Federal Register / Vol. 89, No. 189 / Monday, September 30, 2024 / Notices 79511 

found in the Forest Plan; whether the 

EIS has sufficient environmental 

analysis to make an informed decision; 

and whether the proposed action meets 

the purpose and need for action. With 

this information, the Responsible 

Official must decide whether to select 

the proposed action and what, if any, 

additional actions should be required. 

Substantive Provisions 

Guidance for management of the 

Monument comes from the 1985 Mount 

St. Helens National Volcanic 

Monument’s Comprehensive 

Management Plan, which is fully 

incorporated into the 1990 Gifford 

Pinchot National Forest Land and 

Resource Management Plan (Forest 

Plan), as amended by the 1994 Record 

of Decision for Amendments to Forest 

Service and Bureau of Land 

Management Planning Documents 

within the Range of the Northern 

Spotted Owl. 

All actions authorized by the Forest 

Service on National Forest System lands 

must be consistent with the Forest Plan. 

If a proposed project-specific action is 

not consistent with the Forest Plan, the 

Responsible Official may modify the 

proposed action to make it consistent 

with the plan, reject the proposed 

action, or amend the plan such that the 

action will be consistent with the plan, 

as amended. When proposing a forest 

plan amendment, the planning 

regulations require the Responsible 

Official to identify in this notice which 

specific substantive requirements (36 

CFR 219.8 through 219.11) are directly 

related to the plan direction being 

modified by the amendment based on 

the purpose of the amendment or the 

effects of the amendment (36 CFR 

219.13(b)(5)). 

The substantive requirements that are 

likely directly related to the purpose of 

the forest plan amendments are 36 CFR 

219.8(a)(3)(i)(B), 219.8(a)(3)(i)(G), and 

219.8(b)(1). 

An amendment to Management Area 

A Recreation—Planning and Inventory 

standard and guideline 2 may be needed 

to allow project activities within the 

Monument and for potential road 

upgrades along the road corridors of FS– 

99 and FR–25 to exceed the Retention 

VQO during project implementation. 

The substantive requirements that are 

likely directly related to the effects of 

this forest plan amendment are 36 CFR 

219.8(b)(2), 219.10(a)(1), and 

219.10(b)(1)(i). 

An amendment to Management Area 

A Recreation—Use Administration 

standard and guideline 2 may be needed 

to allow for off-road vehicle during the 

summer during project implementation. 

The substantive requirements that are 

likely directly related to the effects of 

this forest plan amendment are 36 CFR 

219.8(a)(2)(ii), 219.10(a)(1), and 

219.10(a)(5). 

An amendment to Management Area 

A Facilities—Road Operations standard 

and guideline 1 may be needed to add 

National Forest System road(s) in the 

area. The substantive requirement that 

is likely directly related to the effects of 

this forest plan amendment is 36 CFR 

219.10(a)(3). 

An amendment to Management Area 

A Facilities—Road Operations standards 

and guidelines 2 and 3 may be needed 

to allow for road and off-road vehicle 

use on Deer and Elk Winter Range from 

December 1 to April 1 during project 

implementation. The substantive 

requirements that are likely directly 

related to the effects of this forest plan 

amendment are 36 CFR 219.9(a)(1), 

219.10(a)(1), and 219.10(a)(5). 

Keith Lannom, 

Associate Deputy Chief, National Forest 

System. 

[FR Doc. 2024–22159 Filed 9–27–24; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 3411–15–P 

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 

Census Bureau 

Agency Information Collection 

Activities; Submission to the Office of 

Management and Budget (OMB) for 

Review and Approval; Comment 

Request; Business Enterprise 

Research and Development Survey 

The Department of Commerce will 

submit the following information 

collection request to the Office of 

Management and Budget (OMB) for 

review and clearance in accordance 

with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 

1995, on or after the date of publication 

of this notice. We invite the general 

public and other Federal agencies to 

comment on proposed, and continuing 

information collections, which helps us 

assess the impact of our information 

collection requirements and minimize 

the public’s reporting burden. Public 

comments were previously requested 

via the Federal Register on May 29, 

2024, during a 60-day comment period. 

This notice allows for an additional 30 

days for public comments. 

Agency: U.S. Census Bureau, 

Commerce. 

Title: Business Enterprise Research 

and Development Survey. 

OMB Control Number: 0607–0912. 

Form Number(s): BRD–1. 

