Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 197 / Friday, October 13, 2017 / Notices 47769 

cases occurring on tribal lands in tribal 

or state courts; non-prosecutorial 

services provided on tribal lands (such 

as victim services and community 

outreach services); information sharing 

with tribal governments; training 

received by prosecutors about tribal 

lands; and the number and types of 

referrals to and cases prosecuted by 

state prosecutors. The survey is 

designed to describe the role that state 

and local prosecutor offices play in 

charging and prosecuting crimes that 

occur on tribal lands in PL–280 states. 

(5) An estimate of the total number of 

respondents and the amount of time 

estimated for an average respondent to 

respond: BJS expects to cognitively test 

the revised survey with about 10 offices 

with an estimated burden of 60 minutes 

per respondent. BJS plans to contact 

about 50 prosecutor offices by telephone 

to ask whether they provide services to 

tribal lands with an expected 

respondent burden of 10 minutes per 

respondent. After the pilot test, BJS will 

determine the total number of offices 

that will be contacted in the full survey 

effort. For the full survey, BJS estimates 

a maximum of 315 offices and a 

respondent burden of about 30 minutes 

per office, including follow-up time. 

(6) An estimate of the total public 

burden (in hours) associated with the 

collection: The total respondent burden 

for the cognitive test is approximately 

10 hours. The total respondent burden 

for the telephone pilot test is 

approximately 8 burden hours. The 

maximum expected respondent burden 

for the full survey effort is 

approximately 158 burden hours. The 

total burden for this effort is 

approximately 176 burden hours. 

If additional information is required 

contact: Melody Braswell, Department 

Clearance Officer, United States 

Department of Justice, Justice 

Management Division, Policy and 

Planning Staff, Two Constitution 

Square, 145 N Street NE., 3E.405A, 

Washington, DC 20530. 

Dated: October 10, 2017. 

Melody Braswell, 

Department Clearance Officer for PRA, U.S. 

Department of Justice. 

[FR Doc. 2017–22167 Filed 10–12–17; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4410–18–P 

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR 

Employee Benefits Security 

Administration 

Proposed Extension of Information 

Collection Request Submitted for 

Public Comment; Coverage of Certain 

Preventive Services Under the 

Affordable Care Act—Private Sector 

AGENCY: Employee Benefits Security 

Administration, Department of Labor. 

ACTION: Notice. 

SUMMARY: The Department of Labor (the 

Department), in accordance with the 

Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA 

95), provides the general public and 

Federal agencies with an opportunity to 

comment on proposed and continuing 

collections of information. This helps 

the Department assess the impact of its 

information collection requirements and 

minimize the reporting burden on the 

public and helps the public understand 

the Department’s information collection 

requirements and provide the requested 

data in the desired format. Currently, 

the Employee Benefits Security 

Administration is soliciting comments 

on a revision of the Coverage of Certain 

Preventive Services under the 

Affordable Care Act—Private Sector 

information collection request (ICR) to 

reflect the Executive Order signed on 

May 4, 2017, ‘‘Executive Order 

Promoting Free Speech and Religious 

Liberty.’’ The order declares, regarding 

‘‘Conscience Protections with Respect to 

Preventive-Care Mandate,’’ that ‘‘[t]he 

Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary 

of Labor, and the Secretary of Health 

and Human Services shall consider 

issuing amended regulations, consistent 

with applicable law, to address 

conscience-based objections to the 

preventive-care mandate promulgated 

under section 300gg–13(a)(4) of title 42, 

United States Code.’’ 

A copy of the information collection 

request (ICR) may be obtained by 

contacting the office listed in the 

ADDRESSES section of this notice. 

DATES: Written comments must be 

submitted to the office shown in the 

ADDRESSES section on or before 

December 12, 2017. 

ADDRESSES: Direct all written comments 

regarding the information collection 

request and burden estimates to the 

Office of Policy and Research, Employee 

Benefits Security Administration, U.S. 

Department of Labor, 200 Constitution 

Avenue NW., Room N–5718, 

Washington, DC 20210. Telephone: 

(202) 693–8410; Fax: (202) 219–4745. 

These are not toll-free numbers. 

