15140 Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 50 / Wednesday, March 14, 2012 / Notices 

well-matched comparison groups); and 

(3) project outputs (necessary to 

measure baseline for pre- and postNSF-funding-level impacts). 

Use of the Information: This 

information is required for effective 

administration, communication, 

program and project monitoring and 

evaluation, and for measuring 

attainment of NSF’s program, project, 

and strategic goals, and as identified by 

the President’s Accountability in 

Government Initiative; GPRA, and the 

NSF’s Strategic Plan. The Foundation’s 

FY 2006–2011 Strategic Plan describes 

four strategic outcome goals of 

Discovery, Learning, Research 

Infrastructure, and Stewardship. NSF’s 

complete strategic plan may be found at: 

http://www.nsf.gov/publications/ 

pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=nsf0648. 

Since the EHR Generic Clearance 

research is primarily used for 

accountability purposes, including 

responding from queries from COVs and 

other scientific experts, a census rather 

than sampling design typically is 

necessary. At the individual project 

level funding can be adjusted based on 

individual project’s responses to some 

of the surveys. Some data collected 

under the EHR Clearance serve as 

baseline data for separate research and 

evaluation studies. 

In order to conduct program- or 

portfolio-level evaluations, however, 

both experimental and quasiexperimental evaluation research 

studies on STEM education 

interventions require researchers to 

identify individual-level and 

organization- or project-level control 

and treatment groups or comparison 

groups. NSF-funded contract or grantee 

researchers and evaluators in part may 

identify control, comparison, or 

treatment groups for NSF’s ET portfolio 

using some of the descriptive data 

gathered through OMB 3145–0136 to 

conduct well-designed, rigorous 

research and portfolio evaluation 

studies. 

In accordance with the 2001, 2005, 

2008, and 2011 OMB Terms of 

Clearances, NSF requests separate 

stand-alone clearance (and separately 

announces for comment in the Federal 

Register) any program or portfolio 

research or evaluation. 

Respondents: Individuals or 

households, not-for-profit institutions, 

business or other for profit, and Federal, 

State, local or tribal government. 

Number of Respondents: 8,494. 

Burden of the Public: The total 

estimate for this collection is 65,868 

annual burden hours. This figure is 

based on the previous 3 years of 

collecting information under this 

clearance and anticipated collections. 

The average annual reporting burden is 

between 1.5 and 72 hours per 

‘‘respondent,’’ depending on whether a 

respondent is a direct participant who is 

self-reporting or representing a project 

and reporting on behalf of many project 

participants. 

Dated: March 9, 2012. 

Suzanne H. Plimpton, 

Reports Clearance Officer, National Science 

Foundation. 

[FR Doc. 2012–6185 Filed 3–13–12; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 7555–01–P 

NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION 

Notice of Buy American Waiver Under 

the American Recovery and 

Reinvestment Act of 2009 

AGENCY: National Science Foundation 

(NSF). 

ACTION: Notice. 

SUMMARY: NSF is hereby granting a 

limited exemption of section 1605 of the 

American Recovery and Reinvestment 

Act of 2009 (Recovery Act), Public Law 

111–5, 123 Stat. 115, 303 (2009), with 

respect to the purchase of the 

deformable mirror system that will be 

used in the Advanced Technology Solar 

Telescope (ATST). This system is 

required in order to achieve the 

requisite spatial resolution to study the 

finest details of magnetic features in the 

solar atmosphere. 

DATED: March 14, 2012. 

ADDRESSES: National Science 

Foundation, 4201 Wilson Blvd., 

Arlington, Virginia 22230. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ms. 

Anna-Lee Misiano, Division of 

Acquisition and Cooperative Support, 

703–292–4339 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: In 

accordance with section 1605(c) of the 

Recovery Act and section 176.80 of Title 

2 of the Code of Federal Regulations, the 

National Science Foundation (NSF) 

hereby provides notice that on March 6, 

2012 the NSF Chief Financial Officer, in 

accordance with a delegation order from 

the Director of the agency, granted a 

limited project exemption of section 

1605 of the Recovery Act (Buy 

American provision) with respect to the 

deformable mirror system (DMS) that 

will be used in the ATST. The basis for 

this exemption is section 1605(b)(2) of 

the Recovery Act, in that deformable 

mirrors of satisfactory quality that meet 

the specifications required for 

diffraction-limited observations of the 

sun are not produced by vendors in the 

United States in sufficient and 

reasonably available commercial 

quantities. The total cost of DMS, 

approximately $3 million, represents 

approximately 2 percent of the total 

$146 million Recovery Act award 

provided for construction of the ATST 

and about 1 percent of the total project 

cost. 

