2012-7837. Proposed Information Collection; Wolf Livestock Demonstration Project Grant Program

AGENCY:

Fish and Wildlife Service, Interior.

ACTION:

Notice; request for comments.

SUMMARY:

We (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) will ask the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to approve the information collection (IC) described below. As required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 and as part of our continuing efforts to reduce paperwork and respondent burden, we invite the general public and other Federal agencies to take this opportunity to comment on this IC. We may not conduct or sponsor and a person is not required to respond to a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number.

DATES:

To ensure that we are able to consider your comments on this IC, we must receive them by June 1, 2012.

ADDRESSES:

Send your comments on the IC to the Service Information Collection Clearance Officer, Fish and Wildlife Service, MS 2042-PDM, 4401 North Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22203 (mail); or [e-mail] (email). Please include “1018-New” in the subject line of your comments.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

To request additional information about this IC, contact Hope Grey at [e-mail] (email) or 703-358-2482 (telephone).

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Abstract

Subtitle C of Title VI of the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 (Act) (Pub. L. 111-11) authorizes the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture to develop a Wolf Livestock Demonstration Project Grant Program (WLDPGP) to:

• Assist livestock producers in undertaking proactive, nonlethal activities to reduce the risk of livestock loss due to predation by wolves; and
• Compensate livestock producers for livestock losses due to such predation.

The Act directs that the program be established as a grant program to provide funding to States and tribes, that the Federal cost-share not exceed 50 percent, and that funds be expended equally between the two purposes. The Act included an authorization of appropriations up to $1 million each fiscal year for 5 years. For FY 2012, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Endangered Species Program will allocate the funding as competitively awarded grants to States and tribes with a prior history of wolf depredation. States with delisted wolf populations are eligible for funding, provided that they meet the eligibility criteria contained in Public Law 111-11.

The following additional criteria apply to all WLDPGP grants and must be satisfied for a project to receive WLDPGP funding:

• A proposal cannot include U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service full-time equivalent (FTE) costs.
• A proposal cannot seek funding for projects that serve to satisfy regulatory requirements of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) including complying with a biological opinion under section 7 or fulfilling commitments of a Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) under section 10, or for projects that serve to satisfy other Federal regulatory requirements (e.g., mitigation for Federal permits).
• State administrative costs must be assumed by the State or included in the proposal in accordance with Federal requirements.

We will publish notices of funding availability on the Grants.gov Web site at http://www.grants.gov as well as in the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance at http://cfda.gov. To compete for grant funds, eligible States and tribes must submit an application that describes in substantial detail project locations, project resources, future benefits, and other characteristics that meet the Wolf Livestock Demonstration Project purposes as listed above. In accordance with the Act, States and tribes that receive a grant must:

• Maintain files of all claims received under programs funded by the grant, including supporting documentation; and
• Submit an annual report that includes a summary of claims and expenditures under the program during the year and a description of any action taken on the claims.

Materials that describe the program and assist applicants in formulating project proposals will be available on our Web site at www.fws.gov/​grants Persons who do not have access to the Internet may obtain instructional materials by mail.

II. Data

OMB Control Number: 1018-XXXX. This is a new collection.

Title: Wolf Livestock Demonstration Project Grant Program.

Service Form Number: None.

Type of Request: Request for a new OMB control number.

Description of Respondents: States and Indian tribes.

Respondent's Obligation: Required to obtain or retain a benefit.

Frequency of Collection: On occasion.

Activity	Number of respondents	Number of responses	Completion time per response (hours)	Total annual burden hours
Applications	22	22	8	176
Reports	20	20	4	80
Recordkeeping	20	20	10	200
TOTALS	62	62		456

III. Comments

We invite comments concerning this information collection on:

• Whether or not the collection of information is necessary, including whether or not the information will have practical utility;
• The accuracy of our estimate of the burden for this collection of information;
• Ways to enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information to be collected; and
• Ways to minimize the burden of the collection of information on respondents.

Comments that you submit in response to this notice are a matter of public record. We will include or summarize each comment in our request to OMB to approve this IC. Before including your address, phone number, email address, or other personal identifying information in your comment, you should be aware that your entire comment, including your personal identifying information, may be made publicly available at any time. While you can ask us in your comment to withhold your personal identifying information from public review, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to do so.

Dated: March 27, 2012.

Tina A. Campbell,

Chief, Division of Policy and Directives Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.