Federal Register / Vol. 69, No. 245 / Wednesday, December 22, 2004 / Notices 76791

NY030003 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

NY030008 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

NY030013 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

NY030017 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

NY030018 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

NY030026 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

NY030041 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

NY030066 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

Rhode Island 

RI030001 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

Volume II 

Virginia 

VA030005 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

VA030011 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

VA030018 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

VA030022 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

VA030023 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

VA030033 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

VA030034 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

VA030039 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

VA030046 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

VA030076 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

VA030085 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

VA030087 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

VA030088 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

West Virginia 

WV030003 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

WV030006 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

WV030010 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

Volume III 

Alabama 

AL030006 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

AL030033 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

Florida 

FL030012 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

FL030015 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

FL030017 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

Kentucky 

KY030001 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

KY030002 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

KY030007 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

KY030025 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

KY030027 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

KY030029 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

KY030035 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

Volume IV 

Indiana 

IN030001 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

IN030002 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

IN030003 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

IN030004 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

IN030005 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

IN030006 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

IN030008 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

IN030018 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

Volume V 

Kansas 

KS030007 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

KS030012 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

KS030016 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

KS030025 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

Missouri 

MO030001 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

MO030003 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

MO030006 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

MO030008 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

MO030010 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

MO030018 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

MO030019 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

MO030041 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

MO030043 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

MO030047 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

MO030051 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

MO030052 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

MO030055 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

MO030056 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

MO030059 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

Oklahoma 

OK030013 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

OK030014 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

OK030034 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

OK030037 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

Texas 

TX030003 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

TX030005 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

TX030007 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

TX030010 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

TX030014 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

TX030016 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

TX030017 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

TX030019 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

TX030033 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

TX030034 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

TX030037 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

TX030054 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

TX030060 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

TX030061 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

TX030063 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

TX030064 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

Volume VI 

North Dakota 

ND030004 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

ND030010 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

ND030011 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

ND030012 (Jun. 13, 2003) 

Volume VII 

California 

CA030009 (Jun. 13, 2003)

General Wage Determination 

Publication 

General wage determinations issued 

under the Davis-Bacon and related Acts, 

including those noted above, may be 

found in the Government Printing Office 

(GPO) document entitled ‘‘General Wage 

determinations Issued Under the DavisBacon And Related Acts’’. This 

publication is available at each of the 50 

Regional Government Depository 

Libraries and many of the 1,400 

Government Depository Libraries across 

the country. 

General wage determinations issued 

under the Davis-Bacon and related acts 

are available electronically at no cost on 

the Government Printing Office site at 

http://www.access.gpo.gov/davisbacon.

They are also available electronically by 

subscription to the Davis-Bacon Online 

Service (http://

davisbacon.fedworld.gov) of the 

National Technical Information Service 

(NTIS) of the U.S. Department of 

Commerce at 1–800–363–2068. This 

subscription offers value-added features 

such as electronic delivery of modified 

wage decisions directly to the user’s 

desktop, the ability to access prior wage 

decisions issued during the year, 

extensive Help desk Support, etc. 

Hard-copy subscriptions may be 

purchased from: Superintendent of 

Documents. U.S. Government Printing 

Office, Washington, DC 20402, (202) 

512–1800. 

When ordering hard-copy 

subscription(s), be sure to specify the 

State(s) of interest, since subscriptions 

may be ordered for any or all of the six 

separate Volumes, arranged by State. 

Subscriptions include an annual edition 

(issued in January or February) which 

includes all current general wage 

determinations for the States covered by 

each volume. Throughout the remainder 

of the year, regular weekly updates will 

be distributed to subscribers.

Signed at Washington, DC this 16th Day of 

December 2004. 

Terry Sullivan, 

Acting Chief, Branch of Construction Wage 

Determinations.

[FR Doc. 04–27935 Filed 12–21–04; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4510–27–M

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

Bureau of Labor Statistics 

Proposed Collection, Comment 

Request

ACTION: Notice.

