GTP_OMB_Supporting_Statement_A

9/18/2012

Supporting Statement for Request for OMB Approval

Occupational Employment Statistics Green Technologies and Practices

Data Collection Clearance

A. JUSTIFICATION

1. Necessity of Collection

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is seeking reinstatement of OMB Clearance 1220-0184 for the collection of data on occupational employment and wages related to green technologies and practices used by U.S. businesses. The Green Technologies and Practices (GTP) survey collects data on the use of green technologies and practices at establishments, and occupational employment and wages for employees who spend more than 50 percent of their time engaged in green practices.

In a Federal Register Notice published on September 21, 2010 (75 FR 57506), BLS outlined its final two-part definition of green jobs. This definition is available at www.bls.gov/green.

As the chief source of government data on employment, BLS will produce data on employment related to green technologies and practices at establishments as tasked by the 2012 Congressional Appropriation. The GTP survey will be conducted occasionally to collect information on employees engaged in green technologies and practices, the second component of the BLS Green Jobs definition.

From the GTP survey, BLS publishes occupational employment and wages associated with the use of green technologies and practices at U.S. business establishments. These data are available at www.bls.gov/gtp.

This survey will use the business register, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), maintained by BLS as its sampling frame. The register contains employment information on establishments in the U.S. subject to unemployment insurance taxes. This register covers 98 percent of U.S. jobs, available at the county, Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), State, and national levels by industry.

2. Description of the Information Collected

The GTP survey estimates the number of U.S. business establishments that use green technologies and practices to lessen the environmental impact of their operations, and the occupations and wages of the employees at these establishments who spend more than half of their time using green technologies and practices. These estimates enumerate the second part of the BLS definition of green jobs “jobs in which workers' duties involve making their establishment's production processes more environmentally friendly or use fewer natural resources.”

3. Use of Technology to Reduce Burden

The data collection will use available technology to reduce burden on the respondents. GTP will be a mixed-mode survey. Methods of data collection include a web-based collection instrument, mailed survey forms, fax, email, and telephone and mail follow-up. Data collection for this special survey will begin in 2012.

4. Identification of Duplication and Availability of Similar Information

Several individual States have conducted surveys on green employment in their State. However, these studies only covered the individual State and many were focused on occupational data collection¹. In addition to these State studies, there are academic and research organizations that have published data using existing data sources (business profiles including employment counts, association lists, patent records, federal grant recipients, etc.) on the green economy in the U.S.² Outside of the U.S., Statistics Canada has conducted surveys on the Canadian environmental sector³ and Eurostat has offered detailed guidance to its member countries on measuring the environmental sector⁴. BLS has reviewed the existing research and studies conducted by the individual States, Statistics Canada, and Eurostat extensively and used the findings to enhance its collection. However, there is no existing research or data that duplicate the data BLS intends to collect and publish.

5. Small Businesses

Small firms will be included in the data collection. The information requested is readily available in both small and large firms, so the impact to small businesses will be similar to that of larger businesses. Special attention will be paid to selecting reference periods for data elements that are easily understandable and identifiable to all businesses.

6. Occasional Conduct of Study

This special survey will be conducted in 2012 and 2013. BLS intends to conduct this survey occasionally to measure the number of green jobs in the U.S. related to the use of environmentally friendly production processes and to report on the occupational employment and wages related to green technologies and practices. The employment related to green technologies and practices in U.S. businesses represents one-half of the BLS definition of green jobs.

7. Special Circumstances

There are no special circumstances.

8. Consultation with Persons outside BLS

BLS received one comment concerning the collection of data on employment related to green technologies and practices in response to the Federal Register Notice published on May 11, 2012 (77 FR 27798). The comment, faxed to BLS on May 12, 2012, expressed the opinion that the survey information is not useful to the American public and the BLS budget should be reduced by 25%. BLS will produce data on employment related to green technologies and practices at establishments as tasked by the 2012 Congressional Appropriation.

BLS has met and/or spoken with numerous other Federal agencies, Statistics Canada, Eurostat, State labor market information offices, and industry groups to gather information about collection issues regarding environmental data and related products. This information was used during the development and testing of the form.

9. Gifts or Payments to Respondents

There will be no gifts or payments to respondents.

10. Confidential Responses

The Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act of 2002 (CIPSEA) safeguards the confidentiality of individually identifiable information acquired under a pledge of confidentiality for exclusively statistical purposes by controlling access to, and uses made of, such information. CIPSEA includes fines and penalties for any knowing and willful disclosure of individually identifiable information by an officer, employee, or agent of the BLS.

