Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 10 / Tuesday, January 17, 2012 / Notices 2265 

4See generally Administrative Conference of the 

United States, Recommendation 2011–2, 

Rulemaking Comments (recommending that 

agencies establish and publish certain policies 

governing rulemaking comments). 

5Throughout this recommendation, the term 

‘‘rulemaking’’ includes, but is not limited to, the 

following proceedings, providing an agency is 

seeking or intends to seek public comment on them: 

planned rulemakings that have appeared in the 

Unified Agenda, rules at the advanced notice of 

proposed rulemaking stage, and proposed 

nonlegislative rules. The recommendation also 

extends to guidance documents on which an agency 

is seeking or intends to seek public comment. 

agencies’ policies relating to comments 4

cannot be found easily by the public. Even 

on Web pages dedicated to the submission of 

comments, a comment policy is not always 

visible to the user. A second difficulty arises 

with old rulemaking materials, which need to 

be preserved for archival, historical, and legal 

reasons, but are often difficult for users to 

find and search. A third issue is that agency 

Web sites are uniformly easy to locate, but do 

not always include features to ensure that 

essential information, particularly about 

rulemaking, is broadly accessible to the 

public. 

The Conference believes that, as a general 

matter, agencies should continue to improve 

their Web sites to facilitate public 

accessibility and engagement so as to achieve 

the promise of e-rulemaking. This 

recommendation is intended to broadly 

encourage agencies to develop and use 

innovative, cost-effective ways to use 

individual Web sites to solve some of the 

discrete problems identified above and 

generally engage the public in rulemaking. 

Recommendation 

Increasing the Visibility of Rulemakings 

1. Agencies should design and manage 

their presence on the Web (including the 

Web as accessed by mobile devices) with 

rulemaking participation in mind.5

2. Each agency should provide access to a 

one-stop location, which should be easily 

reachable from its home page, for all of its 

pending rulemakings, highlighting those that 

are currently open for comment. This may 

take the form of providing pinpoint links to 

specific information about the agency’s 

rulemakings available on Web sites such as 

Regulations.gov, RegInfo.gov, Federal 

Register 2.0, and so forth, which would allow 

the agency to efficiently enable the public to 

retrieve all available information the federal 

government has about its ongoing 

rulemakings. 

3. Agencies should consider, in 

appropriate rulemakings, using social media 

tools to raise the visibility of rulemakings. 

When an agency sponsors a social media 

discussion of a rulemaking, it should provide 

clear notice as to whether and how it will use 

the discussion in the rulemaking proceeding. 

Making Comment Policies Easy To Locate 

4. Agencies should display or link to their 

comment policies in prominent or multiple 

locations on their Web sites. 

Improving Access to Agency Web Sites 

5. Agencies should continue to improve 

the accessibility of their Web sites to 

members of the public. 

6. Agencies should take steps to improve 

access for persons who have faced barriers to 

effectively participating in rulemaking in the 

past, including non-English speakers, users 

of low-bandwidth Internet connections, and 

individuals with disabilities. 

Ensuring Access to Materials From 

Completed Rulemakings 

7. Agencies should develop systematic 

protocols to enable the online storage and 

retrieval of materials from completed 

rulemakings. Such protocols should, to the 

extent feasible, ensure that Web site visitors 

using out-of-date URLs are automatically 

redirected to the current location of the 

material sought. 

Periodically Evaluating Agency Use of the 

Internet in Rulemaking 

8. Agencies should periodically evaluate 

their use of the Internet in rulemaking and 

should continue to innovate and experiment 

with new and cost-effective ways to engage 

the public in rulemaking via the Internet. 

[FR Doc. 2012–621 Filed 1–13–12; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 6110–01–P 

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 

Grain Inspection, Packers and 

Stockyards Administration 

Request for Extension and Revision of 

a Currently Approved Information 

Collection 

AGENCY: Grain Inspection, Packers and 

Stockyards Administration, USDA. 

ACTION: Notice and request for 

comments. 

SUMMARY: In accordance with the 

Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 

(PRA), this notice announces the Grain 

Inspection, Packers and Stockyards 

Administration’s (GIPSA) intention to 

request that the Office of Management 

and Budget (OMB) approve a 3-year 

extension of and revision to a currently 

approved information collection of a 

voluntary customer survey concerning 

the delivery of official inspection, 

grading, and weighing services 

authorized under the United States 

Grain Standards Act and the 

Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946. 

