Supporting Statement A

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Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) Annual Report on Households Assisted



OMB Information Collection Request
0970 - 0060


Supporting Statement Part A - Justification
June 2026














Submitted By:
Office of Community Services
Administration for Children and Families 
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services



    1. Circumstances Making the Collection of Information Necessary 
The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) block grant (42 U.S.C. 8621) was established under Title XXVI of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981, P. L. 97-35.  The Office of Community Services (OCS) within the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Administration for Children and Families (ACF) administers LIHEAP at the federal level.

The LIHEAP Household Report is an annual data collection effort conducted by OCS to collect information from LIHEAP grantees to meet statutory requirements and program objectives. The LIHEAP statute requires the collection of data on the number of households assisted, their income levels, and vulnerability group, by type of LIHEAP assistance, for inclusion in the Secretary’s annual LIHEAP Report to Congress. The data are collected through the LIHEAP Household Report, which consists of the following: (1) a Long Format for state grant recipients, the District of Columbia, and select territory grant recipients, and (2) a Short Format for tribal grant recipients and select territory grant recipients.

The LIHEAP Annual Household Report Long and Short Formats have been revised to reduce respondent burden, improve clarity of reporting instruments, and ensure the collection remains focused on current statutory and programmatic requirements. Revisions include eliminating the lines inquiring about CARES and ARPA funds as they are no longer applicable and removing the sections asking about the applicant's sex, race and ethnicity as this information is not statutorily required.


    2. Purpose and Use of the Information Collection 
The statutory purpose and use of the LIHEAP Household Report include the following:
    • LIHEAP grantees are required to report the estimated or final data contained in the previously approved LIHEAP Household Report as part of their annual application for LIHEAP funds, as required by Section 2605(c)(1)(G) of the Act (42 U.S.C. 8624).  If reporting estimated data, the grantee is required to submit a final Household Report no later than December 31st. 
    • OCS prepares the data on assisted households for inclusion in the Department's annual LIHEAP Report to Congress, as required by Section 2610(a)(4) and (5) and section 2610(b) of the Act (42 U.S.C. 8629). The data are used for Congressional oversight and in response to Congressional and White House queries on case load statistics and demographic characteristics of LIHEAP households.  
    • The data on heating assisted households containing at least one member who is elderly or a young child are used in calculating LIHEAP recipiency targeting performance measures, under the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) of 1993 (31 U.S.C. 1101) and the President’s annual Congressional Justification.
    • To provide separate tracking and reporting of the Number of households by owner/renter status (own, rent with utilities billed separately, rent with utilities in rental fee, other).  


    3. Use of Improved Information Technology and Burden Reduction 
All grant recipient reports are submitted through ACF’s On-Line Data Collection System (OLDC).  Instructions for completing the form are built into the form itself, through hyperlinks.


    4. Efforts to Identify Duplication and Use of Similar Information 
Household income levels and presence of elderly, disabled, or young children can be estimated at the national and regional levels for the households receiving heating assistance from two national household surveys–the Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC) to the Current Population Survey (conducted by the U.S. Bureau of the Census) and the Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) (conducted by the U.S. Energy Information Administration).  However, national household surveys do not provide reliable state-level data on any type of LIHEAP assistance, or data in a timely manner to comply with LIHEAP statutory reporting requirements. For example, the RECS is only implemented once every five years and it takes more than 3 years to process the data. Additionally, the information collected in these household surveys does not furnish useful information about the number of households that receive LIHEAP or the characteristics of those households. These surveys underestimate the number of households receiving heating assistance due to underreporting and sampling errors. Therefore, there is no other similar information collection that can be modified to provide the data.


    5. Impact on Small Businesses or Other Small Entities 
No small business entities are involved in data collection.


    6. Consequences of Collecting the Information Less Frequently 
The deadline for LIHEAP grantees to submit their block grant applications and plans for the following fiscal year is September 1st of the current fiscal year. Part of the block grant application requires the annual fiscal year data that are reported in the LIHEAP Household Report. Consequently, grantees would be unable to comply with statutory requirements in section 2605(c)(1)(D) of the LIHEAP statute (42 U.S.C. 8624(c)(1)(G) and 8629(a)(4), (a)(5), (b), and (c)) if the data were collected less frequently. 

