Employment and Training Administration April 20, 2012 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Department of Labor (Department), as part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork and respondent burden, conducts a preclearance consultation program to provide the public and Federal agencies with an opportunity to comment on proposed and/or continuing collections of information in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA) [44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(2)(A)]. This program helps ensure that requested data can be provided in the desired format, reporting burden (time and financial resources) is minimized, collection instruments are clearly understood, and the impact of collection requirements on respondents can be properly assessed. Currently, ETA seeks a regular 3 year extension of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approval for collecting site visit data from organizations that received grants under four Solicitations for Grant Applications (SGAs) that were issued under the ARRA Initiative: Pathways Out of Poverty (POP), Energy Training Partnership (ETP), State Energy Sector Partnership (SESP), and Health Care and Other High Growth and Emerging Industries Training grant initiative. POP, ETP and SESP are all Green Jobs training programs. The overall aim of these evaluations is to determine the extent to which enrollees achieve increases in employment, earnings, and career advancement as a result of their participation in the training provided and to identify promising best practices and strategies for replication. It is necessary to collect data from the grant sites included in both studies while they are still in operation. Failure to collect site visit data will affect our ability to conduct rigorous evaluations of these grants. For example, site visits are the only way the research team can observe the training programs in operation and collect real time data that amplifies the findings through other documentation. Lack of a rigorous evaluation process will mean that no information will be available on the potential of training for green jobs as a strategy for reducing poverty or increasing employment. Conducting these evaluations rigorously requires appropriate operational data collection. This information collection follows an emergency review that was conducted in accordance with PRA and 5 CFR 1320.13. The submission for OMB emergency review was approved on January 19, 2012.