This voluntary survey gives customers 

that are primarily in the grain, oilseed, 

rice, lentil, dry pea, edible bean, and 

related agricultural commodity markets 

an opportunity to provide feedback on 

the quality of services they receive and 

provides GIPSA with information on 

new services that customers wish to 

receive. Customer feedback assists 

GIPSA’s Federal Grain Inspection 

Service (FGIS) with enhancing the value 

of services and service delivery 

provided by the official inspection, 

grading, and weighing system. 

DATES: Written comments must be 

submitted on or before March 19, 2012. 

ADDRESSES: We invite you to submit 

comments on this notice. You may 

submit comments by any of the 

following methods: 

• Internet: Go to http://

www.regulations.gov and follow the 

online instructions for submitting 

comments. 

• Mail, hand deliver, or courier: Tess 

Butler, GIPSA, USDA, 1400 

Independence Avenue SW., Room 

2530–S, Washington, DC 20250–3604. 

• Fax: (202) 690–2173. 

Instructions: All comments should be 

identified as ‘‘FGIS customer service 

survey’’ and should reference the date 

and page number of this issue of the 

Federal Register. Information collection 

package and other documents relating to 

this action will be available for public 

inspection in the above office during 

regular business hours. All comments 

will be available for public inspection in 

the above office during regular business 

hours (7 CFR 1.27(b)). Please call 

GIPSA’s Management and Budget 

Services Staff at (202) 720–7486 to 

arrange to inspect documents. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Idelisse Rodriguez, Program Analyst, 

Office of the Deputy Administrator, 

email address: Idelisse.Rodriguez@

usda.gov, telephone (202) 720–5688. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Congress 

enacted the United States Grain 

Standards Act (USGSA) (7 U.S.C. 71– 

87k) and the Agricultural Marketing Act 

(AMA) (7 U.S.C. 1621–1627) to facilitate 

the marketing of grain, oilseeds, pulses, 

rice, and related commodities. These 

statutes provide for the establishment of 

standards and terms which accurately 

and consistently measure the quality of 

grain and related products, provide for 

uniform official inspection and 

weighing, provide regulatory and 

service responsibilities, and furnish the 

framework for commodity quality 

improvement incentives to both 

domestic and foreign buyers. The 

GIPSA’s Federal Grain Inspection 

Service (FGIS) establishes policies, 

guidelines, and regulations to carry out 

the objectives of the USGSA and the 

AMA. Regulations appear at 7 CFR 800, 

801, and 802 for the USGSA and 7 CFR 

868 for the AMA. 

The USGSA, with few exceptions, 

requires official inspection of export 

grain sold by grade. Official services are 

provided, upon request, for grain in 

domestic commerce. The AMA 


srobinson on DSK4SPTVN1PROD with NOTICES
2266 Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 10 / Tuesday, January 17, 2012 / Notices 

authorizes similar inspection and 

weighing services, upon request, for 

rice, pulses, flour, corn meal, and 

certain other agricultural products. 

There are approximately 9,000 current 

users of the official inspection, grading, 

and weighing programs. These 

customers are located nationwide and 

represent a diverse mixture of small, 

medium, and large producers, 

merchandisers, processors, exporters, 

and other financially interested parties. 

These customers request official 

services from an FGIS Field Office; 

delegated, designated, or cooperating 

State office; or designated private 

agency office. 

The goal of FGIS and the official 

inspection, grading, and weighing 

system is to provide timely, high 

quality, accurate, consistent, and 

professional service that facilitates the 

orderly marketing of grain and related 

commodities. To accomplish this goal 

and in accordance with Executive Order 

12862, FGIS is seeking feedback from a 

representative sample of customers to 

evaluate the services provided by the 

official inspection, grading, and 

weighing programs. 

Title: Survey of Customers of the 

Official Inspection, Grading, and 

Weighing Programs (Grain and Related 

Commodities). 

OMB Number: 0580–0018. 

Expiration Date of Approval: 

November 30, 2012. 

Type of Request: Extension and 

revision of a currently approved 

information collection. 

Abstract: The collection of 

information using a voluntary customer 

service survey will provide a 

representative sample of paying 

customers of FGIS and the official 

inspection, grading, and weighing 

services an opportunity to evaluate, on 

a scale of one to five, the timeliness, 

cost-effectiveness, accuracy, 

consistency, and usefulness of those 

services and results, and the 

professionalism of employees. 

Customers will also have an opportunity 

to provide additional comments or 

indicate what new or existing services 

they would use if such services were 

offered or available. 

