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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 161 / Tuesday, August 24, 2021 / Notices
lotter on DSK11XQN23PROD with NOTICES1

The original public comment period for the Draft PEIS was scheduled to close on August 24, 2021. In response to written and verbal requests from members of the public including representatives of the Alaska whaling community, NOS is extending the public comment period by 90 days to November 22, 2021. The comment period extension will ensure adequate time for review of the Draft PEIS by all interested parties and will accommodate the Alaskan subsistence hunting and fishing community which is particularly busy during the start of the fall whaling season from August to October. NOS
recognizes that Alaskan communities have valuable regional expertise in oceanography, marine mammals and other resources, and the subsistence patterns and needs of their community.
NOS invites affected government agencies, non-governmental organizations, tribes and tribal organizations, and interested members of the public to participate in the Draft PEIS process and provide comments on the structure, contents, and analysis in the Draft PEIS. Please visit the project web page for additional information regarding the program: https
oceanservice.noaa.gov/about/
environmental-compliance/surveyingmapping.html.
Authority: The preparation of the Draft PEIS was conducted in accordance with the requirements of NEPA, the Council on Environmental Qualitys Regulations 40 CFR 1500 et seq.
1978, other applicable regulations, and NOAAs policies and procedures for compliance with those regulations.
While the CEQ regulations implementing NEPA were revised as of November 14, 2020 85 FR 43304, Jul.
16, 2020, NOS prepared this Draft PEIS
using the 1978 CEQ regulations because this environmental review began on December 19, 2016, when NOS
published a Notice of Intent to conduct scoping and prepare a Draft Programmatic Environmental Assessment. Written comments must be received on or before November 22, 2021.
Nicole R. LeBoeuf, Assistant Administrator, National Ocean Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Notice of Indirect Cost Rates Office of Response and Restoration OR&R, National Ocean Service NOS, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration NOAA, U.S. Department of Commerce DOC.
ACTION: Notice of indirect cost rates for the Damage Assessment, Remediation, and Restoration Program for Fiscal Year 2019.
AGENCY:

Notice is hereby given to announce new indirect cost rates on the recovery of indirect costs for its component organizations involved in natural resource damage assessment and restoration activities for fiscal year FY
2019. The indirect cost rates for this fiscal year and date of implementation are provided in this notice. More information on these rates and the Damage Assessment, Remediation, and Restoration Program DARRP policy can be found at the DARRP website at www.darrp.noaa.gov.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For further information contact: LaTonya Burgess at 240 5330428, LaTonya.Burgess@noaa.gov SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
SUMMARY:

Background The mission of the DARRP is to restore natural resource injuries caused by releases of hazardous substances or oil under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act CERCLA 42 U.S.C. 9601 et seq., and the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 OPA
33 U.S.C. 2701 et seq., and to support restoration of physical injuries to National Marine Sanctuary resources under the National Marine Sanctuaries Act NMSA 16 U.S.C. 1431 et seq.
The DARRP consists of three component organizations: The Office of Response and Restoration ORR within the National Ocean Service; the Restoration Center within the National Marine Fisheries Service; and the Office of the General Counsel Natural Resources Section GCNRS. The DARRP
conducts Natural Resource Damage Assessments NRDAs as a basis for recovering damages from responsible parties, and uses the funds recovered to restore injured natural resources.
Consistent with federal accounting requirements, the DARRP is required to account for and report the full costs of its programs and activities. Further, the DARRP is authorized by law to recover
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reasonable costs of damage assessment and restoration activities under CERCLA, OPA, and the NMSA. Within the constraints of these legal provisions and their regulatory applications, the DARRP has the discretion to develop indirect cost rates for its component organizations and formulate policies on the recovery of indirect cost rates subject to its requirements.
The DARRPs Indirect Cost Effort In December 1998, the DARRP hired the public accounting firm Rubino &
McGeehin, Chartered R&M to:
Evaluate the DARRP cost accounting system and allocation practices;
recommend the appropriate indirect cost allocation methodology; and determine the indirect cost rates for the three organizations that comprise the DARRP. A Federal Register notice on R&Ms effort, their assessment of the DARRPs cost accounting system and practice, and their determination regarding the most appropriate indirect cost methodology and rates for Fiscal Years FYs 1993 through 1999 was published on December 7, 2000 65 FR
76611.
R&M continued its assessment of DARRPs indirect cost rate system and structure for FYs 2000 and 2001. A
second federal notice specifying the DARRP indirect rates for FYs 2000 and 2001 was published on December 2, 2002 67 FR 71537.
In October 2002, DARRP hired the accounting firm of Cotton and Company LLP Cotton to review and certify DARRP costs incurred on cases for purposes of cost recovery and to develop indirect rates for FY 2002 and subsequent years. As in the prior years, Cotton concluded that the cost accounting system and allocation practices of the DARRP component organizations are consistent with federal accounting requirements. Consistent with R&Ms previous analyses, Cotton also determined that the most appropriate indirect allocation method continues to be the Direct Labor Cost Base for all three DARRP component organizations. The Direct Labor Cost Base is computed by allocating total indirect cost over the sum of direct labor dollars, plus the application of NOAAs leave surcharge and benefits rates to direct labor. Direct labor costs for contractors from ERT, Inc. ERT, Freestone Environmental Services, Inc.
Freestone, and Genwest Systems, Inc. Genwest were included in the direct labor base because Cotton determined that these costs have the same relationship to the indirect cost pool as NOAA direct labor costs. ERT, Freestone, and Genwest provided on-

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