SUMMARY: The Department of Labor, as 

part of its continuing effort to reduce 

paperwork and respondent burden, 

conducts a pre-clearance consultation 

program to provide the general public 

and Federal agencies with an 

opportunity to comment on proposed 

and/or continuing collections of 

information in accordance with the 

Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 

(PRA95) [44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(2)(A)]. This 

program helps to ensure that requested 

data can be provided in the desired 

format, reporting burden (time and 

financial resources) is minimized, 

collection instruments are clearly 

understood, and the impact of collection 

requirements on respondents can be 

properly assessed. The Bureau of Labor 

Statistics (BLS) is soliciting comments 

concerning the proposed extension of 

the ‘‘Producer Price Index Survey.’’ A 

copy of the proposed information 

collection request (ICR) can be obtained 

by contacting the individual listed 

below in the ADDRESSES section of this 

notice.

DATES: Written comments must be 

submitted to the office listed in the 

ADDRESSES section of this notice on or 

before February 22, 2005.

ADDRESSES: Send comments to Amy A. 

Hobby, BLS Clearance Officer, Division 

of Management Systems, Bureau of 

Labor Statistics, Room 4080, 2 

Massachusetts Avenue, NE., 

Washington, DC 20212, telephone 

76792 Federal Register / Vol. 69, No. 245 / Wednesday, December 22, 2004 / Notices 

number 202–691–7628. (This is not a 

toll free number.)

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Amy A. Hobby, BLS Clearance Officer, 

telephone number 202–691–7628. (See 

ADDRESSES section.)

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. Background 

The Producer Price Index (PPI), one of 

the Nation’s leading economic 

indicators, is used as a measure of price 

movements, as an indicator of 

inflationary trends, for inventory 

valuation, and as a measure of 

purchasing power of the dollar at the 

primary-market level. It also is used for 

market and economic research and as a 

basis for escalation in long-term 

contracts and purchase agreements. 

PPI data provide a description of the 

magnitude and composition of price 

change within the economy, and serve 

a wide range of governmental needs. 

These monthly indexes are closely 

followed and are viewed as sensitive 

indicators. Price data are vital in 

helping both the President and Congress 

set fiscal spending targets. PPIs are 

monitored by the Federal Reserve Board 

Open Market Committee to help decide 

monetary policy. The Department of 

Treasury and the Council of Economic 

Advisors use PPI data to help form and 

evaluate monetary and fiscal measures, 

and to help interpret the business 

environment. Furthermore, dollardenominated measures of economic 

performance, such as the Gross 

Domestic Product, require accurate 

price data in order to convert nominaldollar values to constant-dollar values. 

Inflation-free national income 

accounting figures are vital to fiscal and 

monetary policymakers when setting 

objectives. In addition, it is common to 

find one or more PPIs, alone or in 

combination with other measures, used 

to escalate the delivered price of goods 

for government purchases. 

PPI data are used by the private 

sector. Private industry uses PPI data for 

contract escalation. For one particular 

method of tax-related Last-In-First-Out 

(LIFO) inventory accounting, the 

Internal Revenue Service suggests that 

firms use PPI data. Private businesses 

make extensive use of industrial-price 

data for planning and operating. Price 

trends are used to assess market 

conditions. Firms commonly compare 

the prices they pay for material inputs 

and the prices they receive for products 

that they sell with changes in similar 

PPIs. 

Economic researchers and forecasters 

also use the PPI. Price indexes are 

widely used to probe and measure the 

interaction of market forces. Some 

examples of research topics that require 

extensive price data include: the 

identification of varying price 

elasticities and the degree of cost passthrough in the economy, the 

identification of potential lead and lag 

structures among price changes, and the 

identification of prices which exert 

major impacts throughout market 

structures.

A description of program 

enhancements that improve data 

completeness, streamline collection 

procedures, and reduce overall 

respondent burden follows. 

A. Disaggregation—Improvements 

made to disaggregation (i.e., item 

selection) procedures have helped to 

better define a publication structure that 

is: (1) Publishable in its entirety, (2) 

meets user needs, (3) continuous, and 

(4) permits meaningful classification of 

current production. Data now are 

collected using a method where pricequotation selection is spread across 

predetermined product categories that 

correspond to the complete output for a 

North American Industry Classification 

System (NAICS) industry. This 

modification nearly guarantees that the 

PPI will collect enough price quotations 

to populate more lightly weighted cells. 

