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Federal Register / Vol. 80, No. 159 / Tuesday, August 18, 2015 / Notices

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opportunities that are compatible with
each refuge’s establishing purposes and
the mission of the NWRS.
Additional Information
The draft CCP/EIS for Conte NFWR,
which includes detailed information
about the planning process, refuge,
issues, and management alternatives
considered and proposed, may be found
at http://www.fws.gov/refuge/Silvio_O_
Conte/what_we_do/conservation.html.
There are four alternative refuge
management options considered in the
draft plan. The Service’s preferred
alternative is alternative C.
The alternatives analyzed in detail
include:
• Alternative A—Current
Management: This alternative represents
continuing current management and
serves as a baseline for comparing the
other alternatives. Under this
alternative, we would continue our
current habitat and visitor services
management activities on existing
refuge lands. We would also continue to
work with our existing partners
throughout the Connecticut River
Watershed (watershed) to support our
conservation, education, and recreation
programs. We would continue to
actively manage forest habitats on the
Nulhegan Basin Division (Vermont) to
benefit forest-dependent species of
conservation concern, and manage
grasslands and shrublands habitats on
our Pondicherry (New Hampshire) and
Fort River (Massachusetts) Divisions for
species dependent on those habitats. We
would maintain our hunting and fishing
programs on refuge lands, which
generally are managed consistent with
respective State regulations. We would
also continue to acquire lands from
willing sellers under our existing
approved land acquisition authority of
approximately 98,000 acres. Our focus
would continue to be on acquiring lands
that were identified in the refuge’s 1995
Master Plan and its accompanying EIS.
• Alternative B—Consolidated
Stewardship: This alternative would
strategically focus our work with
partners, and our staffing, funding, and
other resource commitments across the
watershed, in 14 defined geographic
areas called Conservation Partnership
Areas (CPAs). CPAs are large areas,
defined by sub-watersheds, with
concentrations of high-value habitat for
fish and wildlife. Within CPAs, we have
identified a total of 18 areas we call
Conservation Focus Areas (CFAs). These
are areas with particularly high value to
Federal trust resources and represent
where we would focus our future refuge
land acquisition. Under alternative B,
we would not seek to expand the refuge

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beyond our current acreage authority.
Instead, we propose to focus acquisition
in CFAs rather than in the smaller,
scattered areas proposed in the refuge’s
1995 Master Plan and EIS. Under
alternative B, we would expand our
current wildlife habitat and visitor
services management activities to other
refuge divisions, and support those
same opportunities within CPAs on
other ownerships across the watershed.
• Alternative C—Enhanced
Conservation Connections and
Partnerships (Service’s Preferred
Alternative): Similar to alternative B, we
would prioritize our work with partners
in CPAs, and focus future refuge
acquisitions in CFAs. However, under
alternative C, we would seek to expand
the refuge’s approved acquisition
authority in the watershed up to
approximately 197,000 acres. The
expanded network of 17 CPAs and 22
CFAs would allow for greater flexibility
and opportunity for us to work with
partners to achieve common
conservation goals. We would be a more
significant contributor to a wellconnected conserved lands network in
the watershed. Under alternative C, we
would be able to increase our benefits
to species of conservation concern by
managing more acres of habitat with
better distribution across the watershed.
Expanding the refuge land base would
also enhance our ability to address, and
adapt our management to, climate
change. We would be able to provide
more public access for compatible
recreational opportunities such as
hunting, fishing, wildlife observation,
and photography. We would also
expand our education and interpretive
programs with an emphasis on engaging
urban communities.
• Alternative D—Conservation
Connections Emphasizing Natural
Processes: Similar to alternative C, we
would prioritize our work both on and
off refuge lands in the same 17 CPAs,
and would focus refuge acquisition in
the same 22 CFAs. However, under
alternative D, we would further expand
individual CFAs and seek additional
acquisition authority of up to
approximately 236,000 acres. The
increased acres would further enhance
the refuge’s capability to establish
connections in the watershed’s
conserved lands network, and would
strengthen our ability to adapt refuge
lands to climate change. A major
difference between alternatives C and D
is that alternative D proposes to limit
active habitat management. We would
only intervene in natural processes
when a federally listed species is in
jeopardy, or a major wildfire or pest
outbreak occurs and restoration is a

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critical need. Under alternative D, we
would be able to provide more public
access due to the increased land base,
but our visitor services programs would
emphasize a reduced human footprint,
with a focus on backcountry
opportunities and fewer developed
areas.
Public Involvement
We will give the public an
opportunity to ask questions and obtain
more information about the draft plan at
our informal public meetings. We will
take oral testimony at the formal public
hearings. You can obtain the schedule
for meetings and the hearings, and find
the address for submitting your
comments, from the address or Web site
listed in this notice (see ADDRESSES).
You may also submit written comments
anytime during the comment period.
Public Availability of Comments
Before including your address, phone
number, email address, or other
personal identifying information in your
comment, you should be aware that
your entire comment—including your
personal identifying information—may
be made publicly available at any time.
While you can ask us in your comment
to withhold your personal identifying
information from public review, we
cannot guarantee that we will be able to
do so.
Dated: June 3, 2015.
Wendi Weber,
Regional Director, Northeast Region.
[FR Doc. 2015–20184 Filed 8–17–15; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4310–55–P

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Fish and Wildlife Service
[FWS–HQ–ES–2015–N158;
FGES111309WLLF0 156]

