2016-30764. Information Collection Being Submitted for Emergency Review and Approval to the Office of Management and Budget

AGENCY:

Federal Communication Commission.

ACTION:

Notice and request for comments.

SUMMARY:

The Federal Communications Commission (Commission or FCC), as part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork burden, invites the general public and other Federal agencies to take this opportunity to comment on the following information collection(s), as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) of 1995. Comments are requested concerning: (a) Whether the proposed collection(s) of information is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of the Commission, including whether the information shall have practical utility; (b) the accuracy of the Commission's burden estimate; (c) ways to enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information collected; (d) ways to minimize the burden of the collection(s) of information on the respondents, including the use of automated collection techniques or other forms of information technology; and (e) ways to further reduce the information burden for small business concerns with fewer than 25 employees.

The FCC may not conduct or sponsor a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Control Number. No person shall be subject to any penalty for failing to comply with a collection of information subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) that does not display a valid OMB Control Number.

DATES:

Written Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) comments should be submitted on or before January 12, 2017.

If you anticipate that you will be submitting comments, but find it difficult to do so within the period of time allowed by this notice, you should advise the FCC contact listed below as soon as possible.

ADDRESSES:

Direct all PRA comments to Kimberly Keravuori, Office of Management and Budget, via fax at 202-395-5167 or via email at [e-mail]. Also, please submit your PRA comments to the FCC by email at [e-mail].

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Nicole Ongele, Office of the Managing Director, FCC at [phone].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

The Commission is requesting that OMB approve this revised information collection under the emergency processing provisions of the PRA, 5 CFR 1320.13.

OMB Control Number: 3060-XXXX.

Title: Reverse Auction (Auction 1001) Incentive Payment Instructions from the Reverse Auction Winning Bidder.

Form Number: FCC Form 1875.

Type of Review: New collection.

Respondents: Business or other for-profit, not-for-profit institutions and state, local or tribal government.

Number of Respondents and Responses: 750 respondents; 1,500 responses.

Estimated Time per Response: 2.5 hours.

Frequency of Response: One-time reporting requirement.

Obligation to Respond: Required to obtain or retain benefits. Statutory authority for this information collection is contained in the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012, Pub. L. 112-96 (Spectrum Act) § 6403(a)(1).

Total Annual Burden: 3,750 hours.

Total Annual Cost: No Cost.

Privacy Act Impact Assessment: No impact(s).

Nature and Extent of Confidentiality: The information collection includes information identifying bank accounts and providing account and routing numbers to access those accounts. FCC considers that information to be records not routinely available for public inspection under 47 CFR 0.457, and exempt from disclosure under FOIA exemption 4 (5 U.S.C. 552(b)(4)).

Needs and Uses: The Federal Communications Commission seeks emergency processing under the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA), 5 CFR 1320.13. The Commission is requesting OMB approval for this new information collection. The Spectrum Act mandates “a reverse auction to determine the amount of compensation that each broadcast television licensee would accept in return for voluntarily relinquishing some or all of its broadcast television spectrum usage rights in order to make spectrum available for assignment through a system of competitive bidding”.^[1] The Commission conducted notice-and-comment rulemaking to implement the Spectrum Act, and ruled in the Incentive Auction Report and Order that:

“we adopt the Commission's proposal to require successful bidders in the reverse auction to submit additional information to facilitate incentive payments As mentioned in the NPRM, we envision that the information would be submitted on standardized incentive payment forms similar to the Automated Clearing House (“ACH”) forms unsuccessful bidders in typical spectrum license auctions use to request refunds of their deposits and upfront payments. This information collection is necessary to facilitate incentive payments and should not be burdensome to successful bidders. Specifically, without further instruction and bank account information from successful bidders, the Commission would not know where to send the incentive payments.” [footnotes omitted] ^[2]

The information collection for which we are requesting approval is the standardized incentive payment form referred to in the paragraph above.

Federal Communications Commission.

Marlene H. Dortch,

Secretary, Office of the Secretary.

Footnotes

1.  Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012, Public Law 112-96 (Spectrum Act) § 6403(a)(1).

2.  Expanding the Economic and Innovation Opportunities of Spectrum Through Incentive Auctions, GN Docket No. 12-268, Report and Order, 29 FCC Rcd 6567 (2014) (“Incentive Auction R&O”) at 537.