EERE Web Site Customer Survey 2008 Letter of Request

Department of Energy Washington, DC 20585

March 6, 2008

Mr. Nathan Frey

Department of Energy Desk Officer

Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs

Office of Management and Budget

Washington, DC 20503

SUBJECT: DOE-887(75), “USE OF GENERIC CLEARANCE FOR THE OFFICE OF ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND RENEWABLE ENERGY WEB SITE CUSTOMER SURVEY”

Dear Mr. Frey:

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) plans to use the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approved generic clearance, DOE-887, (DOE Customer Surveys’ OMB No. 1901-0302, expiring December 31, 2009) to conduct a short survey of the readers of the EERE Network News (ENN) weekly newsletter. As agreed to under the DOE-887 “DOE Customer Surveys” clearance, we will anticipate your approval within two weeks. Without the proper authority, we will not conduct this survey. We will provide OMB with the results of this data collection when we submit the annual report of surveys conducted under the generic clearance.

The EERE Network News newsletter was created to provide its readership with information about advancements and news in the industries of energy efficiency and renewable energy. It is separate from the other newsletter provided by the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Progress Alerts, which announces recent news in the office of EERE.

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy has developed the attached user survey in response to Executive Order 12862, "Setting Customer Service Standards." This survey has been designed as a follow up to the last survey of ENN's readership, which was held in 2001. Its questions are designed to provide as much comparison as possible with the results of the previous survey. The responses will be used to determine the effectiveness of ENN's delivery mechanisms and its content. The respondents of the survey will consist of readers of the HTML and text versions of the ENN email newsletter.

The request to complete the survey will be posted in two issues of the HTML and text versions of the ENN newsletter, and no invitation to take the survey will be posted on any page on EERE. This link will lead to a page on EERE where the survey is posted. ENN has approximately 14,800 readers as of December, 2007. The survey will be offered only in an electronic format. A response rate of approximately 10% is anticipated.

The intent of the survey is to determine the effectiveness of ENN's content and its delivery system. The results will also be used to develop guidelines for improving ENN in the future. The results, which will represent a fraction of ENN's readership and their opinions, will be used as a guide, and will not be used as a definitive snapshot of the opinions of all ENN readers.

All participation in this survey is voluntary. No self-identifying information will be collected. All results will be presented in aggregate form. All analysis of the survey results will lack any identifying characteristics of the survey respondents.

The attached survey will take approximately 5 minutes to answer and contains 15 questions. The total burden for this survey is 123 hours (1,480 respondents x 5 minutes).

Elizabeth Spencer, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, is the point of contact for questions and may be contacted at 303-275-3647. Other questions should be directed to Drew Bittner, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, at 202-586-7562.

Sincerely,

Renee H. Miller

Acting Director

Statistics and Methods Group

Energy Information Administration