2434ss25 TRI Conference Justification

Request for Approval under the “Generic Clearance for the Collection of Routine Customer Feedback” (OMB Control Number: 2010-0042)

TITLE OF INFORMATION COLLECTION: 2014 National Training Conference on the Toxics Release Inventory and Environmental Conditions in Communities

PURPOSE: This National Training Conference is the main public outreach and training event for EPA’s flagship community right-to-know regulatory program, the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI). This conference provides opportunities to discuss issues related to the TRI Program and fosters the exchange of information between Headquarters, Regions, States, Tribes, industry, community groups, researchers, and non-governmental organizations. Evaluations of the conference are used to evaluate it effectiveness and seek input for future conferences. There is an evaluation for the overall conference and one for the breakout sessions that will be held.

DESCRIPTION OF RESPONDENTS:

The respondents for the conference consists of conference attendees from federal, state, local, and tribal government agencies, academia, non-profit organizations, industry, technical and legal consulting firms, and international organizations.

TYPE OF COLLECTION: (Check one)

[ ] Customer Comment Card/Complaint Form [x] Customer Satisfaction Survey

[ ] Usability Testing (e.g., Website or Software) [ ] Small Discussion Group

[ ] Focus Group [ ] Other: ______________________

CERTIFICATION:

I certify the following to be true:

1. The collection is voluntary.

2. The collection is low-burden for respondents and low-cost for the Federal Government.

3. The collection is non-controversial and does not raise issues of concern to other federal agencies.

4. The results are not intended to be disseminated to the public.

5. Information gathered will not be used for the purpose of substantially informing influential policy decisions.

6. The collection is targeted to the solicitation of opinions from respondents who have experience with the program or may have experience with the program in the future.

Name:_______Christine Arcari____4/21/14____________________________

To assist review, please provide answers to the following question:

Personally Identifiable Information:

1. Is personally identifiable information (PII) collected? [ ] Yes [x] No

2. If Yes, is the information that will be collected included in records that are subject to the Privacy Act of 1974? [ ] Yes [ ] No

3. If Applicable, has a System or Records Notice been published? [ ] Yes [x] No

Gifts or Payments:

Is an incentive (e.g., money or reimbursement of expenses, token of appreciation) provided to participants? [ ] Yes [ x ] No

BURDEN HOURS

Category of Respondent	No. of Respondents	Participation Time	Burden
Overall Conference Evaluations	60	10 minutes	10 hours
Breakout Sessions Evaluations	32	5 minutes * 9 sessions	24 hours
Totals	92		34 hours

FEDERAL COST: It will take approximately 40 hours for a federal employee to review results of the conference evaluations.

If you are conducting a focus group, survey, or plan to employ statistical methods, please provide answers to the following questions:

The selection of your targeted respondents

1. Do you have a customer list or something similar that defines the universe of potential respondents and do you have a sampling plan for selecting from this universe? [ ] Yes [ x] No

If the answer is yes, please provide a description of both below (or attach the sampling plan)? If the answer is no, please provide a description of how you plan to identify your potential group of respondents and how you will select them?

There will be approximately 300 conference attendees. All attendees will be emailed an overall conference evaluation to fill out and submit electronically. Additionally, there will be breakout sessions where session evaluation forms will be placed at the back of the meeting room for attendees to take, fill out and place in boxes at the back of the meeting rooms or at the registration table. The conference agenda includes 18 individual breakout sessions and we expect attendees to be split between the two sessions approximately 50-50. We anticipate about a 20% response rate for both the overall conference evaluation and the breakout session evaluations.

Administration of the Instrument

1. How will you collect the information? (Check all that apply)

[ X] Web-based or other forms of Social Media

[ ] Telephone

[ ] In-person

[ ] Mail

[x ] Other, Explain (see above)

2. Will interviewers or facilitators be used? [ ] Yes [X] No

Please make sure that all instruments, instructions, and scripts are submitted with the request.

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