04-10029. Information Collection Submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for Approval Under the Paperwork Reduction Act; Division of International Conservation Requests for Proposals

AGENCY:

Fish and Wildlife Service, Interior.

ACTION:

Notice; request for comments.

SUMMARY:

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (We) has submitted the collection of information described below to OMB for approval under the provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act. An estimate of the information collection burden is included in this notice. If you wish to obtain copies of the proposed information collection requirement, related forms, and/or explanatory material, contact the Service Information Collection Clearance Officer at the address listed below.

DATES:

OMB has up to 60 days to approve or disapprove information collection but may respond after 30 days. Therefore, to ensure maximum consideration, you must submit comments on or before June 3, 2004.

ADDRESSES:

Submit your comments on this information collection to the Desk Officer for the Department of the Interior at OMB-OIRA via facsimile or electronic mail: [phone] (fax); or [e-mail] (electronic mail). Please provide a copy of your comments to the Fish and Wildlife Service's Information Collection Clearance Officer via postal mail, electronic mail, or facsimile: 4401 N. Fairfax Dr., MS 222 ARLSQ, Arlington, VA 22203; [e-mail] (electronic mail); or [phone] (fax).

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

To request a copy of the information collection submission, explanatory information, and/or related forms, contact Anissa Craghead, Information Collection Clearance Officer, at 703-358-2445 or [e-mail].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

OMB regulations at 5 CFR 1320, which implement provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.), require that interested members of the public and affected agencies be given an opportunity to comment on information collection and record keeping activities (see 5 CFR 1320.8(d)). We have submitted a request to OMB to approve: (1) The revision of the collection of information for four of our multinational species conservation grant fund requests for proposals (Form numbers 3-2214 through 3-2217), and (2) the addition of two new requests for proposals (Form numbers 3-2263, 3-2263S and 3-2264). We are requesting a three-year term of approval for this information collection activity. Federal agencies 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. The OMB control number for this collection of information is 1018-0123.

Revisions to the currently approved requests for proposals include updating application forms to: (1) Comply with new Government-wide policy directing all funding programs to request Dun & Bradstreet registration from all applicants; (2) reformat to comply with new Government-wide policies prescribing a standard RFP format; (3) add additional instructions for applicants; (4) request from domestic applicants the submission of standard forms 424, 424a, 424b and DI 2010; and (5) reformat the application cover page form to fit on one page. In addition, two new requests for proposals have been added to the information collection in order to meet our obligations under the requirements of the Convention on Nature Protection and Wildlife Preservation in the Western Hemisphere. Form 3-2263, one of the two new requests for proposals, and its associated form will be translated into Spanish for the convenience of our Mexican applicants. The Spanish version of that form is assigned form number 3-2263S. The new requests for proposals (forms 3-2263, 3-2263S, and 3-2264) are noted in the table below. In addition, this information collection is currently titled, “Multinational Species Conservation Fund Requests for Proposals.” Due to the addition of two new requests for proposals that are not part of the Multinational Species Conservation Fund, we are proposing to change the title of this information collection to “Division of International Conservation Requests for Proposals.”

We published a notice inviting public comment on this information collection in the Federal Register on December 10, 2003 (68 FR 68939). The comment period lasted until February 9, 2004. We did not receive any comments during the comment period. In addition to the Federal Register notice, the Division of International Conservation solicited comments from several previous applicants related to: the clarity of the submission instructions; the estimated length of time to complete a submission; and any suggestions for improving the documents. The comments received included: (1) A suggestion to define a length limit, font size, font type, paper size, and margin sizes for the narrative portion of each proposal; (2) a suggestion to rearrange the contents of the Request for Proposals; (3) positive support for the development of an online fillable cover page form; and (4) confirmation that increasing our estimate of hours to complete a request to 12 hours was appropriate and more accurate. We did not make any changes based on the comments received. In the case of item (1), we did not choose to restrict items such as paper size or font type as our non-domestic applicants do not always have access to letter-size paper and/or access to computers that would allow conformity to our word processing standards. In addition, our proposal requests range drastically in the amounts requested and in complexity of work to be conducted. For this reason, we did not choose to limit the length of the narrative. Regarding item (2), we followed the new standard proposal format and standard data elements as prescribed by OMB for posting Federal financial assistance funding opportunities and did not consider ourselves responsible for considering public comment on the prescribed format. This notice provides an additional 30 days in which to comment on the information collection.

The information obtained from the first four requests for proposals listed below will be used to select conservation projects for grant funding in accordance with the criteria in several Acts of Congress. The Acts of Congress include the African Elephant Conservation Act, as amended (16 U.S.C. 4201-45), the Rhinoceros and Tiger Conservation Act, as amended (16 U.S.C. 5301-06), the Asian Elephant Conservation Act (16 U.S.C. 4261-4266), and the Great Ape Conservation Act (16 U.S.C. 6301-6303). The information obtained from the final two requests for proposals will be used to select conservation projects for grant funding in accordance with the U.S. Government's obligations under the Western Hemisphere Convention, and authorized by the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (16 U.S.C. 1531-44). The following table lists the requests for proposals, with their respective burden estimates, that we submitted to OMB for approval under the Paperwork Reduction Act.

Name of request for proposals (RFP)	Form number	Estimated time to complete	Total annual responses	Total annual burden hours
African Elephant Conservation Fund RFP	3-2214	12	60	720
Rhinoceros and Tiger Conservation Fund RFP	3-2215	12	70	840
Asian Elephant Conservation Fund RFP	3-2216	12	50	600
Great Ape Conservation Fund RFP	3-2217	12	60	720
Wildlife Without Borders-Mexico RFP*	3-2263 3-2263S	12	40	480
Wildlife Without Borders-Latin America & the Caribbean RFP*	3-2264	12	55	660
*Note: These are new forms.

Title: Division of International Conservation Requests for Proposals.

OMB Number: 1018-0123.

Service Form Numbers: 3-2214 through 3-2217, 3-2263, 3-2263S and 2-2264.

Frequency of Collection: Annually.

Description of Respondents: Foreign governments; domestic and foreign non-governmental organizations and individuals.

Total Annual Responses: 335 responses.

Total Annual Burden Hours: 4,020 hours.

We again invite comments concerning this collection on: (1) Whether the collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of the agency, including whether the information will have practical utility; (2) the accuracy of the agency's estimate of burden on the public; (3) ways to enhance the quality, utility and clarity of the information to be collected; and (4) ways to minimize the burden of the collection of information on those who are to respond.

Dated: April 27, 2004.

Anissa Craghead,

Information Collection Clearance Officer, Fish and Wildlife Service.