I. Background 

The Recovery Act appropriated $400 

million to NSF for several projects being 

funded by the Foundation’s Major 

Research Equipment and Facilities 

Construction (MREFC) account. The 

ATST is one of NSF’s MREFC projects. 

Section 1605(a) of the Recovery Act, the 

Buy American provision, states that 

none of the funds appropriated by the 

Act ‘‘may be used for a project for the 

construction, alteration, maintenance, or 

repair of a public building or public 

work unless all of the iron, steel, and 

manufactured goods used in the project 

are produced in the United States.’’ 

The ATST construction is being 

funded under a cooperative agreement 

awarded to the Association of 

Universities for Research in Astronomy 

(AURA) that began in 2009. The project 

is currently under construction. 

Subsections 1605(b) and (c) of the 

Recovery Act authorize the head of a 

Federal department or agency to waive 

the Buy American provision if the head 

of the agency finds that: (1) Applying 

the provision would be inconsistent 

with the public interest; (2) the relevant 

goods are not produced in the United 

States in sufficient and reasonably 

available quantities and of a satisfactory 

quality; or (3) the inclusion of the goods 

produced in the United States will 

increase the cost of the project by more 

than 25 percent. If the head of the 

Federal department or agency waives 

the Buy American provision, then the 

head of the department or agency is 

required to publish a detailed 

justification in the Federal Register. 

Finally, section 1605(d) of the Recovery 

Act states that the Buy American 

provision must be applied in a manner 

consistent with the United States’ 

obligations under international 

agreements. 

II. Finding That Relevant Goods Are 

Not Produced in the United States in 

Sufficient and Reasonably Available 

Quality 

The science goals of the ATST require 

that the telescope operate at the socalled diffraction limit in order to 

resolve spatial features in the solar 

atmosphere with sizes of order 20 to 30 

kilometers. Comparing this size to the 

average distance to the sun of about 

150,000,000 kilometers leads to the 


srobinson on DSK4SPTVN1PROD with NOTICES
Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 50 / Wednesday, March 14, 2012 / Notices 15141 

conclusion that the angular size of such 

features as viewed from the Earth is very 

small. In order to accomplish such 

studies, the blurring effect of the earth’s 

turbulent atmosphere needs to be 

removed. This is accomplished by an 

advanced system of optics known 

generically as ‘‘adaptive optics’’ (AO). 

The heart of the AO system is a mirror 

that can change its shape more than 

1,000 times per second with 

approximately 1,900 separate actuators 

distributed over the circular area of the 

mirror. Each actuator must be able to 

push and pull the face plate by 2.5 

micrometers; by comparison, a human 

hair is approximately 80 micrometers 

wide. This mirror, along with its control 

electronics, cooling system, etc. 

constitutes the DMS. The specifications 

for the DMS include the following 

critical performance requirements: 

1. Face Sheet flatness—The DMS 

must have initial and repeatable 

reflective face sheet flatness to within 

15.8 nanometers (root mean square 

error) for a baseline reference. (For 

reference, 1 micrometer equals 1000 

nanometers.) 

2. Actuator spacing—The DMS must 

have an actuator spacing such that a 

population of at least 1,900 units are 

installed within the DMS footprint, 

which is roughly circular with 200 

millimeter diameter. 

3. Actuator performance—The 

actuators must be capable of a specific 

and repeatable stroke length of equal to 

or greater than 5 micrometers while in 

the ATST operational environment. 

Failure to meet any of these technical 

requirements would have severe 

negative impacts on the spatial 

resolution performance of the ATST and 

therefore on its ability to meet its 

scientific goals. 

AURA issued an Announcement of 

Opportunity in Federal Business 

Opportunities (FedBizOpps) and, 

subsequently, an open request for 

proposals for the design, fabrication, 

and testing of the DMS for the ATST. 

Proposals were received from three 

vendors, two of which are non-U.S. 

companies. The proposals were 

evaluated by an internal source 

selection evaluation board on the basis 

of technical performance and best value. 

A selection plan and proposal 

evaluation criteria were created in order 

to equitably evaluate proposals and 

provide a quantitative method for 

selection of a ‘‘best value’’ proposal 

based on technical and managerial 

merit. The selection plan was reviewed 

and approved per AURA’s internal 

procedures prior to receiving the 

proposals. Pricing was subsequently 

factored in by the reviewers to assess 

overall, ‘‘best value.’’ The evaluation 

criteria were weighted as described in 

the selection plan depending on the 

relative importance of each criteria. 

