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Federal Register / Vol. 88, No. 232 / Tuesday, December 5, 2023 / Notices
Department of Commerce collections
currently under review by OMB.
Written comments and
recommendations for the proposed
information collection should be
submitted within 30 days of the
publication of this notice on the
following website www.reginfo.gov/
public/do/PRAMain. Find this
particular information collection by
selecting ‘‘Currently under 30-day
Review—Open for Public Comments’’ or
by using the search function and
entering either the title of the collection
or the OMB Control Number 0648–0018.
Sheleen Dumas,
Department PRA Clearance Officer, Office of
the Under Secretary for Economic Affairs,
Commerce Department.
[FR Doc. 2023–26674 Filed 12–4–23; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510–22–P

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration

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Agency Information Collection
Activities; Submission to the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) for
Review and Approval; Comment
Request; West Coast Groundfish Trawl
Economic Data
The Department of Commerce will
submit the following information
collection request to the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) for
review and clearance in accordance
with the Paperwork Reduction Act of
1995, on or after the date of publication
of this notice. We invite the general
public and other Federal agencies to
comment on proposed, and continuing
information collections, which helps us
assess the impact of our information
collection requirements and minimize
the public’s reporting burden. Public
comments were previously requested
via the Federal Register on March 23,
2023 during a 60-day comment period.
This notice allows for an additional 30
days for public comments.
Agency: National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),
Commerce.
Title: West Coast Groundfish Trawl
Economic Data.
OMB Control Number: 0648–0618.
Form Number(s): None.
Type of Request: Regular (extension of
a currently approved information
collection).
Number of Respondents: 361.
Average Hours per Response: 8 hours
for catcher processors, catcher vessels,
and motherships, 1 hour for quota share

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permit owners, and 20 hours for first
receivers and shore-based processors.
Total Annual Burden Hours: 2,236.
Needs and Uses: This request is for
revision and renewal of a currently
approved information collection. This
information collection is needed in
order to meet the monitoring
requirements of the Magnuson-Stevens
Act (MSA). In particular, the Northwest
Fisheries Science Center (NWFSC)
needs economic data on all harvesters,
quota share permit owners, first
receivers, shore-based processors,
catcher processors, and motherships
participating in the West Coast
groundfish trawl fishery. Data will be
collected from all catcher vessels
registered to a limited entry trawl
endorsed permit, quota share permit
owners, catcher processors registered to
catcher processor permits, motherships
registered to mothership permits, first
receivers, and shore based processors
that received round or head-and-gutted
IFQ groundfish or whiting from a first
receiver to provide the necessary
information for analyzing the effects of
the West Coast Groundfish Trawl Catch
Share Program.
Changes are being proposed to three
forms: the quota share owner form, the
first receiver and shore-based processor
form, and the catcher vessel form. Two
changes are proposed for the quota
share owner form. First, the question ‘‘Is
this permit owned solely by a nonprofit?’’ will be removed from the
survey as it was determined that
sufficient information is available from
other sources to make this question
redundant. The second proposed change
is to replace the survey’s third question
with a series of shorter questions
guiding the participant to provide the
correct information. This change will
clarify which information should be
reported for each type of respondent
and will reduce the need for lengthy
instructions section describing how the
participant should answer. The series of
questions are:
A. ‘‘Which types of quota transactions
were associated with QSXXXX in 20XX?
Check all that apply’’ This question
helps the participant determine whether
any earnings need to be reported on the
survey. If appropriate categories are
checked, they will be asked question B.
B. ‘‘How much did this quota share
account earn from leasing quota in year
20XX?’’ Participants will answer this
question with a dollar amount. To
ensure there is no duplicate reporting,
participants will be asked question C:
C. ‘‘Did you record any earnings from
20XX quota leasing on an EDC form?’’
If participants answer ‘‘No,’’ they will
be prompted to affirm that their

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response to question B was correct and
submit the survey. If they answer ‘‘Yes,’’
they will be asked to respond to
question D.
D. ‘‘How much in quota lease earnings
did you record on your EDC form(s)?
Participants will answer with a
numerical value and proceed to
question E.
E. ‘‘Please confirm your total quota
lease earnings in 20XX was ‘Response to
question B + ‘Response to question D.’
After confirming, participants will then
submit the survey.
We anticipate no additional burden
with this change because the new
structure of the survey will generate
fewer incorrect responses and survey
administrators will no longer need to
contact participants outside of the
survey to confirm that they did not
provide duplicate responses across
survey forms.
First receiver and shore-based
processor form changes are more
extensive. The purpose of the changes is
fivefold: remove requests for
information that are not used in
development of a Pacific Fishery
Management Council Fishery
Management Plan, consolidate
questions where additional detail is no
longer required, clarify handling of
intercompany transfers and inventory,
collect more accurate information about
hourly wages, obtain information about
services provided by first receivers to
vessels.
First, we propose a complete removal
of Question 18: ‘‘Provide the following
information about the landing origin of
groundfish received at this facility.’’
Throughout the eleven years of the
program, these data have not been used
in the Council process and we do not
anticipate using this information in the
future.
Second, we propose consolidating the
fishery-level detail requests from
Question 19: ‘‘Fish Received. In the
table below provide the weight and cost
of fish received.’’ For groundfish
species, the existing form requests
weight not paid for, weight paid for, and
cost of fish by species group for three
fisheries (LE Trawl, LE Fixed Gear, and
Other) as well as Non-vessel sources. In
the revised form, the table will be
consolidated to only request Vessel
sources and Non-vessel sources. This
will be a net reduction of 72 data entry
cells on the form (12 species groups ×
removal of 2 fisheries × 3 fields). We
will no longer request this information
because fishery-detail information can
be obtained from other sources.
Third, we propose revising how
intercompany transfers and inventory
are reported on the form. Similar to the

