2.  Information Collection Requirements

Comments: One respondent stated that the estimates of the Paperwork Reduction Act burdens (information collection requirements) appear to be significantly underestimated, and do not take into account the many levels of internal reviews that would be required as well as efforts associated with coordinating with legal counsel, program staff, etc., as necessary.

Another respondent, in response to the notice published in the Federal Register at 76 FR 27648 on May 12, 2011, questioned the accuracy and currency of the supporting statement for the information collection requirement for the subject rule.

Response: In response, the Councils updated the data used in the supporting statement, including current Federal Procurement Data System data. This resulted in minor or non-material changes in the estimated number of responses. For example, the estimate for the ratio of violations reported to the Department of Justice compared to the base of estimated number of Federal employees was doubled, due to correcting the base to include only Federal civilian employees. However, this approach only increased the estimated number of annual contractor employee violations from 10 to 22.

In addition, the Councils considered the comment that the hours per response are underestimated, due to the many levels of internal reviews that would be required as well as efforts associated with coordinating with legal counsel or program staff, as necessary. Although the Councils did not have specific data as to how much increase these reviews would require, the Councils doubled the previous estimates of 2 hours for reporting a violation and 4 hours for requesting mitigation, resulting in an estimate of 4 hours per violation report and 8 hours per mitigation request. As with any estimate of an average number, there will be a large range between the high end (as in a large corporation) and the low end where only a few people may be involved.

These revisions result in an increase of the estimated response burden hours from 1,820 hours in the proposed rule to 3,688 hours. The estimated recordkeeping hours remain unchanged at 61,200 hours.