[Federal Register Volume 74, Number 202 (Wednesday, October 21, 2009)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 53979-53982]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E9-25334]


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GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION

41 CFR Parts 300-70 and 302-1

[FTR Case 2009-306; Docket 2009-0011, Sequence 1]
RIN 3090-AI94


Federal Travel Regulation (FTR); FTR Case 2009-306; Relocation 
Allowances

AGENCY: Office of Governmentwide Policy (OGP), General Services 
Administration (GSA).

ACTION: Proposed rule.

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SUMMARY: This proposed rule defines a process for collecting 
transaction-level data regarding relocation of Federal civilian 
employees. Specifically, this proposed rule would require that agencies 
that spend more than $5 million per year on travel and relocation send 
transaction-level data on relocation to GSA at least quarterly. GSA 
will store this data in a data warehouse that the agencies will be able 
to query to answer operational, managerial, and policy questions. In 
addition to the transaction-level reporting process, this proposed rule 
also would establish an annual reporting requirement for data regarding 
employee relocation and would modify the existing requirement for large 
agencies to collect and report data on temporary duty travel on an 
annual basis, instead of biennially.

DATES: Comments must be received on or before December 21, 2009.

ADDRESSES: Submit comments identified by FTR case 2009-306 by any of 
the following methods:
    <bullet> Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov. 
Search for any document by typing in the FTR case number (for example, 
FTR case 2009-306) and clicking on the ``Go'' button.
    <bullet> Fax: 202-501-4067.
    <bullet> Mail: General Services Administration, Regulatory 
Secretariat (MVPR), 1800 F Street, NW., Room 4041, ATTN: Hada Flowers, 
Washington, DC 20405.
    Instructions: Please submit comments only and cite FTR case 2009-
306 in all correspondence related to this case. All comments received 
will be posted without change to http://www.regulations.gov, including 
any personal information provided.

[[Page 53980]]


FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For clarification of content, contact 
Mr. Henry Maury, OGP, Office of Travel, Transportation, and Asset 
Management, at (202) 208-7928. For information pertaining to status or 
publication schedules contact the Regulatory Secretariat (MVPR), Room 
4041, 1800 F Street, NW., Washington, DC 20405, (202) 501-4755. Please 
cite FTR case 2009-306.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

