Ss-0142

Supporting Statement

Importation of Gypsy Moth Host Materials from Canada

0579-0142

1. JUSTIFICATION February 2012

1. Explain the circumstances that make the collection of information necessary. Identify any legal or administrative requirements that necessitate the collection.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is responsible for preventing plant diseases or insect pests from entering the United States, preventing the spread of pests not widely distributed in the United States, and eradicating those imported pests when eradication is feasible.

Under the Plant Protection Act (7 U.S.C. 7701 – et seq), the Secretary of Agriculture is authorized to regulate the importation of plants, plant products, and other articles to prevent the introduction of injurious plant pests.

The regulations implementing this Act are contained in Title 7 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), Part 319 (Foreign Quarantine Notices). Plant Protection and Quarantine, a program within USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), is responsible for ensuring that these regulations are enforced.

The regulations APHIS has devised to implement these laws often require APHIS to collect information from a variety of individuals, both within and outside of the United States, who are involved in growing, packing, handling, transporting, and importing foreign logs, trees, shrubs, and other articles.

The information APHIS collects is vital to helping APHIS ensure that these items do not harbor plant or insect pests such as the gypsy moth.

APHIS currently regulates the interstate movement of various articles due to the presence of gypsy moth (a destructive pest of forest and shade trees) in certain areas within the United States and certain provinces in Canada that are infested with gypsy moth. These items are as follows: trees with and without roots (including Christmas trees), shrubs, logs, pulpwood, outdoor household articles, and mobile homes imported into the United States from certain provinces in Canada that are infested with gypsy moth. These provinces are British Columbia, Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Quebec.

The items mentioned above would need to be accompanied by documentation (including phytosanitary certificates, certificates of origin, and signed statements) certifying that the items have been inspected and found free of gypsy moth.

2. Indicate how, by whom, and for what purpose the information is to be used. Except for a new collection, indicate the actual use the agency has made of the information received from the current collection.

Canadian Phytosanitary Certificate

Trees without roots (Christmas trees), trees with roots, shrubs with roots and persistent woody stems, logs, and pulpwood with bark attached originating in the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, or Quebec, and destined for a gypsy moth-free area within the United States must be accompanied by a Canadian phytosanitary certificate, endorsed by a representative of the Canadian government, certifying that the items have been inspected and found free of gypsy moths.

Canadian Certificate of Origin

Any of the above items that are not destined for a gypsy moth-free area within the United States, but are simply transiting through such an area within the United States, must be accompanied by a Canadian certificate of origin, endorsed by a representative of the Canadian government, certifying that the items were produced where the gypsy moth is not known to occur.

Written Statement

Household articles, as well as mobile homes and their associated equipment imported from Canada into gypsy moth-free areas of the United States, must be accompanied by a statement signed by the homeowner. This document (usually prepared by APHIS and signed by the homeowner) must state that the household articles, or the mobile home and its associated equipment, have been inspected and found free of gypsy moth.

Compliance Agreement (foreign)

Logs or pulpwood with bark attached may be imported into the United States from gypsy moth infested provinces in Canada if they are destined for a specified United States processing plant or mill that has entered into a compliance agreement with APHIS for specified handling or processing. The owner/operator of the plant or mill signs the compliance agreement, thereby agreeing that the logs or pulpwood from Canada will be handled and processed according to our requirements.

3. Describe whether, and to what extent, the collection of information involves the use of automated, electronic, mechanical, or other forms of information technology, e.g., permitting electronic submission of responses, and the basis for the decision for adopting this means of collection. Also describe any consideration of using information technology to reduce burden.

APHIS has no control or influence over when foreign countries will automate these certificates or agreements.

A written agreement from the country where the article is grown can be automated.

4. Describe efforts to identify duplication. Show specifically why any similar information already available cannot be used or modified for use for the purpose described in item 2 above.

The information APHIS collects is exclusive to its mission of protecting the United States from incursion by agricultural pests and is not available from any other source.

5. If the collection of information impacts small businesses or other small entities, describe any methods used to minimize burden.

The information APHIS collects is the minimum needed to protect the United States from gypsy moth incursion. APHIS has determined 98 percent of the respondents are small entities.

6. Describe the consequences to Federal program or policy activities if the collection is not conducted or is conducted less frequently, as well as any technical or legal obstacles to reducing burden.

Failing to collect this information would cripple APHIS’ ability to ensure that trees (including Christmas trees) shrubs, logs, and a variety of other items imported from Canada do not harbor gypsy moths. An incursion of gypsy moths into non-infested areas of the United States could result in the destruction of many thousands of acres of trees, with a corresponding loss of millions of dollars to the United States timber and nursery industries.

7. Explain any special circumstances that require the collection to be conducted in a manner inconsistent with the general information collection guidelines in 5 CFR 1320.5.

• requiring respondents to report informa­tion to the agency more often than quarterly;

• requiring respondents to prepare a writ­ten response to a collection of infor­ma­tion in fewer than 30 days after receipt of it;

• requiring respondents to submit more than an original and two copies of any docu­ment;

• requiring respondents to retain re­cords, other than health, medical, governm­ent contract, grant-in-aid, or tax records for more than three years;

• in connection with a statisti­cal sur­vey, that is not de­signed to produce valid and reli­able results that can be general­ized to the uni­verse of study;

• requiring the use of a statis­tical data classi­fication that has not been re­vie­wed and approved by OMB;

• that includes a pledge of confiden­tiali­ty that is not supported by au­thority estab­lished in statute or regu­la­tion, that is not sup­ported by dis­closure and data security policies that are consistent with the pledge, or which unneces­sarily impedes shar­ing of data with other agencies for com­patible confiden­tial use; or

• requiring respondents to submit propri­etary trade secret, or other confidential information unless the agency can demon­strate that it has instituted procedures to protect the information's confidentiality to the extent permit­ted by law.