FGIS needs to maintain a formal 

means of determining customers’ 

expectations or the quality of official 

services that are delivered. To collect 

this information, FGIS would continue 

to distribute, over a 3-year period, an 

annual voluntary customer service 

survey to customers requesting official 

inspection, grading, and weighing 

services. FGIS would survey a 

statistically random sample of 

approximately 1100 customers per year 

representing the customers’ population 

as a whole. The survey instrument 

would continue to consist of nine 

questions only; subsequent survey 

instruments would be tailored to earlier 

responses. FGIS would make available 

to our customers an electronic version 

of the survey. The information collected 

from the survey would permit FGIS to 

gauge customers’ satisfaction with 

existing services, compare results from 

year to year, and determine what new 

services customers’ desire. The 

customer service survey consists of one 

document containing questions about 

timeliness, cost effectiveness, accuracy, 

consistency, usefulness of services and 

results, and the professionalism of 

employees. Some examples of survey 

questions include the following: ‘‘I 

receive results in a timely manner,’’ 

‘‘Official results are accurate,’’ and 

‘‘Inspection personnel are 

knowledgeable.’’ These survey 

questions would be assessed using a one 

to five rating scale with responses 

ranging from ‘‘strongly disagree’’ to 

‘‘strongly agree’’ or ‘‘no opinion.’’ 

Customers would also be asked about 

the products for which they primarily 

request service, and what percentage of 

their product is officially inspected. 

Customers can also provide additional 

comments or request new or existing 

services on the survey. Space would be 

added on the revised survey for the 

customer to provide its email address 

should it wish to receive future surveys 

electronically. 

By obtaining information from 

customers through a voluntary customer 

service survey, FGIS believes that it will 

continue to improve services and 

service delivery of its official 

inspection, grading, and weighing 

programs that meets or exceeds 

customer expectations. 

Estimate of Burden: Public reporting 

burden for this collection of information 

is estimated to average 10 minutes (i.e., 

0.167 hours) per response. 

Respondents: The primary 

respondents will be a statistically 

random sample of direct paying 

customers of FGIS and the official 

inspection, grading, and weighing 

programs. 

FY 2012: Estimated Number of 

Respondents: 605 (i.e., 1100 total 

customers times 55% response rate = 

605). 

Frequency of Responses: 1. 

Estimated Annual Burden: 101 hours. 

(605 responses times 0.167 hours/ 

response = 101 hours). 

FY 2013: Estimated Number of 

Respondents: 616. (i.e., 1100 total 

customers times 56% response rate = 

616). 

Frequency of Responses: 1. 

Estimated Annual Burden: 103 hours. 

(616 responses times 0.167 hours/ 

response = 103 hours). 

FY 2014: Estimated Number of 

Respondents: 627 (i.e., 1100 total 

customers times 57% response rate = 

627). 

Frequency of Responses: 1. 

Estimated Annual Burden: 105 hours. 

(627 responses times 0.167 hours/ 

response = 105 hours). 

As required by the PRA (44 U.S.C. 

3506(c)(2)(A)) and its implementing 

regulations (5 CFR 1320.8(d)(1)(i)), 

GIPSA specifically requests comments 

on: (1) 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; 

(2) the accuracy of GIPSA’s estimate of 

the burden of the proposed collection of 

information including the validity of the 

methodology and assumptions used; (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, including 

the use of appropriate automated, 

electronic, mechanical, or other 

technological collection techniques or 

other forms of information technology. 

All responses to this notice will be 

summarized and included in the request 

for OMB approval. All comments will 

become a matter of public record. 

J. Dudley Butler, 

Administrator, Grain Inspection, Packers and 

Stockyards Administration. 

[FR Doc. 2012–707 Filed 1–13–12; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 3410–EN–P 

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 

Grain Inspection, Packers and 

Stockyards Administration 

Request for Extension and Revision of 

a Currently Approved Information 

Collection 

AGENCY: Grain Inspection, Packers and 

Stockyards Administration, USDA. 

ACTION: Notice and request for 

comments. 

SUMMARY: In accordance with the 

Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 

(44 U.S.C. chapter 35), this notice 

announces our intention to request a 

3-year extension and revision of a 

currently approved information 

collection for ‘‘Export Inspection and 

Weighing Waiver for High Quality 

Specialty Grain Transported in 

Containers.’’ 


srobinson on DSK4SPTVN1PROD with NOTICES