Based on this law, the BLS provides respondents with the following confidentiality pledge/informed consent statement:

The Bureau of Labor Statistics, its employees, agents, and partner statistical agencies, will use the information you provide for statistical purposes only and will hold the information in confidence to the full extent permitted by law. In accordance with the Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act of 2002 (Title 5 of Public Law 107-347) and other applicable Federal laws, your responses will not be disclosed in identifiable form without your informed consent. This report is authorized by law 29 U.S.C. 2.

BLS policy on the confidential nature of respondent identifiable information (RII) states that “RII acquired or maintained by the BLS for exclusively statistical purposes and under pledge of confidentiality shall be treated in a manner that ensures the information will be used only for statistical purposes and will be accessible only to authorized individuals with a need-to-know.”

11. Sensitive Questions

No sensitive questions will be asked.

12. Burden of Collection

Explanation of how the total burden hours for the GTP collection were derived for fiscal years 2012 and 2013.

	GTP: FY2012 – FY2013
	Sample Units	Responses	Avg. Response Time	Total Response Time
Private sector establishments	29,470	22,103	30 minutes	11,052 hours
Local government establishments	3,650	2,738	30 minutes	1,369 hours
State government establishments	1,160	870	30 minutes	435 hours
Federal government establishments	720	540	30 minutes	270 hours
Total	35,000	26,251		13,125 hours

Estimated total Burden Hours for FY2012 – FY2013 are 13,125.

The total estimated Burden Cost to the respondents for FY 2012 – FY2013 is $840,525.

GTP burden cost was calculated by obtaining the median hourly wage rate for General and Operations Managers, as determined by Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) National Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates. The median hourly wage rate for 2010, the most current year available, was $45.74. The hourly rate was increased by 40 percent to account for the value of fringe benefits ($45.74 x 1.40 = $64.04) and then multiplied by the total burden hours for the FY 2012 – FY2013 calculation ($64.04 x 13,125 = $840,525).

A Response Analysis Survey (RAS) was conducted under OMB Clearance 1220-0184. A series of questions related to the respondents’ interpretation of the survey’s questions, their ability to provide accurate information, and the amount of time it took to complete the questionnaire, either on paper or on-line, were asked. The median response time reported for completing the survey on-line was 20 minutes, while the median response time for completing the mail survey was 30 minutes. 47 percent of the survey responses were received via mail collection, and 9.5 percent were reported via web. The remaining responses were a primarily collected via telephone with a just a small number reporting via fax and e-mail.

13. Capital/Start-up and Maintenance/Operations costs

There are no capital/start-up costs.

There are no costs, beyond those described under A.14.

14. Cost to the Federal Government

The allocated budget for this data collection effort for FY2012 is 2.0 million for the GTP survey. The budget for the GTP survey includes: web-based data collection maintenance; computer systems development and maintenance; survey form printing and mailing; processing and coding of collected information; non-response prompting; telephone data collection and edit reconciliation; data analysis; and publication of estimates.

15. Changes in Burden

This represents a reinstatement of a previously approved collection.

16. Publication Plans/Schedule

The estimates derived from the information collected will be released for publication in summer 2013. The publication will provide an estimate of the number of establishments that use green technologies and practices and the occupational employment and wages of green jobs, as defined by BLS. These data will be made available to the public via the BLS public website.

Data collection for the GTP Survey is scheduled to begin in September/October 2012, and conclude in February/March 2013.

17. OMB Approval Expiration Date

Permission for suppressing the expiration date is not being requested.

18. Exception to Certification Statement

There are no exceptions to the certification.

1 Hardcastle, A. (2009). 2008 Green Economy Jobs in Washington State. WA. https://fortress.wa.gov/esd/employmentdata/reports-publications/occupational-reports/green-economy-jobs-report?wwparam=1337080544

2 The PEW Charitable Trusts. (2009). The Clean Energy Economy: Repowering Jobs, Businesses and Investments Across America. http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/uploadedFiles/Clean_Economy_Report_Web.pdf

3 Statistics Canada. Environment and Industry Sector: 2002 revised and 2004. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/16f0008x/16f0008x2007001-eng.pdf

4 Eurostat. (2009). The Environmental Goods and Services Sector: A data collection handbook. http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_OFFPUB/KS-RA-09-012/EN/KS-RA-09-012-EN.PDF

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