Comments may also be submitted 

electronically to the following Internet 

email address: ebsa.opr@dol.gov. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. Background 

The Departments of Labor, the 

Treasury, and Health and Human 

Services are issuing interim final 

regulations regarding coverage of certain 

preventive services under section 2713 

of the Public Health Service Act (PHS 

Act), added by the Patient Protection 

and Affordable Care Act, as amended, 

and incorporated into the Employee 

Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 

and the Internal Revenue Code. Section 

2713 of the PHS Act requires coverage 

without cost sharing of certain 

preventive health services by nongrandfathered group health plans and 

health insurance coverage. Among these 

services are women’s preventive health 

services, as specified in guidelines 

supported by the Health Resources and 

Services Administration (HRSA). 

As authorized by final regulations 

issued on July 2, 2013 (78 FR 39870), 

and consistent with the HRSA 

guidelines, group health plans 

established or maintained by certain 

religious employers (and group health 

insurance coverage provided in 

connection with such plans) are exempt 

from the otherwise applicable 

requirement to cover certain 

contraceptive services. Additionally, 

under the final regulations, group health 

plans established or maintained by 

certain nonprofit organizations that hold 

themselves out as religious 

organizations and that have religious 

objections to contraceptive coverage 

(eligible organizations) are eligible for 

an accommodation. 

The final regulations require each 

organization seeking accommodation to 

self-certify that it meets the definition of 

an eligible organization. The 

organization must send a copy of the 

self-certification to an issuer or thirdparty administrator. The organizations 

seeking the accommodation must 

maintain the self-certification/ 

notification in a manner consistent with 

the record retention requirements under 

section 107 of the Employee Retirement 

Income Security Act of 1974, which 

generally requires records to be 

maintained for six years. The form that 

is used by eligible organizations for 

their self-certification is EBSA Form 

700, which is an information collection 

request (ICR) subject to the Paperwork 

Reduction Act. 

The August 2014 interim final and 

July 2015 final regulations augmented 

the 2013 final regulations and revised 

the EBSA Form 700 ICR in light of the 


asabaliauskas on DSKBBXCHB2PROD with NOTICES
47770 Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 197 / Friday, October 13, 2017 / Notices 

1The Supreme Court of the United States interim 

order in connection with an application for an 

injunction in the pending case of Wheaton College 

v. Burwell (the ‘‘Wheaton order’’). 2See, e.g., 29 CFR 2520.104b–3(d). 

Wheaton order.1 Specifically, the final 

regulations continued to allow eligible 

organizations to notify an issuer or third 

party administrator using EBSA Form 

700, as set forth in the July 2013 final 

regulations. In addition, the final 

regulations permitted an alternative 

process, consistent with the Wheaton 

order, under which an eligible 

organization could notify the Secretary 

of HHS that it will not act as the plan 

administrator or claims administrator 

with respect to, or contribute to the 

funding of, coverage of all or a subset of 

contraceptive services. The notification 

must include information sufficient to 

identify the plan, plan type (including 

whether it is a church plan within the 

meaning of ERISA section 3(33)), and 

the identity and mailing addresses of 

any third party administrators. 

The 2017 interim final rules amend 

the Departments’ July 2015 final 

regulations to expand the exemption to 

include additional entities (any kind of 

non-governmental employer) and 

persons that object based on religious 

beliefs or moral convictions objecting to 

contraceptive or sterilization coverage, 

and by making the accommodation 

compliance process optional for eligible 

organizations instead of mandatory. 

These rules leave in place HRSA’s 

discretion to continue to require 

contraceptive and sterilization coverage 

where no objection exists, and to the 

extent that PHS Act section 2713 

otherwise applies. With respect to 

employers, the expanded exemption in 

these rules covers employers that have 

religious beliefs or moral convictions 

objecting to coverage of all or a subset 

of contraceptives or sterilization and 

related patient education and 

counseling. While the rules cover any 

kind of non-governmental employer but, 

for the sake of clarity, these regulations 

also include an illustrative list of 

employers whose objection qualifies the 

plans they sponsor for an exemption. 

