E9-12048. Notice of Submission of Proposed Information Collection to OMB; Emergency Comment Request; HUD NEPA ARRA Section 1609(c) Reporting

AGENCY:

Office of Community Planning and Development.

ACTION:

Notice of proposed information collection.

SUMMARY:

The proposed information collection requirement described below has been submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for emergency review and approval, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act. The Department is soliciting public comments on the subject proposal.

DATES:

Comments Due Date: May 26, 2009.

ADDRESSES:

Interested persons are invited to submit comments regarding this proposal. Comments must be received within seven (3) days from the date of this Notice. Comments should refer to the proposal by name and/or OMB approval number and should be sent to: Ms. Kimberly P. Nelson, HUD Desk Officer, Office of Management and Budget, New Executive Office Building, Washington, DC 20502; e-mail: [e-mail]; fax: [phone].

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Lillian Deitzer, Reports Management Officer, QDAM, Department of Housing and Urban Development, 451 Seventh Street, SW., Washington, DC 20410; e-mail: [e-mail]; telephone [phone]. This is not a toll-free number. Copies of available documents should be submitted to OMB and may be obtained from Ms. Deitzer.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

This Notice informs the public that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has submitted to OMB, for emergency processing, a proposed information collection for the Community Development Block Grant Recovery (CDBG-R) program, which is authorized under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act) of 2009. Title XII of Division A of the Recovery Act appropriated $1 billion to carry out the CDBG program under Title I of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 (42 U.S.C. 5301, et seq.) on an expedited basis. These funds will be distributed to grantees that received CDBG funding in Fiscal Year (FY) 2008 in accordance with the provisions of 42 U.S.C. 5306. HUD will administer these funds as the Community Development Block Grant Recovery (CDBG-R) funds and require a substantial amendment to the grantee's 2008 annual action plan as a condition of receiving funds. The formulas for the allocation of CDBG-R funds are the same as the formulas used for the annual allocation of CDBG funds to the states, entitlement grantees, non-entitlement counties in Hawaii, and Insular Areas. On February 25, 2009, HUD announced the list of the CDBG-R allocations, and these may be found at http://www.hud.gov/​recovery/​cdblock.cfm.

In addition, Section 1512 of the Recovery Act requires that not later than 10 days after the end of each calendar quarter, each recipient that received recovery funds from a federal agency shall submit a report to that agency that contains: (1) The total amount of recovery funds received from that agency; (2) the amount of recovery funds received that were expended or obligated to projects or activities; and (3) a detailed list of all projects or activities for which recovery funds were expended or obligated, including the name of the project or activity; a description of the project or activity; an evaluation of the completion status of the project or activity; an estimate of the number of jobs created and the number of jobs retained by the project or activity; and for infrastructure investments made by State and local governments, the purpose, total cost, and rationale of the agency for funding the infrastructure investment with funds made available under the Recovery Act and name of the person to contact at the agency if there are concerns with the infrastructure investment. Not later than 30 calendar days after the end of each calendar quarter, each agency that made Recovery Act funds available to any recipient shall make the information in reports submitted publicly available by posting the information on a Web site.

This Notice also lists the following information:

Title of Proposal: HUD NEPA ARRA Section 1609(c) Reporting.

Description of Information Collection: The temporary form will be provided by HUD to be used by grantees [i.e., Respondents] for the purpose of complying with the ARRA Section 1609(c) statutory requirement. Grantees who receive ARRA funding for projects must report on the status and progress of their projects and activities with respect to compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requirements and documentation. HUD will consolidate and transmit the information received from grantees to the Council on Environmental Quality and OMB for the Administration's reports to the House and Senate committees designated in the legislation.

OMB Control Number: 2506-Pending.

Agency Form Numbers: None.

Members of the Affected Public: Not-for-profit institutions, State, Local or Tribal Government.

Estimation of the total number of hours needed to prepare the information collection including number of responses, frequency of responses, and hours of responses: An estimation of the total number of reporting hours is 4 hours per response. The number of respondents is 6,000. The total number of hours requested is 12,000.

Authority: The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, 44 U.S.C. Chapter 35, as amended.

Dated: May 15, 2009.

Stephen A. Hill,

Acting Director, Policy and E-GOV, Officer, Office of the Chief Information Officer.