74402 Federal Register / Vol. 88, No. 209 / Tuesday, October 31, 2023 / Notices 

purposes and is not intended for release 

outside of the agency (if released, 

procedures outlined in Question 16 will 

be followed); 

• Information gathered will not be 

used for the purpose of substantially 

informing influential policy decisions; 

• Information gathered will yield 

qualitative information; the collections 

will not be designed or expected to 

yield statistically reliable results or used 

as though the results are generalizable to 

the population of study; 

• The collections are voluntary; 

• The collections are low-burden for 

respondents (based on considerations of 

total burden hours, total number of 

respondents, or burden-hours per 

respondent) and are low-cost for both 

the respondents and the Federal 

Government; 

• The collections are noncontroversial and do not raise issues of 

concern to other Federal agencies; 

• Any collection is targeted to the 

solicitation of opinions from 

respondents who have experience with 

the program or may have experience 

with the program in the near future; and 

• With the exception of information 

needed to provide remunerations for 

participants of focus groups and 

cognitive laboratory studies, personally 

identifiable information (PII) is 

collected only to the extent necessary 

and is not retained. 

As a general matter, information 

collections will not result in any new 

system of records containing privacy 

information and will not ask questions 

of a sensitive nature, such as sexual 

behavior and attitudes, religious beliefs, 

and other matters that are commonly 

considered private. 

Below we provide projected average 

burden estimates for the next three 

years: 

Estimated Annual Number of 

Respondents: 10,000. 

Responses per Respondent: 1. 

Annual Responses: 10,000. 

Average Minutes per Response: 15 

minutes. 

Annual Burden Hours: 30,000 hours. 

Frequency: On occasion. 

Dated: October 26, 2023. 

Taniesha Tolbert, 

Supervisory Records Information 

Management Specialist, Bureau for 

Management, Office of Management Services, 

Information and Records Division. 

[FR Doc. 2023–23986 Filed 10–30–23; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 6116–01–P 

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 

Agricultural Marketing Service 

[Doc. No. AMS–TM–23–0066] 

Notice of Availability of the 

Programmatic Environmental 

Assessment for AMS Local Meat 

Capacity Grant Program 

AGENCY: Agricultural Marketing Service, 

USDA. 

ACTION: Notice of availability; request 

for public comments. 

SUMMARY: The Agricultural Marketing 

Service (AMS) announces that the Draft 

Programmatic Environmental 

Assessment (PEA) for the Local Meat 

Capacity Grant Program (Local MCap) is 

available for public review and 

comments. 

DATES: Comments must be received on 

or before November 30, 2023 to be 

assured consideration. 

ADDRESSES: Interested persons are 

invited to submit written comments 

concerning this notice. Comments may 

be submitted electronically by Email: 

LocalMCap@usda.gov. Comments 

should reference the document number 

and the date and page number of this 

issue of the Federal Register. AMS will 

address comments received on the draft 

PEA in the final PEA. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Betsy Rakola, Associate Deputy 

Administrator, Transportation and 

Marketing Program; Telephone: (202)- 

690–1300; Email: LocalMCap@usda.gov. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

Background 

The Draft PEA analyzes and discloses 

the potential environmental impacts 

associated with the establishment of the 

Local Meat Capacity Grant Program 

(Local MCap). AMS has proposed to 

fund grants to support independently 

owned meat and poultry processing 

businesses. These grants will help them 

provide additional and more efficient 

processing options for local livestock 

producers by modernizing, increasing, 

diversifying, and decentralizing meat 

and poultry processing capacity, 

including support for rendering. 

This program will expand processing 

capacity for small and midsized meat 

and poultry processors, which are 

particularly vulnerable to disruption. It 

will also increase capacity and promote 

competition in the meat and poultry 

processing sector. Based on public 

input, USDA identified an urgent need 

to expand and diversify meat and 

poultry processing capacity. 

The Local MCap Program is 

authorized by section 1001 (b)(4) of the 

American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) (Pub. 

L. 117–2), which funds ‘‘loans and 

grants and other assistance to maintain 

and improve food and agricultural 

supply chain resiliency.’’ Recipients of 

funding from this proposed program 

would be allowed 36 months to 

complete work funded by the grant 

awards. 

The environmental impacts of 

funding projects to enhance existing 

meat and poultry processing facilities 

have been considered in a manner 

consistent with the provisions of the 

National Environmental Policy Act 

(NEPA) of 1969, Public Law 91–190, 42 

U.S.C. 4321–4347, as amended. 

A Draft PEA has been prepared, and 

based on this analysis, AMS has 

preliminarily determined there will not 

be a significant impact to the human 

environment. As a result, an 

Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) 

has not been initiated (40 CFR 1501.6). 

AMS intends for this PEA to create 

efficiencies by establishing a framework 

that can be used for ‘‘tiering,’’ where 

appropriate, to project-specific actions 

that require additional analysis. As 

decisions on specific applications are 

made, to the extent additional NEPA 

analysis is required, environmental 

review will be conducted to supplement 

the analysis set forth in this PEA. 

The Draft PEA is available for review 

online at the program website: https:// 

www.ams.usda.gov/services/grants/ 

localmcap. 

Comments Invited 

Interested stakeholders are invited to 

submit comments on the Draft PEA, as 

specified in the ADDRESSES section of 

this Notice. The most helpful comments 

reference a specific recommendation for 

changing AMS’ proposed approach to 

assessing environmental impacts, 

explain the reason for any 

recommended change, and include 

supporting information. AMS will 

consider all comments received on or 

before the closing date. 

Melissa Bailey, 

Associate Administrator, Agricultural 

Marketing Service. 

[FR Doc. 2023–23936 Filed 10–30–23; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE P 

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 

Submission for OMB Review; 

Comment Request 

The Department of Agriculture will 

submit the following information 

collection requirement(s) to OMB for 

review and approval under the 

Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, 


lotter on DSK11XQN23PROD with NOTICES1