Type of Request: Regular submission, 

Request for an Extension, without 

Change, of a Currently Approved 

Collection. 

Number of Respondents: 47,500. 

Average Hours per Response: 2 hours 

and 37 minutes. 

Burden Hours: 124,450. 

Needs and Uses: The Census Bureau 

is requesting clearance to continue to 

conduct the Business Enterprise 

Research and Development Survey 

(BERD) for the 2024–2026 survey years 

without change. Companies are the 

major performers of research and 

development (R&D) in the United States, 

accounting for over 70 percent of total 

U.S. R&D expenditures each year. A 

consistent business R&D information 

base is essential to government officials 

formulating public policy, industry 

personnel involved in corporate 

planning, and members of the academic 

community conducting research. To 

develop policies designed to promote 

and enhance science and technology, 

past trends and the present status of 

R&D must be known and analyzed. 

Without comprehensive business R&D 

statistics, it would be impossible to 

evaluate the health of science and 

technology in the United States or to 

make comparisons between the 

technological progress of our country 

and that of other nations. 

BERD is a joint statistical project 

between the National Center for Science 

and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) 

within the National Science Foundation 

(NSF) and the Census Bureau. The 

National Science Foundation Act of 

1950 as amended authorizes and directs 

the National Science Foundation ‘‘. . . 

to provide a central clearinghouse for 

the collection, interpretation, and 

analysis of data on scientific and 

engineering resources and to provide a 

source of information for policy 

formulation by other agencies of the 

Federal government’’ and the authority 

was renewed by Section 505 of the 

America COMPETES Reauthorization 

Act of 2010. This mandate is fulfilled by 

NCSES. One of the methods used by 

NCSES to fulfill this mandate is the 

BERD (and its predecessor surveys)—the 

primary federal source of information 

on R&D in the business sector. NCSES 

together with the Census Bureau, the 

collecting and compiling agent, analyze 

the data and publish the resulting 

statistics. 

NCSES has published annual R&D 

statistics collected from the Survey of 

Industrial Research and Development 

(1953–2007), the Business R&D and 

Innovation Survey (2008–2016), the 

Business Research and Development 

Survey (2017 and 2018), and the 

Business Enterprise Research and 

Development Survey (2019–2023) for 70 


ddrumheller on DSK120RN23PROD with NOTICES1
79512 Federal Register / Vol. 89, No. 189 / Monday, September 30, 2024 / Notices 

years. The results of the surveys are 

used to assess trends in R&D 

expenditures by industry sector, 

investigate productivity determinants, 

formulate science and tax policy, and 

compare individual company 

performance with industry averages. 

This survey is the Nation’s primary 

source for international comparative 

statistics on business R&D spending. 

BERD will continue to collect the 

following types of information: 

• R&D expense based on accepted 

accounting standards. 

• Worldwide R&D of domestic 

companies. 

• Business segment detail. 

• R&D related capital expenditures. 

• Detailed data about the R&D 

workforce. 

• R&D strategy and data on the 

potential impact of R&D on the market. 

Beginning in 2019, in an effort to 

reduce burden, BERD began rotating 

select content off the survey in 

alternating years. In 2019, questions 

related to intellectual property and 

technology transfer were removed from 

the survey. In 2020, questions related to 

detail of R&D performed by others, 

activities with academia, industries of 

business and specific federal agency 

funding R&D, and areas of application 

for R&D were removed and the 

intellectual property and technology 

transfer questions rotated back on. This 

cycle of rotating content has continued. 

In 2021, the Capital Expenditures 

section was revised to collect additional 

information on assets. Proposed at that 

time was to collect two consecutive 

years of data (for 2021 and 2022) and 

rotate select asset content off the survey 

in alternating years. So, in 2023, BERD 

would have had a subset of the asset 

content, and in 2024, all of the asset 

content would have been included on 

the survey. This proposed content 

rotation did not occur in 2023. 

However, the rotation will commence in 

2024. Resulting in a subset of the asset 

content collected in 2024 and all of the 

asset content collected in 2025 and so 

on, similar to the other rotating content. 

Census and NCSES will continue to 

explore content that could be collected 

less frequently than annual in an effort 

to continue to reduce respondent 

burden. 

Information from BERD will continue 

to support NCSES’ responsibility to 

collect information on Research and 

Development for overall support for 

Federal policy discussions, as required 

under the America COMPETES 

Reauthorization Act of 2010. 