A. Background

    In 1986, Congress amended 5 U.S.C. 5707 for travel and relocation 
by mandating that GSA collect and report data from certain Federal 
agencies (Pub. L. 99-234). This mandate expired in 1991 but was 
permanently reinstated in 1994 by Public Law 103-329, Sec. 634(c), 5 
U.S.C. 5707(c). In summary, the current statute states:
    <bullet> The Administrator of General Services shall submit to the 
Office of Management and Budget (OMB), at least once every two years, a 
report on agency spending on temporary duty travel and relocation.
    <bullet> The report shall be an analysis of estimated total agency 
payments for items such as travel, transportation, average cost and 
duration of trips, purposes of official travel, and estimated total 
agency payments for relocation.
    <bullet> The report shall be based on a sampling survey of agencies 
that spent more than $5 million during the previous fiscal year on 
travel and relocation combined.
    <bullet> The agencies that spent more that $5 million during the 
previous fiscal year shall provide the necessary information to GSA in 
a format prescribed by GSA.
    GSA has surveyed the agencies, in accordance with this statute, 
several times since 1994. The results have not been useful. The 
governmentwide totals were clearly far less than the actual 
governmentwide expenditures as estimated by GSA, OMB, and the trade 
press.
    One explanation for the lack of data is that agencies had no way to 
gather it at a reasonable cost. For both temporary duty travel and 
relocation, the agencies found it impossible to provide complete and 
reliable answers to the questions because they had no central 
repository for this data. Instead, agencies had to survey each of the 
thousands of locations where travel or relocation orders were 
authorized and, in most cases, they had to actually copy and add the 
values from paper copies of travel and relocation orders.
    Today, all documentation for travel and relocation should be fully 
automated, so it should be much easier to collect complete and reliable 
data. For temporary duty travel, agencies are in the final stages of 
migrating to eTravel systems, which can provide the required data 
easily. For employee relocation, GSA expects shortly to publish a final 
rule that urges agencies to move to comprehensive, automated, 
relocation management systems, which again should be able to provide 
the data that they are required to report.
    Data collection processes for travel and relocation should provide:
    1. Accurate, complete, transparent, and reliable totals of 
expenditures that can be tracked year-to-year, on an agencywide and 
governmentwide basis.
    2. Accurate, complete, transparent, and reliable totals of the 
major components of travel and relocation, such as lodging, air travel, 
household goods shipments, residence transaction reimbursements, etc., 
also with enough consistency that they can be tracked year-to-year.
    3. Enough detail that Federal agencies, GSA, OMB, Congress, and the 
public can analyze the information, identify policies that perhaps 
ought to be adjusted, determine whether those policy levers actually 
should be moved, and determine the direction and amplitude of 
appropriate changes in policy (a policy lever in this context is a 
point at which the statute or regulation allows, or should allow, GSA 
or agency relocation managers to make adjustments in response to 
changes in the market, changes in relocation patterns, etc.).
    For example, household goods shipments have been limited to 18,000 
pounds per household at least since 1966, but GSA has never had data to 
determine whether the current statutory weight limitation should be 
higher, lower, or tiered in some fashion. Transaction-level data would 
allow GSA to answer these questions, as well as similar questions about 
many other current provisions.
    This proposed rule would replace the existing reporting process 
described in FTR part 300-70 with separate reporting requirements for 
temporary duty travel and employee relocation. The travel reporting 
requirement would remain in FTR part 300-70, but the employee 
relocation reporting requirement would now be in FTR part 302-1.
    For temporary duty travel, GSA's Federal Acquisition Service is 
building a data warehouse with information derived from vouchers in the 
eTravel systems, Travel Management Services, banks that issue the 
Government's travel charge cards, and other sources. This warehouse, 
when it is fully operational, will allow the agencies, GSA, OMB, and 
Congress to answer a wide range of questions about temporary duty 
travel. In the meantime, this proposed rule would simplify the 
requirements in FTR part 300-70, stating only that GSA will provide the 
required data elements, report format, and due dates in an FTR 
bulletin. This proposed rule would also change the reporting 
requirement for temporary duty travel from biennial to annual.
    For employee relocation, GSA and the Executive Relocation Steering 
Committee (ERSC, a Governmentwide body chartered and chaired by GSA) 
have determined that the only way to ensure the accuracy described in 
paragraph numbers 1 and 2, above, and to provide the detail required by 
paragraph number 3, is to collect transaction-level information. GSA's 
OGP is building a data warehouse to store this information and make it 
available to appropriate parties. This proposed rule would establish 
the basic requirements for the affected agencies to gather and send the 
necessary, transaction-level information to GSA.
    Concurrent with this proposed rule, GSA is publishing a Notice in 
this Federal Register. The Notice announces and requests comments on 
this proposed rule and a proposed FTR Bulletin. The proposed FTR 
bulletin itself can be viewed on GSA's Web site, at http://www.gsa.gov/relo; it consists primarily of a data dictionary, with the list of data 
elements, field lengths, coding, definitions, and suggested data 
sources that the affected agencies would be required to report. GSA 
would update this FTR bulletin whenever GSA and the ERSC determine that 
a change is needed.
    This proposed rule would also establish an annual reporting 
requirement for employee relocation data. At first glance, this 
requirement may seem redundant, since the agencies will be providing 
the data to GSA's data warehouse, and then presumably will be 
extracting summary data from that warehouse for the annual report; 
however, it is not redundant because it has very different objectives. 
The objectives of the annual reporting requirement are:
    1. To have a senior executive at each agency ensure the accuracy, 
completeness, and reliability of the data that the agency has sent to 
the warehouse; and
    2. To make those executives cognizant of the full extent of their 
agencies' relocation programs.

