Emergency Justification

Paperwork Reduction Act – Justification for Emergency Request

The Department of Energy’s Office of Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) is making a request on an emergency basis to conduct an information collection for Privacy Act requests.

In accordance to The Privacy Act of 1974 5 U.S.C. § 552a and the Code of Federal Regulations Title 10: Energy § 1008.7, privacy requests submitted by an individual or on behalf of an individual by a designee shall be acted upon promptly.    The CFR Code of Federal Regulations Title 10: Energy § 1008.7 states that every effort should be made to respond within 10 working days of the receipt by the Privacy Act Request Processor.    It is often necessary for the Privacy Act Request Processor to ask for further information required to respond to the request, which can increase the process time significantly.   

In an effort to decrease processing time and increase efficiencies, the OCIO has created an update to the previous Records and Administration Collection which requests individuals to provide additional pertinent information that will assist in easier record retrieval. This new form will decrease OCIO man hours by compressing the time it takes to research and retrieve records. This form will also decrease the burden on the individual requester if they are in need of their records in a short period of time.

If this request is not granted, the Privacy Act Request process for the Department will be significantly affected.    Processing times, man hour costs and burden to the individual will increase.

The OCIO is making this collection request on an emergency basis in order to increase efficiencies and cost savings, and to eliminate the burden on the individual requester.    The OCIO expects to receive approximately 135 Privacy Requests after publication of this form.