Notice2026-02928
Proposed Information Collection Activity: 2024 Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) Data Match
Primary source
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Published
February 13, 2026
Issuing agencies
Health and Human Services DepartmentChildren and Families Administration
Abstract
The Office of Community Services (OCS) is requesting a reinstatement with changes to the collection and reporting of administrative household beneficiary data from state Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) grant recipients. The LIHEAP Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) Data Match request is completed approximately every five years, to support research and analysis of LIHEAP program impacts. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approved the original collection under #: 0970-0486. Through the LIHEAP RECS data match, OCS requires state grant recipients to provide household-level recipient data. This request will cover data for fiscal years 2024, and 2025, and include revisions aimed to reduce the reporting burden by approximately 30 percent compared to the last such data collection in 2021.
Full Text
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<title>Federal Register, Volume 91 Issue 30 (Friday, February 13, 2026)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 91, Number 30 (Friday, February 13, 2026)]
[Notices]
[Pages 6847-6848]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2026-02928]
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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Administration for Children and Families
[Office of Management and Budget #: 0970-0486]
Proposed Information Collection Activity: 2024 Low Income Home
Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) Residential Energy Consumption
Survey (RECS) Data Match
AGENCY: Office of Community Services; Administration for Children and
Families; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
ACTION: Request for public comments.
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SUMMARY: The Office of Community Services (OCS) is requesting a
reinstatement with changes to the collection and reporting of
administrative household beneficiary data from state Low Income Home
Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) grant recipients. The LIHEAP
Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) Data Match request is
completed approximately every five years, to support research and
analysis of LIHEAP program impacts. Office of Management and Budget
(OMB) approved the original collection under #: 0970-0486. Through the
LIHEAP RECS data match, OCS requires state grant recipients to provide
household-level recipient data. This request will cover data for fiscal
years 2024, and 2025, and include revisions aimed to reduce the
reporting burden by approximately 30 percent compared to the last such
data collection in 2021.
DATES: Comments due April 14, 2026.
ADDRESSES: In compliance with the requirements of the Paperwork
Reduction Act of 1995, ACF is soliciting public comment on the specific
aspects of the information collection described above. You can obtain
copies of the proposed collection of information and submit comments by
emailing <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#abc2c5cdc4c8c4c7c7cec8dfc2c4c5ebcac8cd85c3c3d885ccc4dd"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="93fafdf5fcf0fcfffff6f0e7fafcfdd3f2f0f5bdfbfbe0bdf4fce5">[email protected]</span></a>. Identify all requests by the title
of the information collection.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Description: Congress established the LIHEAP
block grant (42 U.S.C. 8621 et seq.) under Title XXVI of the Omnibus
Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981, Public Law 97-35, as amended. OCS
administers LIHEAP at the federal level. The LIHEAP statute requires
the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to report to Congress
annually on program impacts on recipient and eligible households. The
primary program goals, as articulated in the statute, are to ensure
that benefits are targeted to those households where the greatest
program impacts are expected, and to assure that timely resources are
available to households experiencing home energy crises.
OCS is seeking to collect data from all state LIHEAP grant
recipients and the District of Columbia that will allow OCS to identify
LIHEAP recipients that respond to the RECS, and support research and
analysis of LIHEAP program impacts. The U.S. Energy Information
Administration (EIA) conducted the 2024 RECS in 2024 and early 2025.
EIA conducts this survey to provide periodic national and regional data
on residential energy use in the U.S. OCS uses RECS data to furnish
Congress and HHS with important national and regional descriptive data
[[Page 6848]]
on the energy needs of households with low incomes, as required by the
LIHEAP statute (42 U.S.C. 8629). Specific data elements OCS is seeking
to collect are detailed below.
ACF is proposing to request the majority of the data elements
included in the 2021 request through which state LIHEAP grant
recipients provided household-level recipient data to identify LIHEAP
recipients that participated in the 2020 RECS. For the upcoming 2024-
2025 LIHEAP RECS data match, ACF proposes to eliminate eight data
fields compared to the prior data request: Household name, household
telephone number, date of heating assistance, date of cooling
assistance, date of crisis assistance, other assistance awarded, amount
of other assistance, and date of other assistance. These elements were
determined to be either duplicative data from other sources or are not
essential to determining residential energy consumption and
expenditures. The LIHEAP Annual Household Report (OMB Control #: 0970-
0060), completed by grant recipients, gives OCS data on household make
up. Similarly, the LIHEAP Performance Data report (OMB Control #: 0970-
0449). provided OCS an overview of crisis assistance and expenditures.
