FERC-576 Supporting Statement

FERC-576 (OMB Control No. 1902-0004)

Docket No. IC24-11-000

Supporting Statement for

FERC-576, Report of Service Interruptions or Damage to Facilities

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Commission or FERC) requests that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) review and extend its approval to information collection requirements in FERC-576 (Report of Service Interruptions or Damage to Facilities, OMB Control No. 1902-0004) for three years. There are no changes to the information collection requirements.

1. CIRCUMSTANCES THAT MAKE THE COLLECTION OF INFORMATION NECESSARY

Section 7 of the Natural Gas Act (NGA) (15 U.S.C. 717f) authorizes the Commission to approve the transportation, sale, or exchange of natural gas in interstate commerce via the issuance of a “certificate of public convenience and necessity.” FERC has no jurisdiction over pipeline safety or security, but actively works with other agencies (such as the U.S. Department of Transportation) with safety and security responsibilities.

The Commission’s regulation at 18 CFR 260.9 authorizes the collection of information under FERC-576. This collection assists in the Commission’s monitoring of pipeline operations by providing notification of actual or potential problems that may seriously disturb delivery of natural gas on the pipeline’s own system or the pipeline grid. These problems may include:

• damage to jurisdictional natural gas facilities due to natural disaster (e.g., hurricane, earthquake, or other natural disaster) or terrorist activity; and

• serious interruptions to service.

2. HOW, BY WHOM, AND FOR WHAT PURPOSE THE INFORMATION IS TO BE USED AND THE CONSEQUENCES OF NOT COLLECTING THE INFORMATION

Filings made under FERC-576 must contain information necessary to advise the Commission when an impact to service has occurred. Per 18 CFR 260.9, natural gas pipeline companies must report (i) damage to any jurisdictional natural gas facilities other than liquefied natural gas facilities caused by a hurricane, earthquake or other natural disaster or terrorist activity that results in a loss of or reduction in pipeline throughput or storage deliverability; and (ii) serious interruptions of service to any shipper involving jurisdictional natural gas facilities other than liquefied natural gas facilities.

Respondents to the FERC-576 must submit the notifications to the Director, Division of Pipeline Certificates via email or fax as soon as feasibly possible,¹ and must state:

• The location of the service interruption or damage to natural gas pipeline or storage facilities;

• The nature of any damage to pipeline or storage facilities;

• Specific identification of the facilities damaged;

• The time the service interruption or damage to the facilities occurred;

• The customers affected by the service interruption or damage to the facilities;

• Emergency actions taken to maintain service; and

• Company contacts and telephone numbers.

The information provided by these notifications are kept by the Commission and are not made part of the public record.

3. DESCRIBE ANY CONSIDERATION OF THE USE OF IMPROVED TECHNOLOGY TO REDUCE BURDEN AND TECHNICAL OR LEGAL OBSTACLES TO REDUCING BURDEN.

Filings made under FERC-576 must be emailed to [email protected] or faxed to (202) 208-2853. The Commission continues to expand the list of filing types that may be submitted electronically to reduce burden on respondents,² but has not included the FERC-576 filings on that list because the Commission does not consider FERC-576 filings to be public. For the same reason, the FERC-576 reports are not made available through eLibrary.

4. DESCRIBE EFFORTS TO IDENTIFY DUPLICATION AND SHOW SPECIFICALLY WHY ANY SIMILAR INFORMATION ALREADY AVAILABLE CANNOT BE USED OR MODIFIED FOR USE FOR THE PURPOSE(S) DESCRIBED IN INSTRUCTION NO. 2

Filing requirements are periodically reviewed as information collection expiration dates arise or as the Commission may deem necessary in carrying out its regulatory responsibilities under the NGA in an effort to alleviate duplication. All Commission information collections are subject to analysis by Commission staff and are examined for redundancy. Similarly, the FERC-576 filings describe a particular incident, location, and time. No similar information can be used or modified. The Commission is unaware of any other source of information similar to the additional requirements.

5. METHODS USED TO MINIMIZE BURDEN IN COLLECTION OF INFORMATION INVOLVING SMALL ENTITIES

The required information in this filing applies for all entities regardless of the size of the entity.

6. CONSEQUENCE TO FEDERAL PROGRAM IF COLLECTION WERE CONDUCTED LESS FREQUENTLY

If the FERC-576 information were not collected or were collected less frequently, the Commission would not be able to fulfill its statutory mandates to monitor interruptions of service. The timing and frequency of data filed with the Commission under FERC-576 is determined an interruption of service occurs.

7. EXPLAIN ANY SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES RELATING TO THE INFORMATION COLLECTION

There are no special circumstances related to FERC-576.

8. DESCRIBE EFFORTS TO CONSULT OUTSIDE THE AGENCY: SUMMARIZE PUBLIC COMMENTS AND THE AGENCY'S RESPONSE TO THESE COMMENTS

In accordance with OMB requirements,³ each FERC activity that results in the revision of an information collection is published in the Federal Register thereby providing the public, state commissions, Federal agencies, and other interested parties an opportunity to submit data, views, comments, and/or suggestions concerning the approved collections of data.