[[Page 53981]]

    GSA expects to publish the details of the annual reporting 
requirement (data elements, format, due date, etc.), along with details 
of the transaction-level process, in a second FTR bulletin. This second 
bulletin will be fully coordinated with the ERSC before publication, 
and it will also be updated as necessary. GSA is postponing this second 
Bulletin because it would not be reasonable to require annual reports 
until a majority of agencies are sending transaction data to the data 
warehouse.
    The statute, at 5 U.S.C. 5707(c), as summarized above, states that 
The Administrator of General Services shall submit to OMB, at least 
once every two years, a report on agency spending on temporary duty 
travel and relocation. GSA believes that requiring the transaction-
level data collection process and annual reporting by agencies will 
allow GSA to compile the necessary data to fulfill the statute's intent 
within the timeframes prescribed. The intent of the statute is to make 
Federal relocation data transparent to all interested parties and, 
thereby, to make it much easier for OMB, GSA, and Federal agency 
executives to manage relocation more efficiently and effectively. It is 
clear from the Governmentwide Relocation Advisory Board report and from 
the analysis by the GSA and the ERSC that only a transaction-level 
reporting process can accomplish this intent.
    GSA's intention is to make this rule effective on the date that the 
final rule is published in the Federal Register. GSA recognizes that 
many agencies will not be able to fulfill the requirements immediately. 
GSA also notes, however, that since 1994 (and previously, 1985-1991) 5 
U.S.C. 5707(c) has required that agencies spending more than $5 million 
per year on travel and relocation be able to provide data to GSA, so 
that GSA could fulfill its reporting requirements. Several private 
sector companies sell systems that agencies can use to collect and send 
the data described in the proposed FTR Bulletin associated with this 
proposed rule, and a number of agencies have agency-developed systems 
that can be modified to collect and send the required data. GSA will 
work closely with the affected agencies to help them fulfill the 
requirement once issued as a final rule.

B. Proposed Rule

    This proposed rule would change the reporting requirement for data 
regarding temporary duty and employee relocation from biennial to 
annual, and it would add a requirement that agencies submit selected 
data from every employee relocation transaction to the GSA relocation 
data warehouse.

C. Changes to Current FTR

    This proposed rule would replace FTR sections 300-70.1, 300-70.2, 
and part 302-1, subpart B, in their entirety.

D. Executive Order 12866

    This proposed rule is excepted from the definition of 
``regulation'' or ``rule'' under section 3(d)(3) of Executive Order 
12866, Regulatory Planning and Review, dated September 30, 1993, and 
therefore, was not subject to review under section 6(b) of that 
Executive Order.

E. Regulatory Flexibility Act

    This proposed rule is not required to be published in the Federal 
Register for notice and comment as per the exemption specified in 5 
U.S.C. 553(a)(2); therefore, the Regulatory Flexibility Act, 5 U.S.C. 
601, et seq., does not apply.

F. Paperwork Reduction Act

    The Paperwork Reduction Act does not apply because these proposed 
changes to the FTR do not impose information collection requirements 
that require the approval of OMB under 44 U.S.C. 3501, et seq.

G. Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act

    This proposed rule is also exempt from congressional review under 5 
U.S.C. 801 since it relates solely to agency management and personnel.

List of Subjects in 41 CFR Parts 300-70 and 302-1

    Agency Reporting Requirements and General Rules.

    Dated: June 29, 2009.
Stan Kaczmarczyk,
Acting Associate Administrator, Office of Governmentwide Policy.
    For the reasons set forth in the preamble, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 
5701-5709, GSA proposes to amend 41 CFR Parts 300-70 and 302-1 as set 
forth below:

PART 300-70--AGENCY REPORTING REQUIREMENTS

    1. The authority citation for 41 CFR Part 300-70 continues to read 
as follows:

    Authority: 5 U.S.C. 5707; 5 U.S.C. 5738; 5 U.S.C. 5741-5742; 20 
U.S.C. 905(a); 31 U.S.C. 1353; 40 U.S.C. 121(c); 49 U.S.C. 40118; 
E.O. 11609, 3 CFR, 1971-1975 Comp., p. 586.

    2. Revise Sec.  300-70.1 to read as follows:


Sec.  300-70.1  What are the requirements for reporting payments for 
employee travel and relocation?

