-informing strategic
planning; allocations of physical, fiscal,
or human resources; modification or
refinement of various program
management goals and objectives or
management plan revisions; and future
planning efforts focused on developing
more effective and efficient delivery of
program services, whether on one or
several unit(s) or at an interagency,
cross-jurisdictional scope. FLMAs may
also get requests for this kind of
information from the general public
and/or a variety of organizations
including Congressional staffs,
newspapers, magazines, and
transportation and/or recreational trade
organizations.
Primary analysis of the information
could be conducted by FLMA staff or by

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one or more research station(s), or by
private contractors, other government
agency partners, or universities or other
educational institutions doing the
analyses on behalf of the FLMA. All
results will be aggregated so specific
responses cannot be correlated to
specific respondents.
The information collected, including
approved survey instruments, final
reports, and data will be archived in a
shared database that can be accessed by
all FLMAs. In this way, FLMAs will be
kept informed about the survey efforts
of their partner agencies and can use the
results to inform the development of
their own surveys, thus reducing the
duplication of effort and public burden.
In addition, analyzed data could be
shared among other agencies,
stakeholders, educational institutions,
interested parties, or the public through
written or electronic reports. FLMA
units will use this information to inform
strategic planning, allocation of
resources, revisions of management
program goals and objectives, revisions
of Land Management Plans, and longrange planning with statisticallyreliable, visitor input data necessary to
help FLMA units provide their
customers with better service and
coordinate more effectively across
jurisdictions.
Without these joint, coordinated
information collections, the FLMAs will
continue to lack the information
necessary to identify and implement
feasible and publicly-accepted
transportation and other facility and
service improvements to help protect
public land resources and enhance
visitor experience. These joint
information collections will become
ever more important as FLMA budgets
continue to shrink and demand for
access to FLMA recreation sites and
opportunities continue to grow. These
information collections will directly
impact FLMA resources and visitor
experience quality, and help the FLMAs
meet their various resource, recreation,
and transportation management
mandates.
Estimate of Annual Burden: Under a
generic IC, the number of respondents
will differ for each individual survey,
depending on the purpose and design of
each information collection. Therefore,
the number of respondents is
necessarily an estimate. The number of
responses can be estimated as
approximately 70% of the number of
respondents approached, based on
previous administrations of similar
surveys in various FLMA units.
Respondents will be asked to respond
only one time. Overall, we assume 1200
respondents per survey effort, 10

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14675

respondents per focus group effort, 50
respondents per interview effort, and
500 comment cards per comment card
effort. The burden of time to respond
one time will vary, depending on the
methodology employed. Surveys are
estimated at approximately 15 minutes
per person, based on previous
administrations of similar surveys in
various FLMA units; focus groups are
estimated at 90 minutes per person;
interviews are estimated at 30 minutes
each; and comment cards are estimated
at 3 minutes per person.
Type of Respondents: Visitors or
potential visitors to, or residents near,
lands managed by one FLMA or by
multiple FLMAs in cross-jurisdictional
landscapes (e.g., Bureau of Land
Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, National Park Service).
Estimated Annual Number of
Respondents: 23,300.
Estimated Annual Number of
Responses per Respondent: One.
Estimated Burden per Response: 15
minutes (survey); 90 minutes (focus
group); 30 minutes (interview); 3
minutes (comment card)
Estimated Total Annual Burden on
Respondents: 5,085 hours.
Comment Is Invited
Comment is invited on:
(1) Whether this collection of
information is necessary for the stated
purposes and the proper performance of
the functions of the FLMAs, including
whether the information will have
practical or scientific utility;
(2) the accuracy of the FLMAs’
estimate of the burden of the collection
of information, including the validity of
the assumptions used;
(3) ways to enhance the quality,
utility, and clarity of the information to
be collected; and
(4) ways to minimize the burden of
the collection of information on
respondents, including the use of
automated, electronic, mechanical, or
other technological collection
techniques or other forms of information
technology.
All comments received in response to
this notice, including names and
addresses when provided, will be a
matter of public record. Comments will
be summarized and included in the
submission request toward Office of
Management and Budget approval.
Dated: February 24, 2017.
Lenise Lago,
Deputy Chief, Business Operations.
[FR Doc. 2017–05653 Filed 3–21–17; 8:45 am]
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