Federal Register / Vol. 73, No. 186 / Wednesday, September 24, 2008 / Notices 55031 

Constitution Avenue, NW., Washington, 

DC 20230 (or via the Internet at 

dHynek@doc.gov). 

Written comments and 

recommendations for the proposed 

information collection should be sent 

within 30 days of publication of this 

notice to David Rostker, OMB Desk 

Officer, Fax number (202) 395–7285, or 

David_Rostker@omb.eop.gov. 

Dated: September 18, 2008. 

Gwellnar Banks, 

Management Analyst, Office of the Chief 

Information Officer. 

[FR Doc. E8–22233 Filed 9–23–08; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 3510–22–P 

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 

Submission for OMB Review; 

Comment Request 

The Department of Commerce will 

submit to the Office of Management and 

Budget (OMB) for clearance the 

following proposal for collection of 

information under the provisions of the 

Paperwork Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. 

Chapter 35). 

Agency: National Oceanic and 

Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). 

Title: Pacific Islands Region SeabirdFisheries Interaction Recovery 

Reporting. 

Form Number(s): None. 

OMB Approval Number: 0648–0456. 

Type of Request: Regular submission. 

Burden Hours: 3. 

Number of Respondents: 1. 

Average Hours per Response: 3 hours. 

Needs and Uses: Seabird mitigation 

measures to reduce interactions between 

seabirds and the Hawaii-based pelagic 

longline fishery include a requirement 

for longline vessel operators to notify 

NMFS in the event an endangered shorttailed albatross (STAL) is hooked or 

entangled during fishing operations. 

Following the retrieval of a STAL from 

the ocean, as required by Federal 

regulations, the vessel captain must 

record the condition of the injured 

STAL on a recovery data form. The 

information is used by a veterinarian in 

providing advice to the captain caring 

for the STAL. If the albatross is dead, 

the vessel captain must attach an 

identification/information tag to the 

STAL carcass, as well as the specimen 

bag, to assist the U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

Service (FWS) biologists in follow-up 

studies on the specimen. This collection 

is one of the terms and conditions 

contained in a biological opinion issued 

by FWS. 

Affected Public: Business or other forprofit organizations. 

Frequency: On occasion. 

Respondent’s Obligation: Mandatory. 

OMB Desk Officer: David Rostker, 

(202) 395–3897. 

Copies of the above information 

collection proposal can be obtained by 

calling or writing Diana Hynek, 

Departmental Paperwork Clearance 

Officer, (202) 482–0266, Department of 

Commerce, Room 6625, 14th and 

Constitution Avenue, NW., Washington, 

DC 20230 (or via the Internet at 

dHynek@doc.gov). 

Written comments and 

recommendations for the proposed 

information collection should be sent 

within 30 days of publication of this 

notice to David Rostker, OMB Desk 

Officer, FAX number (202) 395–7285, or 

David_Rostker@omb.eop.gov. 

Dated: September 18, 2008. 

Gwellnar Banks, 

Management Analyst, Office of the Chief 

Information Officer. 

[FR Doc. E8–22234 Filed 9–23–08; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 3510–22–P 

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 

Submission for OMB Review; 

Comment Request 

The Department of Commerce will 

submit to the Office of Management and 

Budget (OMB) for clearance the 

following proposal for collection of 

information under the provisions of the 

Paperwork Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. 

chapter 35). 

Agency: U.S. Census Bureau. 

Title: Survey of Housing Starts, Sales 

and Completions. 

Form Number(s): SOC–Q1/SF.1, SOC– 

Q1/MF.1. 

OMB Control Number: 0607–0110. 

Type of Request: Revision of a 

currently approved collection. 

Burden Hours: 14,615. 

Number of Respondents: 22,200. 

Average Hours Per Response: 5 

minutes. 

Needs and Uses: Government 

agencies and private companies use 

statistics from the Survey of Housing 

Starts, Sales, and Completions, 

otherwise known as the Survey of 

Construction (SOC) to monitor and 

evaluate the large and dynamic housing 

construction industry. Data for two 

principal economic indicators are 

produced from the SOC: New 

Residential Construction (housing starts 

and housing completions) and New 

Residential Sales. In addition, a number 

of other statistical series are produced, 

including extensive information on the 

physical characteristics of new 

residential buildings, and indexes 

measuring rates of inflation in the price 

of new buildings. These statistics are 

based on a sample of residential 

buildings in permit-issuing places and a 

road canvass in a sample of land areas 

not covered by building permit systems. 

The field representatives (FRs) mail 

forms SOC–QI/SF.1 and SOC–QI/MF.1 

to new respondents to complete. A few 

days later, the FRs either call or visit the 

respondents to enter their survey 

responses into a laptop computer using 

the Computer-Assisted Personal 

Interviewing (CAPI) software formatted 

for the SOC–QI/SF.1 and SOC–QI/MF.1 

forms. The respondents are 

homebuilders, real estate agents, rental 

agents, or new homeowners of sampled 

residential buildings. FRs contact 

respondents multiple times based on the 

number of projects in the sample and 

the number of months required to 

complete the project. 

The CAPI software for all SOC data 

collection has been rewritten and 

modernized to work on laptop 

computers with the Microsoft Windows 

operating system. The new software has 

been used in the field since May 2008. 

The new software provides the 

opportunity to modify the questionnaire 

to introduce new data items that are of 

interest to data users. After working 

with key data users and testing potential 

new data items, we identified seven 

new data items to be added to the 

single-family questionnaire and three 

new items for the multi-family 

questionnaire. We request approval to 

add these questions to the electronic 

questionnaire in December 2008 to 

allow tabulation of these characteristics 

for buildings started, completed, or sold 

in 2009. 

The Census Bureau also worked with 

key data users to review the existing 

data items for relevance and determined 

that information about whether closing 

costs are included in the sales price is 

of limited usefulness because the dollar 

value of these costs is not collected. 

Data users had little interest in the data 

so the question has been eliminated. 

The previous SOC questionnaire 

software required that all characteristics 

of new single-family units be re-asked at 

time of completion to identify any 

changes that occurred during the 

construction process. Census staff 

studied the data and determined that 

the square footage of the house and 

basement were the only characteristics 

that changed significantly upon 

completion of the house and need to be 

re-asked. Data users requested updates 

to the sale price, contract price, and 

intent at time of completion, so these 

questions will also be re-asked. Because 

several questions will no longer be reVerDate Aug<31>2005 17:26 Sep 23, 2008 Jkt 214001 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 4703 Sfmt 4703 E:\FR\FM\24SEN1.SGM 24SEN1

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