The Commission published a 60-day notice for FERC-576 on March 4, 2024 (89 FR 15569) . Public comments were due May 3, 2024. The Commission published a 30-day notice for FERC-576 on May 10, 2024 (89 FR 40480). Within the public notices, the Commission noted that it was requesting a three-year extension of the public reporting burden.

The Commission received no comments from the public in response to the 60-day notice regarding FERC-576.

9. EXPLAIN ANY PAYMENT OR GIFTS TO RESPONDENTS

The Commission makes no payments or gifts to respondents associated with FERC-576.

10. DESCRIBE ANY ASSURANCE OF CONFIDENTIALITY PROVIDED TO RESPONDENTS

The Commission considers the information collected in FERC-576 (filed under 18 CFR 260.9) reports to be non-public. Due to the nature of the information collected in FERC-576, the reports are not submitted through the normal eFiling process and are not made available through eLibrary. The Commission considers requests for information submitted in accordance with 18 CFR 260.9 under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) on a case-by-case basis.

11. PROVIDE ADDITIONAL JUSTIFICATION FOR ANY QUESTIONS OF A SENSITIVE NATURE, SUCH AS SEXUAL BEHAVIOR AND ATTITUDES, RELIGIOUS BELIEFS, AND OTHER MATTERS THAT ARE COMMONLY CONSIDERED PRIVATE

FERC-576 does not include any questions of a sensitive nature.

12. ESTIMATED BURDEN OF COLLECTION OF INFORMATION

The following table provides the estimated annual burden⁴ and cost⁵ related to information collection requirements for FERC-576.

	Number of Respondents (1)	Annual Number of Responses per Respondent (2)	Total Number of Responses (1)*(2)=(3)	Average Annual Burden Hrs. & Cost ($) Per Response (4)	Total Annual Burden Hrs. & Total Annual Cost (3)*(4)=(5)	Average Annual Cost per Respondent ($) (5)÷(1)
Notification of Incident – Service Interruption	50	1	50	1 hr.; $100	50 hrs.; $5,000	$100
Notification of Incident – Damage	22	1	22	0.25 hrs.; $25	5.5 hrs.; $550	$25
Submittal of DOT Incident Report	10	1	10	0.25 hrs.; $25	2.5 hrs.; $250	$25
TOTAL	82				58 hrs.; $5,800

13. ESTIMATE OF THE TOTAL ANNUAL COST BURDEN TO RESPONDENTS

There are no non-labor costs currently associated with FERC-576. All costs are associated with burden hours are addressed in Question #12 and Question #15.

14. ESTIMATED ANNUALIZED COST TO FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

The PRA (Paperwork Reduction Act) Administration Cost of $8,396.00 in the following table includes the federal costs of preparing supporting statements, notices, and the cost of publishing notices in the Federal Register.

The Data Processing and Analysis Cost in the following table is calculated based on FERC’s Fiscal Year 2024 average cost per Full- Time Equivalent (salary plus benefits) of $207,786.00 per year (for 2,080 work hours). This estimated cost represents staff analysis, decision making, and review of any actual filings made in response to the information collection.

The estimated annualized cost to the Federal Government for FERC-576 follows.

	Number of FTE’s	Estimated Annual Federal Cost ($)
PRA Administration Cost		$8,396.00
Data Processing and Analysis for FERC-576	0.04	$8,311.44
FERC Total		$16,707 (rounded)

15. REASONS FOR CHANGES IN BURDEN INCLUDING THE NEED FOR ANY INCREASE

As shown in the table below, there are no program changes due to agency discretion and there are no adjustments.

FERC-576	Total Request	Previously Approved	Change due to Adjustment in Estimate	Change Due to Agency Discretion
Annual Number of Responses	82	82	0	0
Annual Time Burden (Hr)	58	58	0	0
Annual Cost Burden ($)	$0	$0	$0	$0

16. TIME SCHEDULE FOR THE PUBLICATION OF DATA

There is no publication of data associated with FERC-576 information collection.

17. DISPLAY OF THE EXPIRATION DATE

The OMB expiration dates are displayed at https://www.ferc.gov/enforcement-legal/legal/information-collections.

18. EXCEPTIONS TO THE CERTIFICATION STATEMENT

There are no exceptions.

1 18 CFR 260.9(a)(1)(i).

2 To see a full list of submission guidelines for eFilings, click here: https://www.ferc.gov/sites/default/files/2020-05/filing.pdf.

3^. 5 CFR 1320.8(d).

4 Burden is defined as the total time, effort, or financial resources expended by persons to generate, maintain, retain, or disclose or provide information to or for a federal agency. Refer to 5 CFR 1320.3 for additional information.

5 The Commission staff estimates that the average respondent for FERC-576 is similarly situated to the Commission, in terms of salary plus benefits. Based on FERC’s current annual average of $207,786 (for salary plus benefits), the average hourly cost is $100/hour.