SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Public Comments Invited: You are asked to comment on any aspect of this information collection, including (a) Whether the proposed collection of ( printed page 45318) information is necessary for FAA's performance; (b) the accuracy of the estimated burden; (c) ways for FAA to enhance the quality, utility and clarity of the information collection; and (d) ways that the burden could be minimized without reducing the quality of the collected information. The agency will summarize and/or include your comments in the request for OMB's clearance of this information collection.

OMB Control Number: 2120-0790.

Title: Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) Program for Annex 16, Volume IV of the Convention on Civil Aviation.

Form Numbers: 1. Emissions Monitoring Plan (EMP) Template; 2. Emissions Report (ER) Template; 3. ER Eligible Fuels Annex (EFA).

Type of Review: Clearance of a renewal of an information collection.

Background: The FAA MRV Program is a voluntary program for certain U.S. air carriers and commercial operators (collectively referred hereinafter as “operators”) to submit certain airplane fuel and emissions data to the FAA to enable the United States to establish uniformity with ICAO Standards And Recommended Practices (SARPs) for Annex 16, Volume IV of the Chicago Convention, which were adopted in June 2018. Facilitating voluntary reporting by U.S. operators will ensure fair and reciprocal commercial competition by avoiding a patchwork of country- or regionally-based regulatory measures that are inconsistently applied, bureaucratically costly, and economically damaging.

According to Annex 16, Volume IV, all ICAO Member States whose airplane operators undertake international flights will have needed to develop an MRV system for emissions from those international flights starting January 1, 2019. The FAA's MRV Program is intended to be the United States' MRV system for monitoring, reporting, and verification of U.S. airplane operator emissions from international flights.

Operators that are subject to the applicability of Annex 16, Volume IV will submit their EMPs, ERs, and ER EFAs electronically.^[1]

Each document uses Microsoft Excel-based templates and can be transmitted via email or uploaded to a web portal. EMPs that are submitted by operators will be used as a collaborative tool between the operator and FAA to document a given operator's chosen fuel use monitoring procedures. FAA will retain a copy of the EMP and will share with ICAO a list of operators that submit EMPs. FAA will not submit any specific EMPs from U.S. operators to ICAO. Operators may gather data through a “fuel use monitoring method” or a simplified monitoring method depending on the scale of their operations. Annual ERs and optional ER EFAs that are submitted to FAA by operators and verifiers will be used to document each operators' international emissions. FAA will use the ERs and ER EFAs to calculate aggregated emissions data for all U.S. operators. FAA will submit the aggregated emissions data to ICAO to demonstrate U.S. implementation of Annex 16, Volume IV.

Respondents: Respondents will be airplane operators subject to the applicability of Annex 16, Volume IV of the Chicago Convention. Since the FAA MRV Program was originally launched, FAA received 30 initial EMPs from participating operators, along with an annual ER from each. Some additional operators could submit an EMP and ER over time based on their international aviation activities.

Frequency: An EMP is a one-time submission. An ER, and optional ER EFA, is an annual submission.

Estimated Average Burden per Response: FAA expects that filling and submitting an EMP could take an average of approximately 28.6 hours per operator. FAA expects that for operators using a Fuel Use Monitoring Method, the reporting hour burden could be approximately 47.5 hours per operator, per year. For operators using a simplified Monitoring Method, the reporting hour burden could be approximately 16 hours per operator, per year.

Estimated Total Annual Burden: Based on the above, FAA expects that the average annual submission of an ER could take approximately 49.4 hours per operator, per year. For operators using a Fuel Use Monitoring Method, this includes 60 hours per operator, per year for filling and reporting an ER and an additional potential 8 hours for filling and reporting the ER EFA. For operators using simplified Monitoring Methods, this includes 17.5 hours per operator, per year for filling and reporting an ER and an additional potential 4 hours for filling and reporting the ER EFA.

91 FR 45317