35032 Federal Register / Vol. 83, No. 142 / Tuesday, July 24, 2018 / Notices 

• evaluate the accuracy of the 

agency’s estimate of the burden of the 

proposed collections of information, 

including the validity of the 

methodologies and assumptions used; 

• enhance the quality, utility, and 

clarity of the information to be 

collected; and 

• minimize the burden of the 

collections 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 submission of 

responses. 

Stephanie Cibinic, 

Deputy Assistant General Counsel for 

Regulatory Affairs, Pension Benefit Guaranty 

Corporation. 

[FR Doc. 2018–15806 Filed 7–23–18; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 7709–02–P 

RAILROAD RETIREMENT BOARD 

Proposed Collection; Comment 

Request 

SUMMARY: In accordance with the 

requirement of Section 3506 (c)(2)(A) of 

the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 

which provides opportunity for public 

comment on new or revised data 

collections, the Railroad Retirement 

Board (RRB) will publish periodic 

summaries of proposed data collections. 

Comments are invited on: (a) Whether 

the proposed information collection is 

necessary for the proper performance of 

the functions of the agency, including 

whether the information has practical 

utility; (b) the accuracy of the RRB’s 

estimate of the burden of the collection 

of the information; (c) ways to enhance 

the quality, utility, and clarity of the 

information to be collected; and (d) 

ways to minimize the burden related to 

the collection of information on 

respondents, including the use of 

automated collection techniques or 

other forms of information technology. 

1. Title and purpose of information 

collection: Employee’s Certification; 

OMB 3220–0140. 

Section 2 of the Railroad Retirement 

Act (RRA), provides for the payment of 

an annuity to the spouse or divorced 

spouse of a retired railroad employee. 

For the spouse or divorced spouse to 

qualify for an annuity, the RRB must 

determine if any of the employee’s 

current marriage to the applicant is 

valid. 

The requirements for obtaining 

documentary evidence to determine 

valid marital relationships are 

prescribed in 20 CFR 219.30 through 

219.35. Section 2(e) of the RRA requires 

that an employee must relinquish all 

rights to any railroad employer service 

before a spouse annuity can be paid. 

The RRB uses Form G–346, 

Employee’s Certification, to obtain the 

information needed to determine 

whether the employee’s current 

marriage is valid. Form G–346 is 

completed by the retired employee who 

is the husband or wife of the applicant 

for a spouse annuity. Completion is 

required to obtain a benefit. One 

response is requested of each 

respondent. The RRB proposes no 

changes to Form G–346. 

Form G–346sum, Employee 

Certification Summary, which mirrors 

the information collected on Form G– 

346, is used when an employee, after 

being interviewed by an RRB field office 

representative, ‘‘signs’’ the form using 

an alternative signature method known 

as ‘‘attestation.’’ Attestation refers to the 

action taken by the RRB field office 

representative to confirm and annotate 

the RRB’s records of the applicant’s 

affirmation under penalty of perjury that 

the information provided is correct and 

the applicant’s agreement to sign the 

form by proxy. The RRB proposes no 

changes to Form G–346sum. 

ESTIMATE OF ANNUAL RESPONDENT BURDEN

Form No. Annual 

responses 

Time 

(min) 

Burden 

(hrs) 

G–346 .......................................................................................................................................... 4,220 5 352 

G–346sum ................................................................................................................................... 2,100 5 175 

Total ...................................................................................................................................... 6,320 ........................ 527 

2. Title and purpose of information 

collection: Railroad Separation 

Allowance or Severance Pay Report; 

OMB 3220–0173. 

