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Federal Register / Vol. 85, No. 97 / Tuesday, May 19, 2020 / Notices

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Fish and Wildlife Service
[FWS–HQ–MB–2020–N050; FF09M21200–
190–FXMB1231099BPP0; OMB Control
Number 1018–0167]

Agency Information Collection
Activities; Submission to the Office of
Management and Budget for Review
and Approval; Eagle Take Permits and
Fees
Fish and Wildlife Service,
Interior.
ACTION: Notice of information collection;
request for comment.
AGENCY:

In accordance with the
Paperwork Reduction Act, we, the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service, are proposing
to reinstate a previously approved
information collection with revisions.
DATES: Interested persons are invited to
submit comments on or before June 18,
2020.
ADDRESSES: Send written comments on
this information collection request (ICR)
to the Office of Management and
Budget’s Desk Officer for the
Department of the Interior by email at
[email protected]; or via
facsimile to (202) 395–5806. Please
provide a copy of your comments to the
Service Information Collection
Clearance Officer, U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service, MS: PRB/PERMA
(JAO), 5275 Leesburg Pike, Falls
Church, VA 22041–3803 (mail); or by
email to [email protected]. Please
reference OMB Control Number 1018–
0167 in the subject line of your
comments.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Madonna L. Baucum, Service
Information Collection Clearance
Officer, by email at [email protected],
or by telephone at (703) 358–2503.
Individuals who are hearing or speech
impaired may call the Federal Relay
Service at 1–800–877–8339 for TTY
assistance. You may also view the ICR
at http://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/
PRAMain.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: In
accordance with the Paperwork
Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA, 44 U.S.C.
3501 et seq.), we, the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service (Service, we), are
proposing to reinstate a previously
approved information collection with
revisions.
In accordance with the PRA and its
implementing regulations at 5 CFR
1320.8(d)(1), we provide the general
public and other Federal agencies with
an opportunity to comment on new,
proposed, revised, and continuing
SUMMARY:

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collections of information. This helps us
assess the impact of our information
collection requirements and minimize
the public’s reporting burden. It also
helps the public understand our
information collection requirements and
provide the requested data in the
desired format.
On November 7, 2019, we published
in the Federal Register (84 FR 60106) a
notice of our intent to request that OMB
approve this information collection. In
that notice, we solicited comments for
60 days, ending on January 6, 2020. We
received the following comments in
response to that notice:
Comment 1—Comment received via
November 20, 2019, email from
Pimnunihus Cenname: ‘‘If there can be
a faster, easier process for IndigineousNative Americans, nation’s, tribes,
Pueblo’s, villages, or descendants,
families, Indian doctors, medicine (men,
& or women). To aquire, receive, or
obtain, for personal use, spiritual,
ceremonial purposes, then I feel there
should be a way implemented. This is
apart of the NATIVE American Freedom
of Religion act 1978, as well as other
federal laws, that pertain to such as
mentioned above. More over there has
been issues regarding these matters of
possession, use, and conflicts that
otherwise could have been avoided,
through simple identification of tribe,
family, etc. This is a problem
Indigineous people should not have.’’
Agency Response to Comment 1: The
Service and Department of the Interior
have taken numerous actions to
facilitate indigenous people’s access to
eagle and migratory bird feathers. Most
recently, we have established a new
tribal permit that allows tribes to retain
eagles found dead on tribal lands with
appropriate notification to the Service to
allow a determination of cause of death
for purposes of improving eagle
conservation. We have provided grants
and permits to tribes to establish and
operate live eagle aviaries, which
provide feathers to tribal members for
spiritual and ceremonial purposes.
Under all types of eagle possession
permits, permittees are required to send
molted feathers, and eventually eagle
remains, to the National Eagle
Repository for distribution to tribal
members. We also issue permits to
facilities to receive, possess, and
distribute feathers and remains of other
migratory birds to members of federally
recognized tribes. Additionally, we have
an official enforcement policy that
allows tribal members to possess parts
and feathers of migratory birds without
a permit (as long as the birds were not
intentionally killed or obtained
commercially). We continue to explore

