TSA Publishes Surface Transportation Security ICR Notice
On Monday TSA will publish (available online yesterday) a 60-day information collection request (ICR) revision notice in the Federal Register (90 FR 16697-16698). The TSA is intending to combine two existing ICRs into a single document to support their surface transportation security program. The combined ICR would be reported under RIN# 1652-0051. The two existing ICRs are:
1652-0051 - Rail Transportation Security, and
1652-0066 - Security Training Program for Surface Transportation Employees
The table below shows the current burden estimates for the two ICRs as well as the combined burden being reported in Monday’s ICR Notice. There is one ‘apples and oranges’ problem with this data, the ICR notice reports the number of ‘respondents’ not the number of responses.
While the ‘responses’ comparison is not useful because of the reporting discrepancy, the hours burden for a combination of two ICRs should be somewhere between the largest individual burden (for complete duplication of reported burden) or the sum of the two burden estimates (for no duplication).
1652-0052 Details
Looking at the latest supporting document for RIN 1652-0052 I have compiled the table below from the data reported in paragraph 12.
For the purpose of this discussion, it is telling that the largest hour burden estimate component for this ICR (chain of custody documentation) is more than three times the projected burden estimate for the newly combined ICR. In the ICR notice discussion of this information collection under 49 CFR 1580.205 there is no explanation why there would be a three fold decrease in the number of hazmat railcar changes of custody or the time needed to compile the reported data.
1652-0066 Details
Looking at the latest supporting document for RIN 1652-0066 I have compiled the table below from the data reported in paragraph 12
Zeroing in on the three largest data collections in this ICR (security training program record keeping) the combination of the burden hours for those three information collections is almost twice as large as the total burden estimate for the combined ICR being reported in this notice. The discussion in this notice about the training program requirements does not describe any changes in the record keeping requirements.
Public Comments
TSA is soliciting public comments on the accuracy of the data presented in this ICR notice. Comments may be submitted via email (TSAPRA@dhs.gov). Comments should be submitted by June 20th, 2025.
Commentary
The TSA has a long history of providing inadequate information to support changes to the burden estimates in their ICR notices. This makes it difficult for the affected public to provide meaningful comments on “the accuracy of the agency’s estimate of the burden of the proposed collection of information” being proposed by the TSA as required by 44 USC 3506(c)(2)(A)(ii). Unfortunately, OIRA only apparently cares about the supporting information provided to them after the 30-day ICR notice is published as OIRA has never taken TSA to task for their inadequate information sharing.