    Agencies (as defined in Sec.  301-1.1 of this title) that spent 
more than $5 million on travel and transportation payments, including 
relocation, during the fiscal year immediately preceding the report due 
date, must report such total agency payments as described in this 
regulation.
    (a) Specific information on reporting payments for temporary duty 
travel are in this subpart.
    (b) Specific information on reporting payments for employee 
relocation are in Part 302-1, Subpart B.
    3. Revise Sec.  300-70.2 to read as follows:


Sec.  300-70.2  What information must we report, and when must we 
report it?

    GSA provides the list of data elements, the report formats, and the 
due dates in a series of FTR bulletins. GSA coordinates these FTR 
bulletins with the affected agencies and updates them as needed. FTR 
bulletins are available through: http://www.gsa.gov/ftrbulletins.

PART 302-1--GENERAL RULES

    4. The authority citation for 41 CFR part 302-1 is revised to read 
as follows:

    Authority: 5 U.S.C. 5707(c); 5 U.S.C. 5738; 20 U.S.C. 905(a).

    5. Add subpart B to part 302-1 to read as follows:
Subpart B--Reporting Requirements
Sec.
302-1.100 [Reserved]
302-1.101 [Reserved]
302-1.102 Are we required to report to GSA on employee relocation 
activities?
302-1.104 What data must we provide to the GSA relocation data 
warehouse?
302-1.105 When must we collect the data for the GSA relocation data 
warehouse?
302-1.106 When must we send the data to the GSA relocation data 
warehouse?
302-1.107 What data must we send to GSA in our annual report?
302-1.108 Who must sign the annual report?
302-1.109 May an agency report at the bureau level?

Subpart B--Reporting Requirements


Sec.  302-1.100  [Reserved]


Sec.  302-1.101  [Reserved]


Sec.  302-1.102  Are we required to report to GSA on employee 
relocation activities?

    Yes, every agency that spent more than $5 million during the 
preceding fiscal year on travel and transportation payments, including 
relocation, must report to GSA on their employee

[[Page 53982]]

relocation activities, as provided in this subpart. Agencies that spend 
$5 million per year or less are also welcome to participate.


Sec.  302-1.103  What data collection processes will GSA employ for 
employee relocation?

    (a) GSA collects transaction-level data, which is stored in a data 
warehouse and made available for analysis to appropriate officials.
    (b) In addition, reporting agencies must submit annual summary 
reports to GSA, signed by a senior executive as specified in FTR 302-
1.108.


Sec.  302-1.104  What data must we provide to the GSA relocation data 
warehouse?

    GSA works with the affected agencies to develop the data elements 
and report format for this information, and publishes the specific 
requirements in a series of FTR bulletins. These bulletins provide the 
data dictionary and details on the reporting processes (i.e., annual 
and transactional). FTR bulletins are available through http://www.gsa.gov/ftrbulletins.


Sec.  302-1.105  When must we collect the data for the GSA relocation 
data warehouse?

    The affected agencies must collect the data elements listed in the 
data dictionary from every relocation transaction that includes one or 
more of the required data elements. This includes all travel 
authorizations for relocation, plus allowances, reimbursements, and 
direct payments to vendors.


Sec.  302-1.106  When must we send the data to the GSA relocation data 
warehouse?

    The affected agencies must send the specified data to the GSA 
warehouse at least quarterly. There is no maximum frequency; agencies 
may send data to the warehouse daily if they choose to do so.


Sec.  302-1.107  What data must we send to GSA in our annual report?

    GSA specifies the data elements, format, and due date for the 
current annual report in an FTR bulletin. FTR bulletins are available 
through http://www.gsa.gov/ftrbulletins.


Sec.  302-1.108  Who must sign the annual report?

    The annual report must be signed by a senior executive who has the 
authority to ensure that the data provided to the data warehouse and in 
the annual report are accurate, complete, and reliable.


Sec.  302-1.109  May an agency report at the bureau level?

    Yes, an agency may send multiple reports from different bureaus or 
components, so long as the sum of all those reports represents all 
relocation activity in the agency.

[FR Doc. E9-25334 Filed 10-20-09; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6820-14-P