Without the grant recipient’s annual reporting of the LIHEAP household data:
    • HHS would be unable to complete its annual LIHEAP Report to Congress, as required by section 2610(b) of the LIHEAP statute (42 U.S.C. 8629).
    • There would be no way for OCS to track annual LIHEAP performance output.  
    • OCS would be unable to obtain data that are necessary in calculating LIHEAP recipiency targeting and outcome developmental performance measures that are included in the President’s annual Congressional Budget Justification.


    7. Special Circumstances Relating to the Guidelines of 5 CFR 1320.5 
There are no special circumstances that require the collection to be conducted in a manner inconsistent with the guidelines in 5 CFR 1320.5.


    8. Comments in Response to the Federal Register Notice and Efforts to Consult Outside the Agency 
In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (Pub. L. 104-13) and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) regulations at 5 CFR Part 1320 (60 FR 44978, August 29, 1995), ACF published a notice in the Federal Register announcing the agency’s intention to request an OMB review of this information collection activity.  This notice was published on April 9, 2026 (91 FR 17972) and provided a sixty-day period for public comment. 

During the public comment period, the Office of Community Services (OCS) received six submissions. The comments were submitted by: the National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA), the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), and two individual members of the public. All comments addressed the proposed removal of the collection of sex, race, and ethnicity data for LIHEAP applicants and household members. OCS acknowledges the interest in retaining these data elements; however, they are not required by statute and do not affect the manner in which grant recipients administer program services. OCS will make available to grant recipients the demographic data collected for Fiscal Years 2023 through 2025. Although OCS will no longer require submission of these data to the federal government, grant recipients may continue to collect this information or utilize comparable indicators drawn from other programs for their own analytical purposes.


    9. Explanation of Any Payment or Gift to Respondents 
 No payment or gifts to respondents are involved.



    10. Assurance of Confidentiality Provided to Respondents 
Confidentiality is not an issue as only aggregated household data are collected.


    11. Justification for Sensitive Questions 
There are no questions of a sensitive nature that are commonly considered private.


    12. Estimates of Annualized Burden Hours and Costs 
Estimated Burden Hours
Estimates of the hour burden of the collection of information are based on the number of LIHEAP grant recipients (50 States, the District of Columbia, 133Indian Tribes/Tribal Organizations, and five Insular Areas) completing the information collection annually and the estimated burden associated with household applications. 

	Grant Recipient Burden
The response time for grant recipients due to the Department waiving most of the reporting requirements for small LIHEAP grantees, given the small grant amounts involved and the overall difficulty in obtaining reliable demographic data from small grantees. In reducing the burden on small LIHEAP grantees, all Indian Tribes and Tribal Organizations will continue to be exempted from most of the reporting requirements. These grantees report only on the number of households assisted by type of LIHEAP assistance through the LIHEAP Household Report–Short Format.

The estimated number of grant recipients and estimated time per response for each format follows:
    • LIHEAP Household Report – Long Format for the 50 States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico (average burden per response of 41 hours). 
    • LIHEAP Household Report – Short Format for the 133 Indian Tribes/Tribal Organizations and selected territory grantees (average burden per response of 6 hours).  

Household Level Burden
While OCS does not mandate that LIHEAP grant recipients use a standard household application, we know that grant recipients collect many of the required Household Report data elements through their household application. The annual burden for the household application indicated in the following table accounts for the time it will take LIHEAP applicants to provide the data required by the current Household Report as well as the proposed demographic data elements. 

For this request, burden has been reduced by analyzing FY26 LIHEAP Model Plans to calculate how grant recipients determine eligibility.  Based on LIHEAP Model Plans, 25 of the 52 state grant recipients use categorical eligibility to determine LIHEAP household eligibility. LIHEAP categorical eligibility makes a household automatically income-eligible for energy assistance if any member receives benefits from programs like TANF, SNAP, or SSI, bypassing the typical income test, though income is still used to set benefit amounts. This simplifies and reduces the burden on households. Based on past average data, those 25 states make up about 55% of all assisted households. To calculate this burden, we used an estimate for the annual number of LIHEAP household applicants multiplied by an average of 1/3 of an hour to provide the data required by the Household Report.