B. Sampling—Modifications made to 

sampling procedures now permit the 

PPI to update weights of industry 

indexes without initiating a new set of 

respondents. This process change is 

called ‘‘recycling without resampling.’’

The PPI also has made it operationally 

feasible to augment the sample of price 

quotations for a single product line 

within a NAICS industry, rather than 

having to initiate an entirely new set of 

respondents when such needs arise. 

These improvements enable the PPI 

program to reduce both data-collection 

expenses and respondent burden, while 

permitting efficient reallocation of 

program resources. 

C. Publication—Historically, the PPI 

had been a family of indexes focusing 

on the mining, manufacturing, 

agriculture, and forestry sectors. 

However, the PPI’s mission now 

includes a mandate requiring the 

program work toward publication, 

wherever possible, of output price 

indexes for every six-digit NAICS 

industry, including coverage of nongoods producing industries. The PPI 

currently publishes 128 industry-based 

indexes for non-goods producing 

industries. PPI coverage efforts are now 

focusing on the development of price 

indexes that would track the 

construction sector of the U.S. economy. 

D. NAICS Classification—Effective 

with the release of data for January 

2004, the PPI converted its sampling, 

data collection, and industry-based 

publication structures to the NAICS. 

Through December 2003, PPI’s industrybased procedures were linked to the 

Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) 

organizational system. 

E. Electronic Data Collection—The 

BLS currently is developing electronic 

data collection procedures that will 

reduce respondent burden and increase 

efficiency. In addition, the BLS 

continues to investigate and pursue 

technological solutions that permit 

secure e-mail transactions between the 

BLS and its respondents. However, 

these technological improvements also 

must safeguard the confidential 

respondent information the BLS 

receives. 

II. Desired Focus of Comments 

The BLS is particularly interested in 

comments that: 

• Evaluate whether the proposed 

collection of information is necessary 

for the proper performance of the 

functions of the agency, including 

whether the information will have 

practical utility; 

• Evaluate the accuracy of the 

agency’s estimate of the burden of the 

proposed collection of information, 

including the validity of the 

methodology and assumptions used; 

• Enhance the quality, utility, and 

clarity of the information to be 

collected; and 

• Minimize the burden of the 

collection of information on those who 

are to respond, including through the 

use of appropriate automated, 

electronic, mechanical, or other 

technological collection techniques or 

other forms of information technology, 

e.g., permitting electronic submissions 

of responses. 

III. Current Action 

Office of Management and Budget 

clearance is being sought for the 

Producer Price Index Survey. 

Type of Review: Extension of a 

currently approved collection. 

Agency: Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

Title: Producer Price Index Survey. 

OMB Number: 1220–0008. 

Affected Public: Business and other 

for-profit.

Federal Register / Vol. 69, No. 245 / Wednesday, December 22, 2004 / Notices 76793

Form Total

respondents Frequency Totalresponses 

Average time 

per response

(minutes) 

Estimated total 

burden

(hours) 

BLS 1810A, A1, B, C, C1, and E ..... 6,340 once .................................................. 6,340 120 12,680 

BLS 473P .......................................... 26,250 monthly ............................................. 1,260,000 18 378,000 

Totals ......................................... 32,590 ........................................................... 1,266,340 ........................ 390,680 

Total Burden Cost (Capital/Startup):

$0. 

Total Burden Cost (Operating/

Maintenance): $0. 

Comments submitted in response to 

this notice will be summarized and/or 

included in the request for Office of 

Management and Budget approval of the 

information collection request; they also 

will become a matter of public record.

Signed at Washington, DC, this 7th day of 

December 2004. 

Cathy Kazanowski, 

Chief, Division of Management Systems, 

Bureau of Labor Statistics.

[FR Doc. 04–27974 Filed 12–21–04; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4510–24–P

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

Bureau of Labor Statistics 

Proposed Collection, Comment 

Request

ACTION: Notice.