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additional ways to enable indigenous
people to obtain and use eagle and
migratory birds for spiritual and
ceremonial purposes in keeping with
our responsibility to conserve healthy
populations of eagles and migratory
birds.
Comment 2—Comment received via
December 30, 2019, email from Ellen
Paul, Executive Director of the
Ornithological Council: The scientific
and exhibition purposes permit issued
under 50 CFR 22.21 (Form 3–200–14)
for Bald Eagles and Golden Eagles has
been problematic. The form is entitled
‘‘Eagle Exhibition’’ but the regulation
covers both scientific research and
exhibition. It might be advisable to
change the title to Eagle Exhibition and
Scientific Purposes. The regulation
allows transport and possession for
scientific research or public exhibition
(or, presumably, both) but the permit
seems to be issued only for public
exhibition. Moreover, at least one region
is requiring a museum to obtain a Part
21 scientific collecting permit in order
to receive a bald eagle carcass from the
Service, rather than obtaining it under
the museum’s ‘‘Federal Eagle
Exhibition’’ permit.
Some regions have issued Eagle
Exhibition permits to museums with
letters stating that the permits are of
indefinite duration and specifying that
no annual report is required. This
practice makes sense as museums rarely
acquire new eagle specimens. Museum
holdings will rarely change unless a
specimen is transferred to another
institution. Others regions still require
regular renewal and annual reports.
Agency Response to Comment 2: The
commenter is correct that there is a
single section of regulations at 50 CFR
22.21 that covers both eagle scientific
collecting and eagle exhibition.
However, the Service issues two
different types of permits under those
regulations, one for each of the two
activities, which are actually quite
distinct in practice. As such, we use two
different application forms in order to
obtain the different types of information
appropriate to each activity. For
museum collections, which are used for
scientific study, the correct application
form is one that is used for both eagle
scientific collecting and for scientific
collecting for other migratory birds, as
the commenter notes (Form 3–200–7,
‘‘Migratory Bird and Eagle Scientific
Collecting’’). For museum exhibitions,
which are public exhibits, the correct
application form is Form 3–200–14
‘‘Eagle Exhibition.’’ Because the Eagle
Exhibition application form is not used
for scientific collections, it does not
include questions related to scientific

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Federal Register / Vol. 85, No. 97 / Tuesday, May 19, 2020 / Notices
collections. We appreciate these
comments and will work with our
regional permit offices to resolve the
inconsistent approach to setting permit
durations and requiring annual reports.
As part of our continuing effort to
reduce paperwork and respondent
burdens, we are again soliciting
comments from the public and other
Federal agencies on the proposed ICR
that is described below. We are
especially interested in public comment
addressing the following:
(1) Whether or not the collection of
information is necessary for the proper
performance of the functions of the
agency, including whether or not the
information will have practical utility;
(2) The accuracy of our estimate of the
burden for this collection of
information, including the validity of
the methodology and assumptions used;
(3) Ways to enhance the quality,
utility, and clarity of the information to
be collected; and
(4) How might the agency minimize
the burden of the collection of
information on those who are to
respond, including through the use of
appropriate automated, electronic,
mechanical, or other technological
collection techniques or other forms of
information technology, e.g., permitting
electronic submission of response.
Comments that you submit in
response to this notice are a matter of
public record. 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.
Abstract: Information collection
requirements associated with the
Federal fish and wildlife permit
applications and reports for both
migratory birds and eagles are currently
approved under a single OMB control
number, 1018–0022, ‘‘Federal Fish and
Wildlife Permit Applications and
Reports—Migratory Birds and Eagles; 50
CFR 10, 13, 21, 22.’’ With this
submission to OMB, we are proposing to
reinstate OMB Control Number 1018–
0167, ‘‘Eagle Take Permits and Fees, 50
CFR 22,’’ in order to transfer the eagle
requirements back in to a separate
information collection to facilitate easier
management of the information
collection requirements associated with
eagles.