Estimated Cost to Respondents
The average hourly wage used for State Grantees is $86, based on publicly available information on grantee staff salaries and assumed overhead costs. These data were compiled for the 2020 RECS LIHEAP Match (Control Number is 0970-0486) and adjusted to account for rate increases since 2019. 

For household applicants, we used a national average for minimum wage, which is $11.18.

Annual Burden and Cost Estimates 
Instrument
Number of
Respondents
Annual Number of Responses Per Respondent
Average Hour Burden Per Response
Annual Burden Hours
Average Hourly Wage 
Total Annual Cost 
Long Format 
52
1
41
2,132
$86
$4,545,424
Short Format
133
1
6
798
$86
$68,628
Household Application*
6,160,000
1
.31
1,848,000
$11.18
$20,660,640
Total Annual Burden Hours and Costs: 
1,850,930
-
$25,274,692


    13. Estimates of Other Total Annual Cost Burden to Respondents and Record Keepers 
Respondents will not incur any additional record keeping costs.


    14. Annualized Cost to the Federal Government 
Federal government staff tasks associated with the collection of these data include:
    1. Preparing the Action Transmittal reminding grant recipients of posting requirements.
    2. Overseeing the work of the contractor.

The table below furnishes information on the estimated Federal Staff hours and costs associated with each task:
Cost Item
Hours
Salary (per hour)
Total
GS-13: prepare instructions for long and short form, remind grant recipients of submission deadlines, provide technical assistance. 
200
$111.50
$22,300
Contractor Cost:  (a) oversee the collection effort and prepare statistical tables (b) prepare tables with footnotes for final publication in the Report to Congress.  
176
$83.79
$14,747.04
Total
$37,047.04


    15. Explanation for Program Changes or Adjustments 
ACF changed the LIHEAP Household Report form to the existing data collection to reduce burden to the greatest extent possible. Changes include removing demographic information, sex, race and ethnicity which is not statutorily required. Additionally, burden estimates for household level reporting was reduced based on analysis of recent data, as described in section A12. 


    16. Plans for Tabulation and Publication and Project Time Schedule 
The results of the information collection are published in the Department's annual LIHEAP Report to Congress. State-level data are prepared as tables in Part III of the LIHEAP Report to Congress. The aggregation of State-level data is also reported in Part III of the LIHEAP Report to Congress. Complex analytical techniques will not be used as national totals, percentages, and percent distributions will be tabulated only. Selected results of the information collection are published as part of the Department’s annual Congressional Justification.

The LIHEAP Household Report needs to be available before the end of each fiscal year to allow grantees time to submit their completed reports as part of their application for LIHEAP funds for the following fiscal year in accordance with 45 CFR 96.10. This regulation establishes September 1st as the deadline for state, tribal, and insular area grantees to submit their block grant applications/plans for the following fiscal year. The projected time schedule for the annual LIHEAP Household Report is shown below.
Activity
Weeks following  Submission Deadline
LIHEAP Household Reports (household data can be estimated so as not to delay issuance of new grant awards) reviewed for completeness as part of the LIHEAP grant application process 
2
Final (non-estimated) household data inputted and edited
15
Final household data checked and edited for consistency with benefit data from the LIHEAP Performance Data Form – Module I (Grantee Survey), previous fiscal year LIHEAP Household Reports, the LIHEAP Carryover and Reallotment reports, and LIHEAP state plans.
25
Draft of statistical tables for inclusion in annual LIHEAP Report to Congress – text and appendices
34
Final statistical tables for inclusion in annual LIHEAP Report to Congress
40
Publication of annual LIHEAP Report to Congress**
--
**Publication is dependent upon the Department’s clearance process of the annual LIHEAP Report to Congress.


    17. Reason(s) Display of OMB Expiration Date is Inappropriate 
The expiration date for OMB approval of the information collection will be displayed on the report forms and instructions.  


    18. Exceptions to Certification for Paperwork Reduction Act Submissions
There are no exceptions indicated to the certifications required by 5 CFR 1320.9.