The information collection allows the Office of Federal Acknowledgment (OFA), within the Office of the Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs, to review petitions by Indian groups to determine whether the groups should be acknowledged as Indian tribes eligible for a government-to-government relationship with the U.S. Government.
With regard to hour burden, which reflects time spent by the respondents themselves to research, collect, and provide information for the petition, we made appropriate adjustments to reflect the decreases in burden that will result from program changes associated with revising the Federal Acknowledgment regulations. Based on input provided by past and present petitioners the time it takes to prepare the documented petition for each of the criteria can be distributed as follows:
(a) 12.25 % ; (b) 12.25 % ; (c) 12.25 % ; (d) 12.25 %; (e) 50 %; (f) 0.5 %; and (g) 0.5 %.
In the past, we had estimated that it takes 2,075 hours total to prepare a response, including 1,720 hours to provide information for each of the criteria and 355 to provide forms and respond to technical assistance.
The 1,720 hours could be broken down into the following number of hours per criterion:
(a) 210.7 hours; (b) 210.7 hours; (c) 210.7 hours; (d) 210.7 hours; (e) 860 hours; (f) 8.6 hours; (g) 8.6 hours
The new rule's revisions to these criteria reduce the hour burden from 1,720 to 1,221, as explained in the following table.
In addition, the burden of responding to technical assistance review has been removed because this burden occurs after the administrative case file has been opened, resulting in an additional decrease of 140 burden hours per respondent.
Together, the overall result of the new rule is a net decrease of 639 burden hours (499 + 140) per respondent (a net decrease of 6,390 hours total).
We have also estimated an annual cost burden of $21,000,000 to account for non-hour costs of compiling a petition; while these costs have always been present, they were not previously accounted for and thus are designated here as a program change.
On behalf of this Federal agency, I certify that the collection of information encompassed by this request complies with 5 CFR 1320.9 and the related provisions of 5 CFR 1320.8(b)(3).
The following is a summary of the topics, regarding the proposed collection of information, that the certification covers:
(i) Why the information is being collected;
(ii) Use of information;
(iii) Burden estimate;
(iv) Nature of response (voluntary, required for a benefit, or mandatory);
(v) Nature and extent of confidentiality; and
(vi) Need to display currently valid OMB control number;
If you are unable to certify compliance with any of these provisions, identify the item by leaving the box unchecked and explain the reason in the Supporting Statement.
Compile documented petition