SUMMARY: The Department of Labor, as 

part of its continuing effort to reduce 

paperwork and respondent burden, 

conducts a pre-clearance consultation 

program to provide the general public 

and Federal agencies with an 

opportunity to comment on proposed 

and/or continuing collections of 

information in accordance with the 

Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 

(PRA95) (44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(2)(A)). This 

program helps to ensure that requested 

data can be provided in the desired 

format, reporting burden (time and 

financial resources) is minimized, 

collection instruments are clearly 

understood, and the impact of collection 

requirements on respondents can be 

properly assessed. The Bureau of Labor 

Statistics (BLS) is soliciting comments 

concerning the proposed revision of the 

‘‘Report on Employment, Payroll, and 

Hours (BLS–790).’’ A copy of the 

proposed information collection request 

(ICR) can be obtained by contacting the 

individual listed below in the 

ADDRESSES section of this notice.

DATES: Written comments must be 

submitted to the office listed in the 

ADDRESSES section of this notice on or 

before February 22, 2005.

ADDRESSES: Send comments to Amy A. 

Hobby, BLS Clearance Officer, Division 

of Management Systems, Bureau of 

Labor Statistics, Room 4080, 2 

Massachusetts Avenue NE., 

Washington, DC 20212, telephone 

number 202–691–7628. (This is not a 

toll free number.)

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Amy A. Hobby, BLS Clearance Officer, 

telephone number 202–691–7628. (See 

ADDRESSES section.)

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. Background 

The Current Employment Statistics 

(CES) Survey is a Federal/State program 

of the BLS. It produces monthly 

estimates of total employment, woman 

worker employment, production or 

nonsupervisory worker employment, 

and hours, and earnings for production 

or nonsupervisory workers based on a 

sample of U.S. nonagricultural 

establishments. Information for these 

estimates is derived from a sample of 

approximately 283,000 reports, as of 

September 2004. Each month, these 

firms report their employment, payroll, 

and hours on forms identified as the 

BLS–790. All of these reports are 

collected under a probability based 

sample design. 

A list of all form types currently used 

is included below in the Current Action 

section of this notice. Respondents 

receive variations of the basic collection 

forms, depending on their industry. The 

BLS is requesting approval through 

February 29, 2008. 

The CES program is a voluntary 

program under Federal statute. 

Reporting to the State agencies is 

voluntary in all but five States 

(California, Oregon, Washington, North 

Carolina, South Carolina) and Puerto 

Rico, and, to our knowledge, the States 

that do have mandatory reporting rarely 

exercise their authority. The collection 

form’s confidentiality statement cites 

the Confidential Information Protection 

and Statistical Efficiency Act of 2002 

and mentions the State mandatory 

reporting authority. 

Automated data collection methods 

are now used for most of the CES 

sample. Approximately 86,000 reports 

are received through Electronic Data 

Interchange and 76,000 reports are 

collected using Touchtone Data Entry, 

as of September 2004. Computer 

Assisted Telephone Interviewing is the 

third largest mode, accounting for 

54,000 reports. In comparison, only 

8,400 reports are collected by mail. Fax 

also is a significant collection mode, as 

36,000 reports are collected via this 

method. The balance of the sample is 

collected through other automated 

methods including web and submission 

of tapes and diskettes. 

Research on use of the World Wide 

Web for data collection is continuing. 

The BLS is continuing to evaluate Web 

based data collection and investigating 

approaches for optimizing response 

rates. The BLS also is testing the 

feasibility of fax with optical character 

recognition (OCR) collection for the 

CES. OCR technology has improved to 

the point where respondents can fax 

their data to the BLS and the incoming 

fax can be automatically processed into 

a data set. 

II. Desired Focus of Comments 

The BLS is particularly interested in 

comments that: 

• Evaluate whether the proposed 

collection of information is necessary 

for the proper performance of the 

functions of the agency, including 

whether the information will have 

practical utility; 

• Evaluate the accuracy of the 

agency’s estimate of the burden of the 

proposed collection of information, 

including the validity of the 

methodology and assumptions used; 

• Enhance the quality, utility, and 

clarity of the information to be 

collected; and 

• Minimize the burden of the 

collection of information on those who 

are to respond, including through the 

use of appropriate automated, 

electronic, mechanical, or other 

technological collection techniques or 

other forms of information technology, 

e.g., permitting electronic submissions 

of responses.

III. Topic for Special Consideration 

The BLS is introducing the collection 

of several new data items and 

eliminating one item. The new items are 

All Employee Payroll, All Employee 

Commissions, All Employee Hours, and 

Gross Monthly Earnings. The BLS is 

eliminating collection of the Women