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The Bald and Golden Eagle Protection
Act (Eagle Act; 16 U.S.C. 668–668d)
prohibits take of bald eagles and golden
eagles except pursuant to Federal
regulations. The Eagle Act regulations at
title 50, part 22 of the Code of Federal
Regulations (CFR) define the ‘‘take’’ of
an eagle to include the following broad
range of actions: To ‘‘pursue, shoot,
shoot at, poison, wound, kill, capture,
trap, collect, destroy, molest, or
disturb.’’ The Eagle Act allows the
Secretary of the Interior to authorize
certain otherwise prohibited activities
through regulations.
All Service permit applications
associated with eagles are in the 3–200
and 3–202 series of forms, each tailored
to a specific activity based on the
requirements for specific types of
permits. For this reinstatement, we
combined Forms 3–200–10c and 3–200–
10d into one form (3–200–10c) to reduce
the number of application forms and
help streamline the application process.
Since both forms dealt with possession
for education purposes, and asked
virtually the same questions of the
applicant, there was no need to have
separate forms. We collect standard
identifier information for all permits.
The information that we collect on
applications and reports is the
minimum necessary for us to determine
if the applicant meets/continues to meet
issuance requirements for the particular
activity.
In addition to reinstating this
information collection, the Service will
request OMB approval to automate
certain eagle permit forms. The
Service’s new ‘‘ePermits’’ initiative is an
automated permit application system
that will allow the agency to move
towards a streamlined permitting
process to reduce public burden. Public
burden reduction is a priority for the
Service; the Assistant Secretary for Fish,
Wildlife, and Parks; and senior
leadership at the Department of the
Interior. The intent of the ePermits
initiative is to fully automate the
permitting process to improve the
customer experience and to reduce time
burden on respondents. This new
system will enhance the user experience
by allowing users to enter data from any
device that has internet access,
including personal computers, tablets,
and smartphones. It will also link the
permit applicant to the Pay.gov system
for payment of the associated permit
application fee.
We anticipate including the following
Service forms in the ePermits initiative:
FWS Forms 3–200–14, 3–200–15a,
3–200–16, 3–200–18, 3–200–69, 3–200–
72, 3–200–77, 3–200–78, 3–200–82, 3–

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29963

202–11 through 3–202–16, 3–1552, and
3–1591.
Title of Collection: Eagle Take Permits
and Fees, 50 CFR 22.
OMB Control Number: 1018–0167.
Form Numbers: FWS Forms 3–200–
14, 3–200–15a, 3–200–16, 3–200–18,
3–200–71, 3–200–72, 3–200–77, 3–200–
78, 3–200–82, 3–202–11 through 3–202–
16, 3–1552, 3–1591, and 3–2480.
Type of Review: Reinstatement of a
previously approved information
collection with revisions.
Respondents/Affected Public:
Individuals and businesses. We expect
the majority of applicants seeking longterm permits will be in the energy
production and electrical distribution
business.
Total Estimated Number of Annual
Respondents: 4,068.
Total Estimated Number of Annual
Responses: 4,318.
Estimated Completion Time per
Response: Varies from 15 minutes to
228 hours, depending on activity.
Total Estimated Number of Annual
Burden Hours: 25,894.
Respondent’s Obligation: Required to
obtain or retain a benefit.
Frequency of Collection: On occasion
for applications; annually or on
occasion for reports.
Total Estimated Annual Nonhour
Burden Cost: $1,369,200 (primarily
associated with application processing
fees).
An agency 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.
The authority for this action is the
Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44
U.S.C. 3501 et seq.).
Dated: May 14, 2020.
Madonna Baucum,
Information Collection Clearance Officer, U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service.
[FR Doc. 2020–10708 Filed 5–18–20; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4333–15–P

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Fish and Wildlife Service
[FWS–HQ–MB–2020–N052; FF09M21200–
190–FXMB1231099BPP0; OMB Control
Number 1018–0022]

Agency Information Collection
Activities; Submission to the Office of
Management and Budget for Review
and Approval; Federal Fish and
Wildlife Permit Applications and
Reports—Migratory Birds
AGENCY:

Fish and Wildlife Service,

Interior.

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