Section 6 of the Railroad Retirement 

Act provides for a lump-sum payment to 

an employee or the employee’s 

survivors equal to the Tier II taxes paid 

by the employee on a separation 

allowance or severance payment for 

which the employee did not receive 

credits toward retirement. The lumpsum is not payable until retirement 

benefits begin to accrue or the employee 

dies. Also, Section 4(a–1) (iii) of the 

Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act 

provides that a railroad employee who 

is paid a separation allowance is 

disqualified for unemployment and 

sickness benefits for the period of time 

the employee would have to work to 

earn the amount of the allowance. The 

reporting requirements are specified in 

20 CFR 209.14. 

In order to calculate and provide 

payments, the Railroad Retirement 

Board (RRB) must collect and maintain 

records of separation allowances and 

severance payments which were subject 

to Tier II taxation from railroad 

employers. The RRB uses Form BA–9, 

Report of Separation Allowance or 

Severance Pay, to obtain information 

from railroad employers concerning the 

separation allowances and severance 

payments made to railroad employees 

and/or the survivors of railroad 

employees. Employers currently have 

the option of submitting their reports on 

paper Form BA–9, (or in like format) on 

a CD–ROM, or by File Transfer Protocol 

(FTP), or Secure Email. Completion is 

mandatory. One response is requested of 

each respondent. The RRB proposes no 

changes to Form BA–9. 

ESTIMATE OF ANNUAL RESPONDENT BURDEN

Form No. Annual 

responses 

Time 

(minutes) 

Burden 

(hours) 

BA–9 (Paper) ............................................................................................................................... 100 76 127 

BA–9 (CD–ROM) ......................................................................................................................... 40 76 51 

BA–9 (Secure Email) ................................................................................................................... 60 76 76 


jstallworth on DSKBBY8HB2PROD with NOTICES
Federal Register / Vol. 83, No. 142 / Tuesday, July 24, 2018 / Notices 35033 

ESTIMATE OF ANNUAL RESPONDENT BURDEN—Continued 

Form No. Annual 

responses 

Time 

(minutes) 

Burden 

(hours) 

BA–9 (FTP) .................................................................................................................................. 160 76 203 

Total ...................................................................................................................................... 360 ........................ 457 

Additional Information or Comments: 

To request more information or to 

obtain a copy of the information 

collection justification, forms, and/or 

supporting material, contact Dana 

Hickman at (312) 751–4981 or 

Dana.Hickman@RRB.GOV. Comments 

regarding the information collection 

should be addressed to Brian Foster, 

Railroad Retirement Board, and 844 

North Rush Street, Chicago, Illinois 

60611–1275 or emailed to Brian.Foster@

rrb.gov. Written comments should be 

received within 60 days of this notice. 

Brian Foster, 

Clearance Officer. 

[FR Doc. 2018–15755 Filed 7–23–18; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 7905–01–P 

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE 

COMMISSION 

[Release No. 34–83662; File No. SR–ICC– 

2018–008] 

Self-Regulatory Organizations; ICE 

Clear Credit LLC; Notice of Filing of 

Proposed Rule Change Relating to 

ICC’s Risk Management Model 

Description Document and ICC’s Risk 

Management Framework 

July 18, 2018. 

Pursuant to Section 19(b)(1) of the 

Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 15 

U.S.C. 78s(b)(1) and Rule 19b–4, 17 CFR 

240.19b–4, notice is hereby given that 

on July 5, 2018, ICE Clear Credit LLC 

(‘‘ICC’’) filed with the Securities and 

Exchange Commission the proposed 

rule change as described in Items I, II 

and III below, which Items have been 

prepared by ICC. The Commission is 

publishing this notice to solicit 

comments on the proposed rule change 

from interested persons. 

I. Clearing Agency’s Statement of the 

Terms of Substance of the Proposed 

Rule Change, Security-Based Swap 

Submission, or Advance Notice 

The principal purpose of the 

proposed rule change is to make 

revisions to the ICC Risk Management 

Model Description Document and the 

ICC Risk Management Framework 

related to the transition from a stressbased approach to a Monte Carlo-based 

methodology for the spread response 

and recovery rate (‘‘RR’’) sensitivity 

response components of the Initial 

Margin model. These revisions do not 

require any changes to the ICC Clearing 

Rules. 