Policy officials from many Federal 

agencies rely on these statistics for 

essential information. Businesses and 

trade organizations rely on BERD data to 

benchmark their industry’s performance 

against others. For example, total U.S. 

R&D expenditures statistics are used by 

the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) 

for incorporating R&D as fixed 

investment in updates to the National 

Income and Product Accounts (NIPAs). 

Also, NCSES, BEA and the Census 

Bureau periodically seek to use BERD 

data to augment global R&D investment 

information that is obtained from BEA’s 

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and 

U.S. Direct Investment Abroad (USDIA) 

surveys. Further, the Census Bureau 

links data collected by BERD with other 

statistical files. At the Census Bureau, 

historical company-level R&D data are 

linked to a file that contains information 

on the outputs and inputs of companies’ 

manufacturing plants. Researchers can 

analyze the relationships between R&D 

funding and other economic variables 

by using micro-level data. 

Individuals and organizations access 

the survey statistics via the internet in 

annual InfoBriefs published by NCSES 

that announce the availability of 

statistics from each cycle of BERD and 

detailed statistical table reports that 

contain all the statistics NCSES 

produces from BERD. Information about 

the kinds of projects that rely on 

statistics from BERD is available from 

internal records of Census’ Center for 

Economic Studies. In addition, survey 

statistics are regularly cited in trade 

publications and many researchers use 

the survey statistics from these 

secondary sources without directly 

contacting NCSES or the Census Bureau. 

Some of the users of the survey statistics 

and the types of information they 

request are described below. 

Frequency: Annually. 

Respondent’s Obligation: Mandatory. 

Legal Authority: The survey is 

conducted under the authority of Title 

13, United States Code, Sections 8(b), 

131, and 182; Title 42, United States 

Code, Sections 1861–76 (National 

Science Foundation Act of 1950, as 

amended); and Section 505 within the 

America COMPETES Reauthorization 

Act of 2010. 

This information collection request 

may be viewed at www.reginfo.gov. 

Follow the instructions to view the 

Department of Commerce collections 

currently under review by OMB. 

Written comments and 

recommendations for the proposed 

information collection should be 

submitted within 30 days of the 

publication of this notice on the 

following website www.reginfo.gov/ 

public/do/PRAMain. Find this 

particular information collection by 

selecting ‘‘Currently under 30-day 

Review—Open for Public Comments’’ or 

by using the search function and 

entering either the title of the collection 

or the OMB Control Number 0607–0912. 

Sheleen Dumas, 

Department PRA Clearance Officer, Office of 

the Under Secretary for Economic Affairs, 

Commerce Department. 

[FR Doc. 2024–22361 Filed 9–27–24; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 3510–07–P 

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 

Census Bureau 

Agency Information Collection 

Activities; Submission to the Office of 

Management and Budget (OMB) for 

Review and Approval; Comment 

Request; Current Population Survey 

(CPS) 2025 Field Test 

AGENCY: Census Bureau, Commerce. 

ACTION: Notice of information collection, 

request for comment. 

SUMMARY: The Department of 

Commerce, in accordance with the 

Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) of 

1995, invites the general public and 

other Federal agencies to comment on 

proposed, and continuing information 

collections, which helps us assess the 

impact of our information collection 

requirements and minimize the public’s 

reporting burden. The purpose of this 

notice is to allow for 60 days of public 

comment on the proposed new 

information collection, Current 

Population Survey (CPS) 2025 Field 

Test, prior to the submission of the 

information collection request (ICR) to 

OMB for approval. 

DATES: To ensure consideration, 

comments regarding this proposed 

information collection must be received 

on or before November 29, 2024. 

ADDRESSES: Interested persons are 

invited to submit written comments by 

email to Kyra Linse, Survey Director, 

Current Population Surveys via the 

internet at dsd.cps@census.gov. Please 

reference Current Population Survey 

(CPS) 2025 Field Test in the subject line 

of your comments. You may also submit 

comments, identified by Docket Number 

USBC–2024–0023, to the Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://

www.regulations.gov. All comments 

received are part of the public record. 

No comments will be posted to http:// 

www.regulations.gov for public viewing 

until after the comment period has 

closed. Comments will generally be 

posted without change. All Personally 

Identifiable Information (for example, 

name and address) voluntarily 

submitted by the commenter may be 


ddrumheller on DSK120RN23PROD with NOTICES1