30_day notice

Federal Register / Vol. 89, No. 168 / Thursday, August 29, 2024 / Notices
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
Census Bureau

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Agency Information Collection
Activities; Submission to the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) for
Review and Approval; Comment
Request; Business Trends and
Outlook Survey
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 November 9,
2021 during a 60-day comment period.
This notice allows for an additional 30
days for public comments.
Agency: U.S. Census Bureau,
Department of Commerce.
Title: Business Trends and Outlook
Survey.
OMB Control Number: 0607–1022.
Form Number(s): This online survey
has no form number.
Type of Request: Regular submission,
Request for a Revision of a Currently
Approved Collection.
Number of Respondents: 795,000.
Average Hours per Response: 10
minutes.
Burden Hours: 132,500.
Needs and Uses: The mission of the
U.S. Census Bureau (Census Bureau) is
to serve as the leading source of quality
data about the nation’s people and
economy; to fulfill this mission, it is
necessary to innovate to produce more
detailed, more frequent, and more
timely data products. The Coronavirus
pandemic was an impetus for the
creation of new data products by the
Census Bureau to measure the
pandemic’s impact on the economy: the
Small Business Pulse Survey (SBPS)
and the weekly Business Formation
Statistics. Policymakers and other
Federal agency officials, media outlets,
and academia commended the Census
Bureau’s rapid response to their data
needs during the largest economic crisis
in recent American history. The Census
Bureau capitalized on the successes that
underlaid the high frequency data
collection and near real time data
dissemination engineered for the SBPS
by creating the Business Trends and
Outlook Survey (BTOS).

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BTOS uses ongoing data collection to
produce high frequency, timely, and
granular information about current
economic conditions and trends. BTOS
is the only biweekly business tendency
survey produced by the Federal
statistical system, providing unique and
detailed data during times of economic
or other emergencies. The BTOS target
population is all nonfarm employer
businesses with receipts of $1,000 or
more in the United States, the District
of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. The
current sample consists of
approximately 1.2 million businesses
split into six panels. Data collection
occurs every two weeks, and businesses
in each panel are asked to report once
every 12 weeks for one year. Current
BTOS data are representative of all
employer businesses (excluding farms)
in the U.S. economy and are published
every two weeks. The data are available
at the national and State levels, in
addition to the 25 most-populous
Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs).
North American Industry Classification
System (NAICS) sector, subsector, and
State by sector are also published, as are
employment size class, and sector by
employment size class data, according
to the same timeline.
Data from BTOS are currently used to
provide timely data to understand the
economic conditions being experienced
by businesses; BTOS provides near real
time data on key items such as revenue,
paid employees, hours worked as well
as inventories which was being added
in for the second sample collection year.
A new sample collection is conducted
each year.
BTOS also provides high level
information on the changing share of
businesses facing difficulties stemming
from supply chain issues, interest rate
changes, or weather events. Previously,
there had been few data sources
available to policymakers, media
outlets, and academia that delivered
near real-time insights into economic
trends and outlooks. BTOS data has
been used by the Small Business
Administration to evaluate the impact of
regulatory changes. The use of the BTOS
data (or additional requirements) is still
being determined by the Economic
Development Agency (EDA) to
understand the impact of natural
disasters on U.S. businesses. The EDA
will then guide the Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA) and/or
policymakers in assisting in economic
recovery support missions.
In the approved OMB package for
BTOS, the Census Bureau proposed an
incremental path to reach the full scope
of BTOS. The first scope expansion
proposed adding multi-unit businesses

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(those with more than one location or
establishment) to BTOS. BTOS was
limited in scope to include only singleunit businesses. Despite comprising a
relatively small share of the total
number of businesses, multi-unit (MU)
businesses are responsible for most of
the employment, payroll, and revenue/
sales in the United States and contribute
disproportionately to economic activity.
In addition, MU businesses are on
average larger than single-unit
businesses. Adding these businesses
helped ensure BTOS results are
representative of the full economy. The
Census Bureau still proposes an
incremental path to the final scope of
BTOS to learn at each implemented
stage and to allow for modifications
based on lessons learned or internal/
external stakeholder feedback in prior
iterations.
For the first year of BTOS, the content
remained unchanged at 26 questions.
For the second year, the Census Bureau
moved to a set of core questions and
supplemental content. Core content
includes measures of economic activity
that are broadly applicable across nonfarm sectors and are important across
the business cycle and during economic
or other emergencies. Core content is
also complementary to key items found
on other Economic surveys, such as
revenues, employees, hours, and
inventories. Core items may also
include concepts that may become core
topics, such as the artificial intelligence
questions that started in the second
year.
Supplemental content is added to the
BTOS instrument as needed and on a
periodic basis. It will be designed to
provide urgently needed data on an
emerging or current issue. The
supplement will include a set of
questions that perform a deeper dive
into a focused topic that requires timely
data. On average, the Census Bureau
estimates the supplemental questions
will impose an additional 10 minutes of
burden.
Consideration for core and
supplemental concepts will be based on
data consistency, how the questions
performed on the current BTOS, the
results of cognitive testing, stakeholder
feedback, and the ability to collect
complementary items on monthly,
quarterly, annual, or census programs to
provide context and benchmarking.
For future changes, the Census Bureau
will submit a request to OMB including
30 days of public comment announced
in the Federal Register to receive
approval to make any substantive
revisions to the content or methods of
the proposed survey, including
incremental scope changes. It is likely