II. Clearing Agency’s Statement of the 

Purpose of, and Statutory Basis for, the 

Proposed Rule Change, Security-Based 

Swap Submission, or Advance Notice 

In its filing with the Commission, ICC 

included statements concerning the 

purpose of and basis for the proposed 

rule change, security-based swap 

submission, or advance notice and 

discussed any comments it received on 

the proposed rule change, securitybased swap submission, or advance 

notice. The text of these statements may 

be examined at the places specified in 

Item IV below. ICC has prepared 

summaries, set forth in sections (A), (B), 

and (C) below, of the most significant 

aspects of these statements. 

(A) Clearing Agency’s Statement of the 

Purpose of, and Statutory Basis for, the 

Proposed Rule Change, Security-Based 

Swap Submission, or Advance Notice 

(a) Purpose 

ICC proposes revising its Risk 

Management Model Description 

Document and its Risk Management 

Framework. ICC believes such revisions 

will facilitate the prompt and accurate 

clearance and settlement of securities 

transactions and derivative agreements, 

contracts, and transactions for which it 

is responsible. The proposed revisions 

are described in detail as follows. 

The purpose of the proposed changes 

is to transition from a stress-based 

approach to a Monte Carlo-based 

methodology for the spread response 

and recovery rate (‘‘RR’’) sensitivity 

response components of the Initial 

Margin model. ICC notes certain 

limitations of its stress-based approach, 

namely, that it generates a limited 

number of stress scenarios that may not 

capture the risk of portfolios with more 

complex non-linear instruments and 

that it does not provide for a consistent 

estimation of the portfolio level spread 

response based on a defined risk 

measure (e.g., Value-at-Risk (‘‘VaR’’)) 

and quantile (e.g., 99%). The transition 

to a Monte Carlo-based methodology 

rectifies these limitations, as it 

considers a large set of scenarios to 

more appropriately capture portfolio 

risk, including the risk of more complex 

non-linear instruments, and produces 

consistent quantile-based portfolio risk 

measure estimates. 

To derive the spread response 

component, the current stress-based 

approach considers a set of hypothetical 

‘‘tightening’’ and ‘‘widening’’ credit 

spread scenarios, from which it 

computes instrument Profit/Loss (‘‘P/ 

L’’) responses for every Risk Factor 

(‘‘RF’’) scenario. All instrument P/L 

responses for a scenario are aggregated 

to obtain the portfolio P/L response for 

that scenario. Since the set of scenarios 

does not reflect the joint distribution of 

the considered RFs, offsets between P/ 

Ls are applied to provide some portfolio 

benefits. To derive the RR sensitivity 

response component, all instruments 

belonging to a RF or Risk Sub-Factor 

(‘‘RSF’’) are subjected to RR stress 

scenarios to obtain the resulting P/L 

responses, and the worst scenario 

response is chosen for the estimation of 

the RF/RSF RR sensitivity response 

component. 

Under the proposed Monte Carlobased methodology, the ‘‘integrated 

spread response’’ component replaces 

the spread response and RR sensitivity 

response components. This component 

will be computed by creating P/L 

distributions from a set of jointlysimulated hypothetical (forward 

looking) spread and RR scenarios. The 

proposed Monte Carlo-based 

methodology utilizes standard tools in 

modeling dependence, which can be 

seen as a means for constructing 

multivariate distributions with different 

univariate distributions and with 

desired dependence structures, to 

generate the spread and RR scenarios. 

The proposed Monte Carlo-based 

methodology provides flexibility in 

modeling tail dependence, an important 

concept in risk management as it 

provides information about how 

frequently extreme values are expected 

to occur, and thus ICC considers them 

particularly suitable for implementing 

its Monte Carlo framework. 

The univariate RF distribution 

assumptions do not change under the 

proposed Monte Carlo-based 


jstallworth on DSKBBY8HB2PROD with NOTICES