[Federal Register Volume 73, Number 88 (Tuesday, May 6, 2008)]
[Notices]
[Page 24938]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E8-9933]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE


Submission for OMB Review; Comment Request

    The Department of Commerce will submit to the Office of Management 
and Budget (OMB) for clearance the following proposal for collection of 
information under the provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act (44 
U.S.C. chapter 35).
    Agency: U.S. Census Bureau.
    Title: Survey of Construction, Questionnaire for Building Permit 
Official.
    Form Number(s): SOC-QBPO.
    OMB Control Number: 0607-0125.
    Type of Request: Revision of a currently approved collection.
    Burden Hours: 225.
    Number of Respondents: 900.
    Average Hours per Response: 15 minutes.
    Needs and Uses: The information collected on the SOC-QBPO is 
necessary to carry out the sampling for the Survey of Housing Starts, 
Sales and Completions (OMB Control No. 0607-0110), also known as the 
Survey of Construction (SOC). Government agencies and private companies 
use statistics from SOC to monitor and evaluate the large and dynamic 
housing construction industry.
    The Census Bureau field representatives (FRs) use the SOC-QBPO to 
obtain information on the operating procedures of a permit office. This 
enables them to locate, classify, list, and sample building permits for 
residential construction. These permits are used as the basis for the 
sample selected for SOC. The Manufacturing and Construction Division 
(MCD), within the Census Bureau, also uses the information to verify 
and update the geographic coverage of permit offices.
    The failure to collect this information would make it difficult, if 
not impossible, to accurately classify and sample building permits for 
the SOC. The SOC produces data for two principal economic indicators: 
New Residential Construction (housing starts and housing completions) 
and New Residential Sales. Information from the SOC is also used in the 
estimation of the value of new residential construction put in place 
for the Census Bureau's data on construction spending.
    The Census Bureau is requesting a revision of the currently 
approved collection. The SOC-QBPO is an electronic questionnaire. 
Census Bureau FRs use Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) to 
collect the data. The CAPI software for all SOC data collection is 
being rewritten and modernized to work on laptop computers with the 
Microsoft Windows operating system. As part of this revision, the 
Census Bureau identified improvements to the SOC-QBPO questionnaire, 
including eliminating questions that are no longer necessary and adding 
new data items to improve the sampling for the Survey of Construction.
    Affected Public: State, local or tribal government.
    Frequency: Annually.
    Respondent's Obligation: Voluntary.
    Legal Authority: Title 13, United States Code, Section 182.
    OMB Desk Officer: Brian Harris-Kojetin, (202) 395-7314.
    Copies of the above information collection proposal can be obtained 
by calling or writing Diana Hynek, Departmental Paperwork Clearance 
Officer, (202) 482-0266, Department of Commerce, Room 6625, 14th and 
Constitution Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20230 (or via the Internet at 
[email protected]).
    Written comments and recommendations for the proposed information 
collection should be sent within 30 days of publication of this notice 
to Brian Harris-Kojetin,OMB Desk Officer either by fax (202-395-7245) 
or e-mail ([email protected]).

    Dated: May 1, 2008.
Gwellnar Banks,
Management Analyst, Office of the Chief Information Officer.
 [FR Doc. E8-9933 Filed 5-5-08; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-07-P