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Federal Register / Vol. 89, No. 168 / Thursday, August 29, 2024 / Notices

new supplemental content will be
chosen for each year and an updated
instrument will be submitted to OMB
for review along with a 30-day Federal
Register Notice.
The Census Bureau is requesting the
addition of a new question to the core
set. This question expands on an
existing core question that currently
asks whether the business experienced
any monetary issues due to an extreme
weather event. The new question will
ask about the type of extreme weather
event, offering thirteen different options
plus a write-in choice. This new
question will only be asked if the
response to the previous question
indicates that monetary issues were
experienced. The addition of this
question aims to enhance our
understanding of how various weatherrelated events impact business
operations, including identifying
specific weather disruptions and
associated financial losses. This change
was requested by the Small Business
Administration.
In 2024, the second supplemental
questionnaire will address work-fromhome (WFH) from the business
perspective. Similar to the 2023 BTOS
core questions on artificial intelligence
(AI), a core WFH question will be
included in all cycles. This core
question will be a yes/no format
designed to capture potential seasonal
variations in WFH at the business level.
Establishing this baseline is crucial for
understanding seasonal patterns, as
preliminary cognitive testing indicated
that seasonality could significantly
affect certain industries.
The Coronavirus pandemic
emphasized the importance of remote
work for economic continuity. Postpandemic, work from home (WFH)
remains significant in many workplaces
but its extent at businesses and
businesses’ plans for the future of
remote work are not measured in a
timely fashion. Currently, WFH data
from a worker perspective is available
through 2024 via the Current Population
Survey (CPS), but business-level data is
only available through 2022 from the
Business Response Survey (BRS), which
is currently on hiatus. Results from the
Annual Business Survey through 2022
will be released in fall 2024. Timely
measures of WFH from the business
perspective will be valuable to
policymakers at all levels due to its
potential impact on housing markets,
commercial real estate, and urban
planning.
For sample year 3, we propose
changes to the content as detailed in
Attachments A and B of the Information
Collection Request (ICR) submitted to

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OMB for review. Attachment A outlines
the core questions for cycles 2 through
4 and includes the core plus
supplemental content for cycle 2. Based
on cognitive testing results, the burden
estimate for the core questions has
increased from approximately 9 minutes
to 10 minutes. The WFH supplement is
estimated to add an additional 10
minutes of burden to the core questions.
Frequency: Bi-weekly.
Respondent’s Obligation: Voluntary.
Legal Authority: Title 13 U.S.C. 131
and 182.
This information collection request
may be viewed at https://
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 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 and entering either the title of
the collection or the OMB Control
Number 0607–1022.
Sheleen Dumas,
Department PRA Clearance Officer, Office of
the Under Secretary for Economic Affairs,
Commerce Department.
[FR Doc. 2024–19410 Filed 8–28–24; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510–07–P

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

the FTZ Act and the FTZ Board’s
regulations, including section 400.14.
Dated: August 26, 2024.
Elizabeth Whiteman,
Executive Secretary.
[FR Doc. 2024–19428 Filed 8–28–24; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510–DS–P

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
Foreign-Trade Zones Board
[B–18–2024]

Foreign-Trade Zone (FTZ) 90;
Authorization of Production Activity;
PPC Broadband, Inc.; (Fiber Optic
Conduit); East Syracuse, New York
On April 26, 2024, PPC Broadband,
Inc. submitted a notification of
proposed production activity to the FTZ
Board for its facility within Subzone
90C, in East Syracuse, New York.
The notification was processed in
accordance with the regulations of the
FTZ Board (15 CFR part 400), including
notice in the Federal Register inviting
public comment (89 FR 37174, May 6,
2024). On August 26, 2024, the
applicant was notified of the FTZ
Board’s decision that no further review
of the proposed activity is warranted at
this time. The FTZ Board authorized the
production activity described in the
notification, subject to the FTZ Act and
the Board’s regulations, including
section 400.14. Polyester pull cord must
be admitted in privileged foreign status
(19 CFR 146.41).
Dated: August 26, 2024.
Elizabeth Whiteman,
Executive Secretary.
[FR Doc. 2024–19429 Filed 8–28–24; 8:45 am]

Foreign-Trade Zones Board

BILLING CODE 3510–DS–P

[B–17–2024]

Foreign-Trade Zone (FTZ) 21;
Authorization of Production Activity;
Patheon API Inc.; (Pharmaceutical
Products); Florence, South Carolina

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

On April 26, 2024, Patheon API Inc.
submitted a notification of proposed
production activity to the FTZ Board for
its facility within Subzone 21J, in
Florence, South Carolina.
The notification was processed in
accordance with the regulations of the
FTZ Board (15 CFR part 400), including
notice in the Federal Register inviting
public comment (87 FR 36753, May 3,
2024). On August 26, 2024, the
applicant was notified of the FTZ
Board’s decision that no further review
of the activity is warranted at this time.
The production activity described in the
notification was authorized, subject to

XRIN: 0694–XC107

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Bureau of Industry and Security
[Docket No. 240816–0219]

Request for Public Comments on the
Potential Market Impact of the
Proposed Fiscal Year 2026 Annual
Materials Plan From the National
Defense Stockpile Market Impact
Committee
Bureau of Industry and
Security, Department of Commerce.
ACTION: Notice of inquiry; request for
comments.
AGENCY:

The National Defense
Stockpile Market Impact Committee, cochaired by the Departments of

SUMMARY:

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