Proposed Information Collection; WolfLivestock Demonstration Project Grant
Program
Fish and Wildlife Service,
Interior.
ACTION: Notice; request for comments.
AGENCY:

We (U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service) will ask the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) to
approve the information collection (IC)
described below. As required by the
Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 and
as part of our continuing efforts to
reduce paperwork and respondent
burden, we invite the general public and
other Federal agencies to take this
opportunity to comment on this IC. This
IC is scheduled to expire on December

SUMMARY:

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50025

Federal Register / Vol. 80, No. 159 / Tuesday, August 18, 2015 / Notices
31, 2015. We may not conduct or
sponsor and a person is not required to
respond to a collection of information
unless it displays a currently valid OMB
control number.
DATES: To ensure that we are able to
consider your comments on this IC, we
must receive them by October 19, 2015.
ADDRESSES: Send your comments on the
IC to the Information Collection
Clearance Officer, U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service, MS BPHC, 5275
Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, VA 22041–
3803 (mail); or [email protected]
(email). Please include ‘‘1018–0154’’ in
the subject line of your comments.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: To
request additional information about
this IC, contact Hope Grey at hope_
[email protected] (email) or 703–358–2482
(telephone).
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Abstract
Subtitle C of Title VI of the Omnibus
Public Land Management Act of 2009
(Act; Pub. L. 111–11) authorizes the
Secretary of the Interior and the
Secretary of Agriculture to develop a
Wolf-Livestock Demonstration Project
Grant Program (WLDPGP) to:
• Assist livestock producers in
undertaking proactive, nonlethal
activities to reduce the risk of livestock
loss due to predation by wolves; and
• Compensate livestock producers for
livestock losses due to such predation.
The Act directs that the program be
established as a grant program to
provide funding to States and tribes,
that the Federal cost-share not exceed

50 percent, and that funds be expended
equally between the two purposes. The
Act included an authorization of
appropriations up to $1 million each
fiscal year for 5 years. The U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service Endangered Species
Program will allocate the funding as
competitively awarded grants to States
and tribes with a prior history of wolf
depredation. States with delisted wolf
populations are eligible for funding,
provided that they meet the eligibility
criteria contained in Public Law 111–11.
The following additional criteria
apply to all WLDPGP grants and must
be satisfied for a project to receive
WLDPGP funding:
• A proposal cannot include U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service full-time
equivalent (FTE) costs.
• A proposal cannot seek funding for
projects that serve to satisfy regulatory
requirements of the Endangered Species
Act (ESA), including complying with a
biological opinion under section 7 or
fulfilling commitments of a habitat
conservation plan (HCP) under section
10, or for projects that serve to satisfy
other Federal regulatory requirements
(e.g., mitigation for Federal permits).
• State administrative costs must be
assumed by the State or included in the
proposal in accordance with Federal
requirements.
We will publish notices of funding
availability on the Grants.gov Web site
at http://www.grants.gov, as well as in
the Catalog of Federal Domestic
Assistance at http://cfda.gov. To
compete for grant funds, eligible States
and tribes must submit an application
that describes in substantial detail

II. Data
OMB Control Number: 1018–0154.
Title: Wolf-Livestock Demonstration
Project Grant Program.
Service Form Number: None.
Type of Request: Extension of a
currently approved collection.
Description of Respondents: States
and Indian tribes.
Respondent’s Obligation: Required to
Obtain or Retain a Benefit.
Estimated Number of Annual
Respondents: 10.
Frequency of Collection: On occasion.
Estimated Annual Nonhour Burden
Cost: None.
Number of
responses

Activity

Completion
time per
response

Total annual
burden hours

Applications ..................................................................................................................................
Reports and Recordkeeping ........................................................................................................

10
10

8 hours
14 hours

80
140

Totals ....................................................................................................................................

20

........................

220

III. Comments

asabaliauskas on DSK5VPTVN1PROD with NOTICES

project locations, project resources,
future benefits, and other characteristics
that meet the Wolf-Livestock
Demonstration Project Grant Program
purposes as listed above. In accordance
with the Act, States and tribes that
receive a grant must:
• Maintain files of all claims received
under programs funded by the grant,
including supporting documentation;
and
• Submit an annual report that
includes a summary of claims and
expenditures under the program during
the year and a description of any action
taken on the claims.
Materials that describe the program
and assist applicants in formulating
project proposals will be available on
our Web site at www.fws.gov/grants.
Persons who do not have access to the
Internet may obtain instructional
materials by mail.

We invite comments concerning this
information collection on:
• Whether or not the collection of
information is necessary, including
whether or not the information will
have practical utility;
• The accuracy of our estimate of the
burden for this collection of
information;
• Ways to enhance the quality, utility,
and clarity of the information to be
collected; and
• Ways to minimize the burden of the
collection of information on
respondents.

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Comments that you submit in
response to this notice are a matter of
public record. We will include or
summarize each comment in our request
to OMB to approve this IC. Before
including your address, phone number,
email address, or other personal
identifying information in your
comment, you should be aware that
your entire comment, including your
personal identifying information, may
be made publicly available at any time.
While you can ask us in your comment
to withhold your personal identifying
information from public review, we

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cannot guarantee that we will be able to
do so.
Dated: August 13, 2015.
Tina A. Campbell,
Chief, Division of Policy, Performance, and
Management Programs, U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service.
[FR Doc. 2015–20334 Filed 8–17–15; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4310–55–P

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