2017-00833. Proposed Data Collection Submitted for Public Comment and Recommendations

AGENCY:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

ACTION:

Notice with comment period.

SUMMARY:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as part of its continuing efforts to reduce public burden and maximize the utility of government information, invites the general public and other Federal agencies to take this opportunity to comment on proposed and/or continuing information collections, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. This notice invites comment on a proposed information collection titled “Assessment of the Market for Electronic Technology for Underground Coal Mining Safety and Health Applications.” From this information collection project, NIOSH seeks to provide insight into what the most important barriers are from the perspective of the organizations that must purchase, use, approve, and manufacture these safety technologies.

DATES:

Written comments must be received on or before March 20, 2017.

ADDRESSES:

You may submit comments, identified by Docket No. CDC-2017-0002 by any of the following methods:

• Federal eRulemaking Portal: Regulations.gov. Follow the instructions for submitting comments.
• Mail: Leroy A. Richardson, Information Collection Review Office, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1600 Clifton Road NE., MS-D74, Atlanta, Georgia 30329.

Instructions: All submissions received must include the agency name and Docket Number. All relevant comments received will be posted without change to Regulations.gov, including any personal information provided. For access to the docket to read background documents or comments received, go to Regulations.gov.

Please note:

All public comment should be submitted through the Federal eRulemaking portal (Regulations.gov) or by U.S. mail to the address listed above.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

To request more information on the proposed project or to obtain a copy of the information collection plan and instruments, contact the Information Collection Review Office, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1600 Clifton Road NE., MS-D74, Atlanta, Georgia 30329; phone: [phone]; Email: [e-mail].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA) (44 U.S.C. 3501-3520), Federal agencies must obtain approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for each collection of information they conduct or sponsor. In addition, the PRA also requires Federal agencies to provide a 60-day notice in the Federal Register concerning each proposed collection of information, including each new proposed collection, each proposed extension of existing collection of information, and each reinstatement of previously approved information collection before submitting the collection to OMB for approval. To comply with this requirement, we are publishing this notice of a proposed data collection as described below.

Comments are invited on: (a) Whether the proposed collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of the agency, including whether the information shall have practical utility; (b) the accuracy of the agency's estimate of the burden of the proposed collection of information; (c) ways to enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information to be collected; (d) ways to minimize the burden of the collection of information on respondents, including through the use of automated collection techniques or other forms of information technology; and (e) estimates of capital or start-up costs and costs of operation, maintenance, and purchase of services to provide information. Burden means the total time, effort, or financial resources expended by persons to generate, maintain, retain, disclose or provide information to or for a Federal agency. This includes the time needed to review instructions; to develop, acquire, install and utilize technology and systems for the purpose of collecting, validating and verifying information, processing and maintaining information, and disclosing and providing information; to train personnel and to be able to respond to a collection of information, to search data sources, to complete and review the collection of information; and to transmit or otherwise disclose the information.

Proposed Project

Assessment of the Market for Electronic Technology for Underground Coal Mining Safety and Health Applications—New—National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Background and Brief Description

Underground coal mining in the U.S. is a relatively small industry (about 46,000 employees) that operates in a unique and hazardous work environment. The common presence of explosive gasses and other hazards creates special safety requirements for equipment, including safety and health protection technologies, used in underground coal mines. This request is for a 2-year approval period.

The MINER Act of 2006 assigned the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) the responsibility to enhance development of new mine safety and health protection technology and technological applications and to expedite the commercial availability and implementation of such technology. As part of this study, NIOSH seeks to identify the barriers to commercial availability and implementation of such technology in U.S. mines.

Experience to date has shown that there are many issues that the U.S. mining industry faces that create barriers to the availability and implementation of safety technologies, and we believe there are other more subtle reasons that we do not fully understand as a Government research agency. The data are intended to provide insight into what the most important barriers are from the perspective of the organizations that must purchase, use, approve, and manufacture these safety technologies.

NIOSH has an understanding of some of these barriers, however NIOSH is not an end user of these products. Thus the goal of the study is to provide a complete perspective of the barriers from the point of view of the mine operators and technology innovators, in order to improve the efficacy of the contract and grant awards that NIOSH administers under the authority of the MINER Act.

The Federal Mine Safety & Health Act of 1977, Section 501 authorizes the collection of this data. A CDC contractor will collect the required data.

NIOSH will identify 200 stakeholder organizations for structured interviews. Stakeholder organizations include those parties involved in the development, supply, use, and regulation of safety and health protection technologies relevant to underground coal mining. Because there is no nationally representative database of these stakeholder organizations, NIOSH will use web searches of supplier and mining company Web sites, online mining publications, trade association member directories, federal and state regulator Web sites, and university mining research and development programs to compile a list of 200 organizations. Representatives of NIOSH Office of Mining Safety and Health Research will also augment the search with their input.

Of the 200 stakeholder organizations, we expect to elicit participation from 100 and conduct 150 interviews (up to 2 interviews per organization).

A pre-call to each organization is expected to require 15 minutes to complete and the structured interview is expected to require 60 minutes to complete; including the time it may take respondents to look-up and retrieve needed information.

In addition, the workshop will be held in-person and last for nine hours. An average of six hours of travel is estimated for participants in the workshop. The estimated annualized burden hours for the respondents' time to participate in this information collection is 650 hours.

Estimated Annualized Burden Hours

Type of respondents	Form name	Number of respondents	Number of responses per respondent	Average burden per response (in hours)	Total burden (in hours)
Receptionists	Pre-Call	200	1	15/60	50
General and Operational Managers	Structured Interview	75	1	60/60	75
Industrial Production Managers		38	1	60/60	38
Architecture and Engineering Occupations		37	1	60/60	37
General and Operations Managers	Workshop	15	1	15	225
Industrial Production Managers		8	1	15	120
Architecture and Engineering Occupations		7	1	15	105
Total					650

Leroy A. Richardson,

Chief, Information Collection Review Office, Office of Scientific Integrity, Office of the Associate Director for Science, Office of the Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.