No special circumstances exist that would require this collection to be conducted

in a manner inconsistent with the general information collection guidelines in

5 CFR 1320.5.

8. Describe efforts to consult with persons outside the agency to obtain their views on the availability of data, frequency of collection, the clarity of instructions and recordkeeping, disclosure, or reporting form, and on the data elements to be recorded, disclosed, or reported. If applicable, provide a copy and identify the date and page number of publication in the Federal Register of the agency's notice, soliciting comments on the information collection prior to submission to OMB.

Productive consultations concerning our proposed information collection activities were made in 2011 with the following individuals:

B.L. Curry and Sons, Incorporated

Jeff Curry

1014 East Sixth Street

New Albany, Indiana 47150

(812) 945-6623

G.R. Wood/American Timbers

Dan Harris 260 Park Drive

Mooresville, Indiana 46158

(317) 831-8060

Amos Hill Associates

Bill Costoplos

112 Shelby Avenue

Edinburgh, Indiana 46124

(812) 526-2671

On Thursday, May 19, 2011, pages 28948-28949, APHIS published in the Federal Register, a 60-day notice seeking public comments on its plans to request a 3-year renewal of this collection of information. No comments from the public were received.

9. Explain any decision to provide any payment or gift to respondents, other than reenumeration of contractors or grantees.

This information collection activity involves no payments or gifts to respondents.

10. Describe any assurance of confidentiality provided to respondents and the basis for the assurance in statute, regulation, or agency policy.

No additional assurance of confidentiality is provided with this information collection. Any and all information obtained in this collection shall not be disclosed except in accordance with 5 U.S.C. 552a.

11. Provide additional justification for any questions of a sensitive nature, such as sexual behavior and attitudes, religious beliefs, and others that are considered private. This justification should include the reasons why the agency considers the questions necessary, the specific uses to be made of the information, the explanation to be given to persons from whom the information is requested, and any steps to be taken to obtain their consent.

This information collection activity asks no questions of a personal or sensitive nature.

12. Provide estimates of the hour burden of the collection of information. Indicate the number of respondents, frequency of response, annual hour burden, and an explanation of how the burden was estimated.

• Indicate the number of respondents, frequency of response, annual hour burden, and an explanation of how the burden was estimated. If this request for approval covers more than one form, provide separate hour burden estimates for each form and aggregate the hour burdens in Item 13 of OMB Form 83-I.

See APHIS Form 71 for hour burden estimates. APHIS arrived at these estimates through discussions with regulated entities, including exporters, shippers, and plant health authorities in Canada.

• Provide estimates of annualized cost to respondents for the hour burdens for collections of information, identifying and using appropriate wage rate categories.

The cost to the public was determined by multiplying the total number of burden hours (81) times the wage per hour rate. APHIS estimates that the total average hourly rate is $27.29.

81 burden hours X $27.29 (estimated average hourly wage) = $2,210.49.

The hourly salary of 27.29 is derived from the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics May 2009 Report – Occupational Employment and Wages in the United States. See http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ocwage.t03.htm. The hourly salary is an average based on the occupations of businesses, private citizens, and foreign government.

13. Provide estimates of the total annual cost burden to respondents or recordkeepers resulting from the collection of information, (do not include the cost of any hour burden shown in items 12 and 14). The cost estimates should be split into two components: (a) a total capital and start-up cost component annualized over its expected useful life; and (b) a total operation and maintenance and purchase of services component.

There is zero annual cost burden associated with capital and start-up, operation and maintenance, and purchase of services in connection with this program.

14. Provide estimates of annualized cost to the Federal government. Provide a description of the method used to estimate cost and any other expense that would not have been incurred without this collection of information.

The estimated cost for the Federal Government is $ 4,161 (See APHIS Form 79.)

15. Explain the reasons for any program changes or adjustments reported in Items 13 or 14 of the OMB Form 83-1.

ICR Summary of Burden:

	Requested	Program Change Due to New Statute	Program Change Due to Agency Discretion	Change Due to Adjustment in Agency Estimate	Change Due to Potential Violation of the PRA	Previously Approved
Annual Number of Responses	2,230	0	0	0	0	2,230
Annual Time Burden (Hr)	81	0	0	0	0	81
Annual Cost Burden ($)	0	0	0	0	0	0

There is no change in burden for this 3-year renewal information collection.

.

16. For collections of information whose results are planned to be published, outline plans for tabulation and publication.

APHIS has no plans to tabulate or publish the information we are collecting.

17. If seeking approval to not display the expiration date for OMB approval of the information collection, explain the reasons that display would be inappropriate.

There are no United States forms involved in this information collection.

18. Explain each exception to the certification statement identified in the “Certification for Paperwork Reduction Act."

APHIS is able to certify compliance with all the provisions in the Act.

B. Collections of Information Employing Statistical Methods

Statistical methods are not used in this information collection.