Consistent with the current 

exemption, exempt entities will not be 

required to comply with a selfcertification process. Although exempt 

entities do not need to file notices or 

certifications of their exemption, 

existing rules governing health plans 

require that a plan document specify 

what is and is not covered. Thus where 

an exemption applies and all or a subset 

of contraception is omitted from a plan’s 

coverage, the plan document and 

otherwise applicable ERISA 

disclosures 2 should reflect the omission 

of coverage. This is not an added 

obligation, but it will serve to help 

provide notice of what plans do and do 

not cover. 

As in the previous rule, institutions of 

higher education that arrange student 

health insurance coverage will continue 

to be treated similar to the way 

employers are treated for the purposes 

of such plans being exempt. These 

interim final rules also exempt group 

health plans sponsored by an entity 

other than an employer, and health 

insurance issuers in the group and 

individual market, that object based on 

religious beliefs or moral convictions to 

coverage of contraceptives or 

sterilization. The rules also exempt 

health coverage offered or provided to 

certain individuals with their own 

religious or moral objections. 

Employers that under the previous 

rules had used the accommodation 

process, but can now be exempt may 

now choose to revoke their use of the 

accommodation process, but in order to 

do so they must provide participants 

and beneficiaries written notice of such 

revocation as soon as possible. 

The Office of Management and Budget 

(OMB) approved the amendments to 

EBSA Form 700 required as a revision 

to OMB Control Number 1210–0150 

under the emergency procedures for 

review and clearance in accordance 

with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 

1995 (Pub. L. 104–13, 44 U.S.C. Chapter 

35) and 5 CFR 1320.13. OMB’s approval 

of the revision currently are schedule to 

expire on September 30, 2018. In an 

effort to consolidate the number of 

information collection requests, the 

Department is combining the burden 

from 1210–0152 into 1210–0150. Once 

this ICR is approved the Department 

will discontinue. 1210–0152. 

II. Current Actions 

This notice requests public comment 

pertaining to the Department’s request 

for extension of OMB’s approval of its 

revision to EBSA Form 700. After 

considering comments received in 

response to this notice, the Department 

intends to submit an ICR to OMB for 

continuing approval. Changes to the 

current ICR include an expansion to the 

number of firms that qualify for the 

exemption, making the accommodation 

process optional, and requiring firms 

that are revoking their current 

accommodation to send a notice to plan 

participants and beneficiaries. The 

Department notes that an agency may 

not conduct or sponsor, and a person is 

not required to respond to, an 

information collection unless it displays 

a valid OMB control number. A 

summary of the ICR and the current 

burden estimates follows: 

Type of Review: Revised Collection. 

Agency: DOL–EBSA. 

Title: Coverage of Certain Preventive 

Services under the Affordable Care 

Act—Private Sector. 

OMB Numbers: 1210–0150. 

Affected Public: Private Sector—Not 

for profit and religious organizations; 

businesses or other for profits. 

Total Respondents: 114 (combined 

with HHS total is 227). 

Total Responses: 274,628 (combined 

with HHS total is 549,255). 

Frequency of Response: On occasion. 

Estimated Total Annual Burden 

Hours: 181 (combined with HHS total is 

362 hours). 

Estimated Total Annual Burden Cost: 

$68,662 (combined with HHS total is 

$137,325). 

III. Desired Focus of Comments 

The Department of Labor 

(Department) is particularly interested 

in comments that: 

• Evaluate 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; 

• Evaluate the accuracy of the agency’s 

estimate of the burden of the proposed 

collection of information, including the 

validity of the methodology and assumptions 

used; 

• Enhance the quality, utility, and clarity 

of the information to be collected; and 

• Minimize the burden of the collection of 

information on those who are to respond, 

including through the use of appropriate 

automated, electronic, mechanical, or other 

technological collection techniques or other 

forms of information technology, e.g., by 

permitting electronic submissions of 

responses. 

Comments submitted in response to 

this notice will be summarized and/or 

included in the ICR for OMB approval 

of the extension of the information 

collection; they will also become a 

matter of public record. 

Dated: October 5, 2017. 

Joseph S. Piacentini, 

Director, Office of Policy and Research, 

Employee Benefits Security Administration. 

[FR Doc. 2017–22064 Filed 10–12–17; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4510–29–P 

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR 

Bureau of Labor Statistics 

Comment Request 

AGENCY: Bureau of Labor Statistics, 

Department of Labor. 


asabaliauskas on DSKBBXCHB2PROD with NOTICES