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[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 97 (Wednesday, May 20, 2015)]
[Notices]
[Pages 28988-28989]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2015-12223]

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DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

Proposed Agency Information Collection

AGENCY: Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Department of 
Energy.

ACTION: Notice and Request for OMB Review and Comment.

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SUMMARY: The Department of Energy (DOE) has submitted to the Office of 
Management and Budget (OMB) for clearance, a proposal for collection of 
information under the provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 
1995. The proposed collection will enable DOE to understand the 
universe of organizations participating in four voluntary programs: 
Zero Energy Ready Home Program, the Better Buildings Residential 
Network, the Home Energy Score, and the Home Performance with ENERGY 
STAR Program (HPwES). The information gathered by DOE in these four 
programs is necessary for DOE to run the programs effectively.

DATES: Comments regarding this collection must be received on or before 
June 19, 2015. If you anticipate that you will be submitting comments, 
but find it difficult to do so within the period of time allowed by 
this notice, please advise the DOE Desk Officer at OMB of your 
intention to make a submission as soon as possible. The Desk Officer 
may be telephoned at 202-395-4650.

ADDRESSES: Written comments should be sent to the DOE Desk Officer, 
Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and 
Budget, New Executive Office Building, Room 10102, 735 17th Street NW., 
Washington, DC 20503.
    And to Mr. Chris Early, U.S. Department of Energy, Building 
Technologies Program, Mail Stop EE-5B, Forrestal Building, 1000 
Independence Avenue SW., Washington, DC 20585-0121 or by fax at 202-
586-4617 or by email at Chris.Early@ee.doe.gov.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Requests for additional information or 
copies of the information collection instrument and instructions should 
be directed to Mr. Chris Early, U.S. Department of Energy, Building 
Technologies Program, Mail Stop EE-5B, Forrestal Building, 1000 
Independence Avenue SW., Washington, DC 20585-0121. 
Chris.Early@ee.doe.gov.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This information collection request 
contains: (1) OMB No. {``New''{time} ; (2) Information Collection 
Request Title: Programs for Improving Energy Efficiency in Residential 
Buildings (3) Type of Request: {New collection.{time} ; (4) Purpose: 
The collected information will help DOE understand the participating 
partners' activities and progress toward achieving scheduled milestones 
enabling DOE to make decisions about the best way to run the programs 
and respond to partners' needs to improve their operations and actions 
to lower energy consumption. The proposed collection is for the 
activities of four Department of Energy programs: Zero Energy Ready 
Home Program, the Better Buildings Residential Network, the Home Energy 
Score, and the Home Performance with ENERGY STAR Program. Through these 
programs DOE encourages and assists the people and organizations that 
volunteer to participate in them to build and renovate new and existing 
houses to use less energy. The program partners who voluntarily 
participate in the programs consist of most of the actors in the home 
building industry including home owners, home builders, home builder 
tradesman and associations, home design professionals, students in 
architecture and related building construction industries, home energy 
raters, home energy auditors, home inspectors, building consultants, 
manufacturers of building products, professional trainers, utility 
companies, home building and manufacturing industry associations, 
consumer and home building industry advocacy organizations, financial 
institutions, non-profit organizations, educational institutions, 
nonprofit organizations, energy program administrators and 
implementers, Home Performance with ENERGY STAR sponsors, state or 
local

[[Page 28989]]

government energy offices or agencies, clean energy non-profits with 
existing residential energy programs and other organizations who 
believe peer sharing will help them improve their effectiveness in 
encouraging homeowners to complete energy upgrades. DOE proposes to 
collect information about the participants such as their names and 
addresses, their evaluations of training they received about the 
programs, descriptions of their qualifications to conduct training for 
the programs, their plans to get people to participate in the programs, 
their certifications describing how they can assess homes, estimates of 
how many homes they can get to participate in the programs, and 
information about the homes. The DOE published a notice and request for 
comments related to this current request for OMB clearance to collect 
information on May 15, 2014 (79 FR 27867) and received no comments. 
That notice asked for comments for four voluntary programs at DOE, 
three of which are the same as for this current request for clearance 
and one is different. The DOE decided not to request clearance to 
collect information for the Building America Program that was part of 
that May 15, 2014 request for comments. The DOE, however, added the 
HPwES program to this current request for clearance. The reason is that 
operation of part of the HPwES program is to be transferred to the DOE 
from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The DOE intends to 
operate HPwES substantially similarly to the way EPA operates the 
program. The difference in estimates of numbers of responses, number of 
respondents, burden hours, and costs to respond between the HPwES that 
was approved by OMB for EPA and the one requested to be approved by DOE 
are minor. The OMB did give the EPA clearance for collection of 
information in the HPwES program on August 14, 2014. OMB gave it the 
ICR Control Number 2060-0586. There are 3 Information Collections 
associated with that control number.
    In place of EPA, DOE wants to collect the information for only one 
of the three collections associated with Control Number 2060-0586; the 
one with the Information Collection title ``ENERGY STAR Program in the 
Residential Sector: States and Locals''. EPA did not receive any 
comments in either the 30 or 60 day Federal Register Notices for that 
collection of information; (5) Annual Estimated Number of Respondents: 
11,585; (6) Annual Estimated Number of Total Responses: 46,909; (7) 
Annual Estimated Number of Burden Hours: 22,926; (8) Annual Estimated 
Reporting and Recordkeeping Cost Burden: zero dollars.

    Statutory Authority: 42 U.S.C. 16191.

    Issued in Washington, DC on May 13, 2015.
Roland J. Risser,
Director, Building Technologies Office, Energy Efficiency and Renewable 
Energy.
[FR Doc. 2015-12223 Filed 5-19-15; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6450-01-P
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