After careful technical review, the 

selection board recommended that the 

ATST program pursue a contract with 

one of the non-U.S. vendors as a result 

of their finding that only that one 

vendor’s offering meets and exceeds all 

critical performance requirements, 

particularly the specifications 

concerning face sheet flattening and 

actuator performance. Furthermore, the 

selected vendor is also the only one that 

has experience in producing mirrors 

that meet ATST requirements for 

actuator spacing. The only U.S. bidder 

failed to meet the critical specification 

on actuator stroke and could not 

produce a mirror with the desired 1,933 

total actuators with spacing of 4.33 

millimeters by 4.21 millimeters. 

AURA’s conclusion is that there are 

no U.S. manufacturers who can produce 

a suitable DMS that meets all of the 

ATST requirements, so an exemption to 

the Buy American requirements is 

necessary. 

In the absence of a domestic supplier 

that could provide a DMS that meets or 

exceeds the ATST specification, AURA 

requested that NSF issue a Section 1605 

exemption determination with respect 

to the purchase of a foreign-supplied, 

specification-compliant DMS, so that 

the telescope will meet the specific 

design and technical requirements that 

are necessary to deliver the image 

quality necessary for successful 

performance of its scientific mission. 

Furthermore, the project’s market 

research indicated that a DMS that 

meets or exceeds the ATST’s technical 

specifications and requirements is 

available from a foreign vendor. 

NSF’s Division of Acquisition and 

Cooperative Support (DACS) and other 

NSF program staff reviewed the AURA 

exemption request submittal, found that 

it was complete, and determined that 

sufficient technical information was 

provided in order for NSF to evaluate 

the exemption request and to conclude 

that an exemption is needed and should 

be granted. 

III. Exemption 

On March 6, 2012, based on the 

finding that no domestically produced 

deformable mirror system meets all of 

the ATST’s technical specifications and 

requirements and pursuant to section 

1605(b), the NSF Chief Financial 

Officer, in accordance with a delegation 

order from the Director of the agency 

signed on May 27, 2010, granted a 

limited project exemption of the 

Recovery Act’s Buy American 

requirements with respect to the 

procurement of the deformable mirror 

system. 

Dated: March 7, 2012. 

Lawrence Rudolph, 

General Counsel. 

[FR Doc. 2012–6102 Filed 3–13–12; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 7555–01–P 

NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION 

National Science Board; Sunshine Act 

Meetings 

The National Science Board’s 

Committee on Strategy and Budget Task 

Force on Data Policies, pursuant to NSF 

regulations (45 CFR part 614), the 

National Science Foundation Act, as 

amended (42 U.S.C. 1862n–5), and the 

Government in the Sunshine Act (5 

U.S.C. 552b), hereby gives notice in 

regard to the scheduling of a 

teleconference for the transaction of 

National Science Board business, as 

follows: 

DATE AND TIME: Wednesday, March 28, 

from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m., EDT. 

SUBJECT MATTER: Discussion of a 

continuation of the National Science 

Board’s focus on data policies. 

STATUS: Open. 

LOCATION: This meeting will be held by 

teleconference at the National Science 

Board Office, National Science 

Foundation, 4201 Wilson Blvd., 

Arlington, VA 22230. A public listening 

room will be available for this 

teleconference meeting. All visitors 

must contact the Board Office (call 703– 

292–7000 or send an email message to 

nationalsciencebrd@nsf.gov) at least 24 

hours prior to the teleconference for the 

public room number and to arrange for 

a visitor’s badge. All visitors must report 

to the NSF visitor desk located in the 

lobby at the 9th and N. Stuart Streets 

entrance on the day of the 

teleconference to receive a visitor’s 

badge. 

UPDATES AND POINT OF CONTACT: Please 

refer to the National Science Board Web 

site www.nsf.gov/nsb for additional 

information and schedule updates (time, 

place, subject matter or status of 

meeting) may be found at http:// 

www.nsf.gov/nsb/notices/. Point of 

contact for this meeting is: Blane Dahl, 

National Science Board Office, 4201 

Wilson Blvd., Arlington, VA 22230. 

Telephone: (703) 292–7000. 

Ann Bushmiller, 

Senior Counsel to the National Science Board. 

[FR Doc. 2012–6278 Filed 3–12–12; 4:15 pm] 

BILLING CODE 7555–01–P 


srobinson on DSK4SPTVN1PROD with NOTICES