July 7 -- The Office of the Under Secretary for Infrastructure, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), invites comments by August 21, 2023 regarding the extension of data collections for Output and Outcome Metrics for Financial Assistance and Rebates. [Comments due 30 days after submission to OMB on July 20, 2023.]
Given the historic level of investment represented by Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act programs, it is incumbent on DOE to transparently track, report, and communicate the outcomes of DOE's financial assistance and rebate programs. Executive Order 14052 directs federal agencies to prioritize “investing public dollars efficiently and equitably, working to avoid waste, and focusing on measurable outcomes for the American people.” This guidance specifies the uniform collection, measurement, and reporting methodologies necessary for a set of key metrics that DOE can use to communicate the outcomes and outputs of funds awarded, ensuring consistency, transparency, and accountability to support Administration and program objectives.
This Information Collection addresses a set of key cross-cutting metrics that will track across DOE programs to assess and communicate DOE's progress toward meeting key agency priorities, including creating quality jobs, supporting domestic manufacturing, increasing equity and justice, reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and providing pathways to private sector uptake. The metrics will inform transparent and consistent reporting of the key metrics across DOE awards and will include project-level location data covering outcomes and outputs for specific communities, allowing DOE to better understand who is affected by DOE funded programs and how. This approach will enable DOE to report metrics at the agency, office, portfolio, and program levels and will provide data that can help evaluate the efficiency and equity of the programs, educate the design and implementation of future programs, and identify and address potential waste. DOE proposes to collect information through applications and supporting documents information necessary to determine that whether rebate applicants meet the specified statutory criteria to receive payments under the equipment rebate programs.
The metrics associated with the key priorities are as follows:
Direct & Permanent Jobs
Training and Outcomes
Job Quality
Direct Domestic Manufacturing and Recycling Capacity
Critical Materials and Rare Earth Element Processing & Mining Capacity
Funding and Impacts to Disadvantaged, Fossil Energy, Tribal, and Rural Communities
Funding to Minority Serving Institutions
Funding to Businesses by Ownership & Classification
Community and Stakeholder Engagement
Technical Assistance
Community Ownership
Infrastructure Supported
Energy Saved
Net Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions Changes
Criteria Air Pollutants
Reduction in household utility costs
Non-DOE Investment
Follow-on-Funding
Intellectual Property (IP) Generation
Intellectual Property (IP) Utilization
Location
The method of quantifying data varies by metric, but includes counts of various units (e.g., hours, number of individuals, responses to yes/no questions, MW, tons/year, dollar values, etc.) that will be aggregated across programs by relevant subcategories (e.g., community), others may be reported in percentages based on those counts. Only a subset of the total metrics will apply to each individual funding recipient; for example, direct domestic manufacturing capacity will only be relevant to the small subset of funding recipients support (i.e., construct, establish, retool, re-equip, or retrofit) manufacturing capacity or advanced energy property recycling capacity. The metrics will inform transparent and consistent reporting of the key metrics across DOE awards and will include project-level location data covering outcomes and outputs for specific communities, allowing DOE to better understand who is affected by DOE funded programs and how (See M-22-12, Part II, D). This approach will enable DOE to report metrics at the agency, office, portfolio, and program levels and will provide data that can help evaluate the efficiency and equity of the programs, educate the design and implementation of future programs, and identify and address potential waste. Collection instruments are not being proposed. As stated, the subset of data to be collected will be award dependent and the collection of the relevant metrics will be addressed in individual award agreements.
DOE program offices will manage data collection from funding recipients and work with recipients to ensure necessary data is collected from sub-recipients for each metric that is relevant to their program, with the support of the Office of the Undersecretary for Infrastructure (S3), the Office of Policy, and the Office of Economic Impact and Diversity and will report those data to a designated point of contact in S3 at a specified frequency. DOE will work with funding recipients to determine the appropriate metrics to be reported. DOE has included reporting of a number of the listed metrics in awards under the emergency IC issued under 1910-5197, but to date the associated reports have not yet been submitted by awardees. DOE will integrate financial and performance data into an internal dashboard to report the metrics. The internal dashboard has not yet been developed.
Annual Estimated Number of Respondents: 59,625
Annual Estimated Number of Total Responses: 88,125
DOE Clean Energy Infrastructure Programs:
https://www.energy.gov/clean-energy-infrastructure/clean-energy-infrastructure-homepage
DOE submission to OMB:
https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewICR?ref_nbr=202307-1910-001 Click on IC List for questionnaire, View Supporting Statement for technical documentation. Submit comments through this site.
FR notice inviting public comment:
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2023-14366
For AEA members wishing to submit comments, "A Primer on How to Respond to Calls for Comment on Federal Data Collections" is available at
https://www.aeaweb.org/content/file?id=5806