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Federal Register / Vol. 88, No. 232 / Tuesday, December 5, 2023 / Notices

quota share owner survey, there are
extensive instructions on handling these
two topics, but reporting errors are
extremely common. To facilitate
accurate reporting of intercompany
transfers, we will remove a column
dedicated to transfer information from
Question 19 and remove instructions
about recording transfers in Question
20. Then, all of the transfer-related
information will be moved to a separate
question/table. This change will make
the survey instructions easier to
understand, allow companies that do
not have intercompany transfers to skip
the question entirely, and will make it
easier to detect and remedy mistakes.
Similarly, there are extensive
instructions on how to record inventory
in Question 20 on the existing form, but
no dedicated field for inventory.
Instead, participants are currently
instructed to add inventory to the other
sales categories. We propose adding a
new line for each species group to
record the inventory volume and value.
Similar to the changes to transfers in
Question 19 and 20, the new structure
of Question 20 clarifies how to complete
the form and facilitates identifying and
resolving errors. Finally, this change
will provide new important information
about inventory volumes across years,
providing better information about the
status of the processing sector to the
Pacific Fishery Management Council.
A common performance metric for
fisheries programs is hourly wage
payments to processing workers. In the
current form, we request the total
number of workers and total hours
worked for the week that includes the
12th of each month and total annual
compensation payments. To calculate
hourly wages, we must extrapolate to
the total hours worked for the year.
Through conversations with
participants, it has become apparent
that within-month employment can
have high variability and our
extrapolations are not always accurate.
We propose requesting the equivalent
compensation value for each of the oneweek windows to allow for a more
accurate calculation of hourly wages.
This additional field will also allow us
to generate an estimate of within-month
employment variability.
Lastly, through conversations with
first receivers and vessels, it is known
that first receivers provide services to
vessels such as bait, ice, loans, moorage,
and storage. We plan to add a new
category to capture whether those
services are provided and whether the
vessels are charged for those services.
This information will help answer
questions often posed by external
reviewers when evaluating studies

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conducted using the data collected in
these surveys.
There are two proposed changes to
the Catcher Vessel survey form. The first
is to remove two questions. In 2018, at
the request of participants in the trawl
catch share program, two additional
questions were added, Question 17: ‘‘Do
you track capitalized expenditures and
expenses on fishing gear by type (e.g.,
midwater trawl gear, groundfish bottom
trawl gear)?’’ and Question 18: ‘‘Provide
the 2021 total capitalized expenditures
and expenses associated with each type
of fishing gear used in West Coast
Fisheries (Washington, Oregon, and
California).’’ Since the implementation
of the questions in 2018, there has only
been one ‘‘Yes’’ out nearly 700 total
responses to Question 17 and therefore
no further information about gearspecific costs have been collected.
Therefore, there will be no information
loss associated with removal of these
two questions and there may be a small
reduction in total burden hours.
The second proposed change to the
Catcher vessel survey form also applies
to the Catcher Processor and Mothership
forms. This change adds a four-part
question about vessel financing. The
questions are whether there were any
loans on the vessel, how much was still
owed at the end of the fiscal year, total
amount paid to interest, and total
amount paid to principal. The purpose
of this new question is to collect the
necessary information to comply with
recent NOAA fisheries guidance on
calculation of net returns of fishing
businesses.
Affected Public: Business or other forprofit organizations; not-for-profit
institutions.
Frequency: Annually.
Respondent’s Obligation: Mandatory.
Legal Authority: 50 CFR 660.114.
This information collection request
may be viewed at www.reginfo.gov.
Follow the instructions to view the
Department of Commerce collections
currently under review by OMB.
Written comments and
recommendations for the proposed
information collection should be
submitted within 30 days of the
publication of this notice on the
following website www.reginfo.gov/
public/do/PRAMain. Find this
particular information collection by
selecting ‘‘Currently under 30-day
Review—Open for Public Comments’’ or
by using the search function and

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entering either the title of the collection
or the OMB Control Number 0648–0618.
Sheleen Dumas,
Department PRA Clearance Officer, Office of
the Under Secretary for Economic Affairs,
Commerce Department.
[FR Doc. 2023–26661 Filed 12–4–23; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510–22–P

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Defense Acquisition Regulations
System
[Docket Number DARS–2023–0017; OMB
Control Number 0704–0246]

Information Collection Requirements;
Defense Federal Acquisition
Regulation Supplement; Part 245,
Government Property
Defense Acquisition
Regulations System, Department of
Defense (DoD).
ACTION: Notice.
AGENCY:

The Defense Acquisition
Regulations System has submitted to
OMB for clearance the following
proposal for collection of information
under the provisions of the Paperwork
Reduction Act.
DATES: Consideration will be given to all
comments received by January 4, 2024.
ADDRESSES: Written comments and
recommendations for the proposed
information collection should be sent
within 30 days of publication of this
notice to https://www.reginfo.gov/
public/do/PRAMain. Find this
particular information collection by
selecting ‘‘Currently under 30-day
Review—Open for Public Comments’’ or
by using the search function.
You may also submit comments,
identified by docket number and title,
by the following method: Federal
eRulemaking Portal: https://
www.regulations.gov. Follow the
instructions for submitting comments.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Angela Duncan, 571–372–7574, or
whs.mc-alex.esd.mbx.dd-dodinformation-collections@mail.mil.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Title and OMB Number: Defense
Federal Acquisition Regulation
Supplement (DFARS) Part 245,
Government Property, related clauses in
DFARS 252, and related forms in
DFARS 253; OMB Control Number
0704–0246.
Type of Request: Revision of a
currently approved collection.
Affected Public: Businesses or other
for-profit and not-for-profit institutions.
SUMMARY:

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