FERC-576 Supporting Statement Final 7.15.21

FERC-576 (OMB Control No. 1902-0004)

Docket No. IC21-27-000

Supporting Statement for

FERC-576, Report of Service Interruptions or Damage to Facilities

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Commission or FERC) requests that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) review and extend its approval to information collection requirements in FERC-576 (Report of Service Interruptions or Damage to Facilities, OMB Control No. 1902-0004) for three years.

1. CIRCUMSTANCES THAT MAKE THE COLLECTION OF INFORMATION NECESSARY

As stated above, a natural gas company must obtain Commission authorization to engage in the transportation, sale, or exchange of natural gas in interstate commerce under the NGA. The NGA also empowers the Commission to oversee continuity of service in the transportation of natural gas in interstate commerce. The information collected under FERC-576 notifies the Commission of actual or potential problems, which create the potential for serious delivery problems on the pipeline’s own system or the pipeline grid. These problems include:

• damage to jurisdictional natural gas facilities due to natural disaster (e.g., hurricane, earthquake, or other natural disaster) or terrorist activity; and

• serious interruptions to service.

In cases of emergency and pending the determination of any application on file with the Commission for a certificate of public convenience and necessity pursuant to section 7 of the NGA, application may be made for a temporary certificate authorizing the construction and operation of extensions of existing facilities, interconnections of pipeline systems, or sales of natural gas that may be required to assure maintenance of adequate service, or to service particular customers.¹

2. HOW, BY WHOM, AND FOR WHAT PURPOSE THE INFORMATION IS TO BE USED AND THE CONSEQUENCES OF NOT COLLECTING THE INFORMATION

Filings (in accordance with the provisions of section 4(d) of the NGA)² must contain information necessary to advise the Commission when an impact to service has occurred. Per 18 CFR 260.9, natural gas pipeline companies must report (i) damage to any jurisdictional natural gas facilities other than liquefied natural gas facilities caused by a hurricane, earthquake or other natural disaster or terrorist activity that results in a loss of or reduction in pipeline throughput or storage deliverability; and (ii) serious interruptions of service to any shipper involving jurisdictional natural gas facilities other than liquefied natural gas facilities.

Respondents to the FERC-576 must submit the notifications³, made to the Director, Division of Pipeline Certificates via email or fax as soon as feasibly possible⁴, and must state:

1. The location of the service interruption or damage to natural gas pipeline or storage facilities;

2. The nature of any damage to pipeline or storage facilities;

3. Specific identification of the facilities damaged;

4. The time the service interruption or damage to the facilities occurred;

5. The customers affected by the service interruption or damage to the facilities;

6. Emergency actions taken to maintain service; and

7. Company contact and telephone number.

The information provided by these notifications are kept by the Commission and are not made part of the public record.

3. DESCRIBE ANY CONSIDERATION OF THE USE OF IMPROVED TECHNOLOGY TO REDUCE BURDEN AND TECHNICAL OR LEGAL OBSTACLES TO REDUCING BURDEN.

The FERC-576 filings must be emailed to pipeline.outage@ferc.gov or faxed to (202)-208-2853

The Commission continues to expand the list of filing types that may be submitted electronically to reduce burden on entities. To see a full list of submission guidelines click here: https://www.ferc.gov/sites/default/files/2020-05/filing.pdf.

4. DESCRIBE EFFORTS TO IDENTIFY DUPLICATION AND SHOW SPECIFICALLY WHY ANY SIMILAR INFORMATION ALREADY AVAILABLE CANNOT BE USED OR MODIFIED FOR USE FOR THE PURPOSE(S) DESCRIBED IN INSTRUCTION NO. 2

Filing requirements are periodically reviewed as information collection expiration dates arise or as the Commission may deem necessary in carrying out its regulatory responsibilities under the NGA in an effort to alleviate duplication. All Commission information collections are subject to analysis by Commission staff and are examined for redundancy. Similarly, the filing of FERC-576 (required by 18 CFR 260.9(a)(1)(i)) describe a particular incident, location, and time. No similar information can be used or modified. The Commission is unaware of any other source of information similar to the additional requirements.

