Title VII Feedback

Survey Planning and Design Document

Survey of the Trade Community on information collection through

antidumping and countervailing duty (AD/CVD) questionnaires

The U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) is implementing a survey to gather user feedback to aid in evaluating the structure and content of its AD/CVD questionnaires. Enhancements to the questionnaires will reduce response and processing costs, increase response rates, and improve initial response accuracy.

A. The Survey Population

This will be a voluntary, web-based survey. The survey population likely will include trade counsel alerted to the survey through several means. The principal avenue will be through a news release directing interested parties to the survey on the agency’s web page. The news release will appear on the agency’s web page and will be distributed via email to the agency’s pre-existing list of self-subscribing entities as well as a list of organizations that USITC staff thinks may have an interest in the survey.

B. Field Testing

In May 2015 the USITC field tested the survey with regard to scope and clarity of questions. Individuals with the organizations presented in the table below were identified as participants for field testing of the survey.

Name	Organization	Email Address
Alan Price and Maureen Thorson	Wiley Rein LLP	[email protected]
Stephen Vaughn	Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP	[email protected]
Joseph Dorn	King & Spalding	[email protected]
Daniel Klett	Capital Trade Inc.	[email protected]
Walter Spak	White & Case LLP	[email protected]
William Connelly	Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP	[email protected]

The following table presents comments from field test participants and actions taken in response to those comments. Comments on the survey were received from Ms. Thorsen, Mr. Dorn, and Mr. Klett. In addition, Mr. Vaughn completed the draft survey but did not provide comments.

Field Tester	Recommendation	Comment/Solution
Joseph Dorn	Sorry for the confusion on my end. I think your survey is fine. I added a couple of comments to the attached. You might add a catch-all question at the end: “Please provide any suggestions you may have for improving the questionnaires and the process for submitting them.”	Revised survey to incorporate question (#6).

Daniel Klett	I do have one suggestion with respect to clarity. For Questions 5a and 5b, are you referring to questionnaires generally (as prior question asked about other than ITC Qs), or ITC questionnaires specifically? I think the former, and if so maybe add: “Based on your and/or clients’ experience with responding to government questionnaires, . . ”	Revised survey to reflect changes to questions (#5a and #5b).
Maureen Thorson	Question 3(c) asks whether ITC questionnaires are “easier” or “more difficult” to answer than any non-ITC questionnaires that survey participants may have received in trade cases, such as DOC questionnaires, or questionnaires from AD/CVD authorities in other countries. Given how utterly different DOC questionnaires are from ITC questionnaires, as well as the significant differences between ITC questionnaires and non-US trade questionnaires, it strikes us that there is no really sensible rubric for providing an “up/down” response to whether particular kinds of questionnaires are overall “harder” or “easier” than ITC questionnaires. It might make sense for the ITC to ask the question somewhat differently. Rather than ask for an up/down answer on whether ITC questionnaires are easier or more difficult, the agency could ask respondents to comment briefly on the differences between ITC questionnaires and the various kinds of questionnaires that they identified in response to Question 3(a), and to identify any specific features of these other authorities’ questionnaires that make them easier to respond to than ITC questionnaires.	Revised survey to reflect changes to question (#3c). *Added “mixed” option to “easier” and “more difficult” to recognize that a single characterization might not be possible. *Added “describe any features of other authorities’ questionnaires that make them easier to respond to than USITC questionnaires” consistent with suggestion.

Maureen Thorson

Question 4 asks whether respondents have received questionnaires from government agencies in non-trade situations and, if so, to comment on the relative ease of response. We foresee three potential problems with this question. • First, it is not clear how a “questionnaire” is being defined for purposes of the question. Many types of documents could reasonably be framed as government questionnaires (i.e., requests for information) or responses thereto – including tax returns and SEC disclosures – but it is not certain that the ITC would benefit from comparisons of its questionnaires against these types of requests. • Relatedly, because government requests may cover vastly different topics and be for vastly different purposes, it may be difficult to make useful comparisons against ITC questionnaires. For example, a company may receive a CF-28 Request for Information from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, asking the company to support the claimed classification of an import entry. These usually take the form of 1-page requests for specific documents; they are therefore quite different from ITC questionnaires, and the “ease” of responding is generally unrelated to the formatting of the request itself, or to its length – it will depend primarily on whether the company actually has supportive documents. • Finally, because there are so many different types of information requests that a company can receive, it is unlikely that the ITC will get full or accurate responses to the question in any event, if only because the persons responding to the question are unlikely to be familiar with the full gamut of potentially relevant information requests that their companies or clients receive. It may therefore make more sense for the agency to delete question 4, and rely on the trade-action-specific responses it gets with respect to Question 3.

Revised survey to reflect changes to questions (#4a and #4b). Because the goal is to assess desirable elements from other data collection instruments, question 4 was not eliminated. However, “questionnaire” was defined and the required response specificity was reduced to “Please describe any features of these questionnaires that you feel could be applied to the USITC’s questionnaires to improve information gathering.”

C. Reporting Burden and Projected Cost

Total number of survey respondents: (No.) Not to exceed 100

Frequency of response: (No.) 1

Average completion time per survey: (hours) 0.50

Total burden: (hours) 50 hours

Total cost: (dollars) $3,500 (50 hours X $70/per hour)

Note: The hourly cost estimate reflects the average USITC employee hourly cost for FY15 YTD.

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