Supporting Statement - Agricultural Contract Summaries 2020 (to ROCIS)

2140-0024
February 2020
Expires 3/31/2020
SUPPORTING STATEMENT
FOR REQUEST OF OMB APPROVAL
UNDER THE PAPERWORK REDUCTION ACT AND 5 C.F.R. 1320
The Surface Transportation Board (STB or Board) requests a three-year extension of
approval of the regulations governing the filing by regulated rail carriers of Agricultural Contract
Summaries.
A. Justification:
1. Need for Information in Collection. The Surface Transportation Board (Board or
STB) has statutory authority to provide economic regulatory oversight of railroads, addressing
such matters as rates, service, and the construction, acquisition and abandonment of rail lines, as
well as carrier mergers and the interchange of traffic among carriers (49 U.S.C. §§ 1010111908). Under 49 U.S.C. § 10709(d), railroads are required to file with the Board a summary of
the nonconfidential terms of any contract for the transportation of agricultural products, even
though the actual terms of a rail transportation contract are treated as confidential.
2. Use of Data Collected. Information in this collection is used by the public to obtain
nonconfidential information about the terms of contracts between rail carriers and shippers of
agricultural products. The information is available on the Board’s website
https://prod.stb.gov/reports-data/agricultural-contract-summaries/ (or go to https://prod.stb.gov/,
select “Reports and Data,” and then select “Agricultural Contract Summaries” from the
dropdown).
3. Reduction through Improved Technology. This collection may be filed electronically,
either by email or via the E-file option on the Board’s website.
4. Identification of Duplication. The Board has exclusive jurisdiction over the economic
regulation of freight railroads and has a statutory duty to collect Agricultural Contract
Summaries. 49 U.S.C. § 10709(d). No other Federal agency collects this information, nor is the
collected information available from any other source.
5. Minimizing Burden for Small Businesses. The Board concludes that this collection
does not have a significant economic effect on a substantial number of small entities. In recent
years, for example, only two of the ten rail carriers filing these summaries were small entities.
6. Consequences if Collection not Conducted or Conducted Less Frequently. This
collection is required by statute. Thus, failure to collect this information would impede the
ability of the agency to fulfill its statutory duty. It would also affect the public’s access to timely
information about contracts between shippers of agricultural commodities and rail carriers.

7. Special Circumstances. No special circumstances apply to this collection.
8. Consultation with Outside Agency. As required, the Board published a notice
providing a 60-day comment period regarding this collection. See 84 Fed. Reg. 67991 (Dec. 12,
2019). No comments were received. A 30-day notice was published concurrently with this
submission to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). See 85 Fed. Reg. 11442 (Feb. 27,
2020).
9. Payments or Gifts. The Board does not provide any payment or gifts for this
collection.
10. Assurance of Confidentiality. All information collected through the summaries is
available to the public.
11. Sensitive Information. This collection contains no information of a sensitive nature.
12. Estimated Burden Hours. The following information pertains to the estimate of
burden hours associated with this collection:
(1) Number of respondents. Approximately 10.
(2) Frequency of response. On occasion. Over the last three years, respondents
have filed an average of 150 agricultural contract summaries per year. The same number
of filings is expected during each of the next 3 years.
(3) Annual hour burden per respondent and total for all respondents. 37.5 hours
(150 submissions X 0.25 hours estimated per submission).
13. Estimated Total Annual Cost to Respondents. There are no non-hourly costs
associated with this collection.
14. Annualized Cost to the Federal Government. There will be no cost beyond the
normal labor costs for Board staff.
15. Explanation of Program Changes or Adjustments. This is an existing collection,
which is being adjusted to update the burdens and costs based on the actual number of
agriculture contracts filed at the Board since the last approval of this collection by OMB in 2017.
Since then, the number of contracts submitted to the Board decreased slightly from 161 per year
to 150.
16. Publication of Data and/or Results. This information is posted on the Board’s
website (as linked above).
17. Display of expiration date for OMB approval. There is no form associated with this
collection. Once approved, the control number and expiration date for this collection will be
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published in a separate notice in the Federal Register as provided in 5 C.F.R. § 1320.3(f)(3).
18. Exceptions to Certification Statement. Not applicable

B. Collections of Information Employing Statistical Methods:
Not applicable

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