5. METHODS USED TO MINIMIZE BURDEN IN COLLECTION OF INFORMATION INVOLVING SMALL ENTITIES

For FERC-576, the required information in this filing applies for all entities regardless of the size of the entity.

6. CONSEQUENCE TO FEDERAL PROGRAM IF COLLECTION WERE CONDUCTED LESS FREQUENTLY

The consequence of not collecting or collecting the information of FERC-576 less frequently would be the Commission’s inability to fulfill its statutory mandates under the NGA and its Rules of Practice and Procedure. Further, if the Commission did not collect this information under FERC-576, it would lose a data point that assists in the monitoring of transactions, operations, and reliability of interstate pipelines. Finally, the Commission cannot collect these data less frequently due to statutory and/or regulatory requirements to monitor emergency situations. The information collection cannot be discontinued due to statutory requirements. The Commission must review reports concerning any disruptions in service of the transportation of natural gas in wholesale markets. The timing and frequency of data filed with the Commission under FERC-576 is determined by the respondent and when an interruption of service occurs.

7. EXPLAIN ANY SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES RELATING TO THE INFORMATION COLLECTION

There are no special circumstances related to FERC-576. All FERC-576 filings must be emailed to pipeline.outage@ferc.gov or faxed to (202)-208-2853

8. DESCRIBE EFFORTS TO CONSULT OUTSIDE THE AGENCY: SUMMARIZE PUBLIC COMMENTS AND THE AGENCY'S RESPONSE TO THESE COMMENTS

In accordance with OMB requirements⁵, each FERC activity that results in the revision of an information collection is published in the Federal Register thereby providing the public, state commissions, Federal agencies, and other interested parties an opportunity to submit data, views, comments, and/or suggestions concerning the approved collections of data. The Commission published a consolidated 60-day notice for FERC-567 and FERC-576 (86 FR 25852) and a 30-day notice (86 FR 38335) to the public regarding this information collection on 5/11/2021 and 7/20/2021 respectively. Within the public notices, the Commission noted that it would be requesting a three-year extension of the public reporting burden.

The Commission received no comments from the public in response to the 60-day notice regarding FERC-576.

9. EXPLAIN ANY PAYMENT OR GIFTS TO RESPONDENTS

The Commission makes no payments or gifts to respondents associated with FERC-576.

10. DESCRIBE ANY ASSURANCE OF CONFIDENTIALITY PROVIDED TO RESPONDENTS

The Commission does consider the information collected in FERC-576 (filed under 18 CFR 260.9) reports to be non-public. Due to the nature of the information collected in FERC-576, the reports are not submitted through the normal eFiling process and are not made available through eLibrary. The Commission considers requests for information submitted in accordance with 18 CFR 260.9 under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) on a case by case basis of analysis.

11. PROVIDE ADDITIONAL JUSTIFICATION FOR ANY QUESTIONS OF A SENSITIVE NATURE, SUCH AS SEXUAL BEHAVIOR AND ATTITUDES, RELIGIOUS BELIEFS, AND OTHER MATTERS THAT ARE COMMONLY CONSIDERED PRIVATE

FERC-576 does not include any questions of a sensitive nature.

12. ESTIMATED BURDEN OF COLLECTION OF INFORMATION

The following table provides the estimated annual burden⁶ and cost related to information collection requirements for FERC-576. Please note that the cost figures in the Table for FERC-576 has been rounded (columns 4) for display purposes only. The calculations for the ‘cost per response’ are based on the number of hours multiplied by the total weight hourly cost.

FERC-576, Report of Service Interruptions or Damage to Facilities
	Number of Respondents7 (1)	Annual Number of Responses per Respondent (2)	Total Number of Responses (1)*(2)=(3)	Average Annual Burden Hrs. & Cost ($) Per Response8 (4)	Total Annual Burden Hrs. & Total Annual Cost (3)*(4)=(5)	Average Annual Cost per Respondent ($) (5)÷(1)
Notification of Incident – Service Interruption	50	1	50	1 hr.; $133.38	50 hrs.; $6,669	$133.38
Notification of Incident – Damage	22	1	22	0.25 hrs.; $33.35	5.5 hrs.; $733.59	$33.35
Submittal of DOT Incident Report	10	1	10	0.25 hrs.; $33.35	2.5 hrs.; $333.45	$33.35
TOTAL	82				58 hrs.; $7,736.04

13. ESTIMATE OF THE TOTAL ANNUAL COST BURDEN TO RESPONDENTS

There are no non-labor costs currently associated with FERC-576.

All costs are associated with burden hours (labor) for both information collections and are addressed in Question #12 and Question #15.

14. ESTIMATED ANNUALIZED COST TO FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

The estimated annualized cost to the Federal Government for FERC-576 follows

	Number of FTE’s	Estimated Annual Federal Cost ($)
PRA9 Administration Cost	1	$6,475.00
Data Processing and Analysis for FERC-57610	0.04	$6,893.16
FERC Total		$13,368.16

The Commission bases its estimate of the ‘Analysis and Processing of filings’ cost to the Federal Government on salaries and benefits for professional and clerical support. This estimated cost represents staff analysis, decision making, and review of any actual filings made in response to the information collection.

The PRA Administrative Cost is a Federal Cost associated with preparing, issuing, and submit-ting materials necessary to comply with the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) for rulemakings, orders, or any other vehicle used to create, modify, extend, or discontinue an information collection. This average annual cost includes requests for extensions, all associated rulemakings, other changes to the collection, and publications in the Federal Register.

15. REASONS FOR CHANGES IN BURDEN INCLUDING THE NEED FOR ANY INCREASE

For FERC-576, there is a decrease from 147 respondents to 82 respondents. The change in burden hours and number responses for FERC-576 is based on the average number of respondents over the past three years which provides a more accurate estimate based on agency adjustment. As this is based on historical data, the agency could revise these burdens up or down in subsequent reporting.

The Commission estimates the annual public reporting burden for FERC-576 is:

FERC-576	Total Request	Previously Approved	Change due to Adjustment in Estimate	Change Due to Agency Discretion
Annual Number of Responses	82	147	-65	0
Annual Time Burden (Hr)	58	84	-26	0
Annual Cost Burden ($)	$0	$0	$0	$0

16. TIME SCHEDULE FOR THE PUBLICATION OF DATA

There is no publication of data associated with FERC-576 information collection.

17. DISPLAY OF THE EXPIRATION DATE

The OMB expiration dates are displayed at https://www.ferc.gov/enforcement-legal/legal/information-collections

18. EXCEPTIONS TO THE CERTIFICATION STATEMENT

There are no exceptions.

1 18 CFR 157.17

2 15 USC 717f(c)

3 18 CFR 260.9(a)(1)(i)

4 In any instance in which an incident or damage report involving jurisdictional natural gas facilities is required by the Department of Transportation (DOT) reporting requirements under the Natural Gas Pipeline Safety Act of 1968 a copy of such report shall be submitted to the Director within 30 days of the reportable incident.

5 5 CFR 1320.8(d)

6 Burden is defined as the total time, effort, or financial resources expended by persons to generate, maintain, retain, or disclose or provide information to or for a federal agency. Refer to 5 CFR 1320.3 for additional information.

7 The total number of respondents in the currently approved OMB inventory for FERC-576 is 147. Changes to the estimate were based on average number of respondents over the past three years.

8 Costs (for wages and benefits) are based on wage figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) at http://bls.gov/oes/current/naics3_221000.htm, as of June 2021. In the 60-day notice, the costs incorrectly reflected 2020 figures rather than the actual 2021 cost estimates. The corrected costs are listed above and does not impact the renewal notice for FERC-567. Commission staff estimates that 20% of the work is performed by a manager, and 80% is performed by legal staff. The hourly costs for wages plus benefits are:

• Management (Occupational Code: 11-0000) is $97.89

• Legal (Occupational Code: 23-0000) is $142.25.

Therefore, the weighted hourly cost (for wages plus benefits) is $133.38 [(0.20 * $97.89) + (0.80 * $142.25)].

9 Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA).

10 Based on 2020 cost (salary plus benefits) per FTE of $172,329 (for salary plus benefits), the average hourly cost is $83/hour.