With these reports, OCS determined the 8 elements were not necessary
for this data collection. Additionally, ACF has streamlined the brief
instructions to state grant recipients.
The LIHEAP data collected for this effort will be used by OCS to
study and report on the impact of LIHEAP on income eligible and
recipient households in accordance with 42 U.S.C. 8629(b)(2). The
information is being collected for use in development of the
Department's annual LIHEAP report to Congress and the annual LIHEAP
Home Energy Notebook. The collection of this data is authorized by the
LIHEAP statute, which requires the Secretary of Health and Human
Services, following consultation with the Secretary of Energy, to
provide for the collection of specific information on the
characteristics of LIHEAP recipient and LIHEAP eligible households
within each state and the RECS provides detailed data on residential
end uses of energy. This includes collecting information that is
reasonably necessary to carry out the provisions of the LIHEAP statute
if that information is not collected by any other agency of the federal
government.
State LIHEAP grant recipients will be asked to furnish data for
LIHEAP beneficiary households that reside in areas included in the RECS
sample.
Consistent with prior requests, state LIHEAP grant recipients will
be asked to furnish the following data for LIHEAP recipient households
that reside in areas included in the RECS sample:
<bullet> Address (including ZIP code)
<bullet> Gross Income
<bullet> Household or Client ID
<bullet> Household Size
<bullet> Heating assistance awarded
<bullet> Amount of heating assistance
<bullet> Cooling assistance awarded
<bullet> Amount of cooling assistance
<bullet> Crisis assistance awarded
<bullet> Amount of crisis assistance
<bullet> Presence of children 5 or younger
<bullet> Presence of adult 60 or older
<bullet> Presence of member with a disability
The following are additional optional data items that grantees can
provide if the data are already available in your database:
<bullet> Tenancy (i.e., own or rent)
<bullet> Type(s) of fuel used
<bullet> Heat included in rent
The RECS provides detailed data on residential end uses of energy.
This data will also help ACF to analyze specific information for the
LIHEAP recipient population in accordance with 42 U.S.C. 8629(b)(2),
including information related to benefits targeting, energy usage, and
energy insecurity, and it will support analysis of LIHEAP data for the
annual report to Congress and the annual LIHEAP Home Energy Notebook.
The collection of this data is authorized in 42 U.S.C. 8629(a) and 42
U.S.C. 8623(a)(4).
State LIHEAP grant recipients can provide the data elements in the
selected format of their choosing.
The privacy of client data will be strictly protected as part of
the project. OCS plans to maximize rapid file transfer technology by
using a secure internet site that employs File Transfer Protocol.
LIHEAP application client waivers allow grant recipients to share
information with OCS and its contractor(s).
Respondents: 51 (state governments and the District of Columbia).
Annual Burden Estimates: Eliminating data elements and streamlining
instructions is expected to reduce the estimated time per response from
24 to 16 hours, which is a 33 percent reduction in burden compared to
the 2021 request.
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Total number of Average burden
Instrument Total number of responses per hours per Total annual
respondents respondent response burden hours
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2024 LIHEAP RECS Data Match................. 51 1 16 816
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Additional Information: As LIHEAP is a block grant, there is
varying capacity to collect and report data among grant recipients. The
estimated burden hours displayed above are for the average state LIHEAP
grant recipient. All LIHEAP grant recipients have existing data systems
to collect, maintain, and analyze this data to complete annual
reporting requirements. This data collection will only be done once in
the short to mid-term future because the RECS is only conducted every
five years or so.
Comments: The Department specifically requests comments on (a)
whether the proposed collection of information is necessary for the
proper performance of the functions of the agency, including whether
the information shall have practical utility; (b) the accuracy of the
agency's estimate of the burden of the proposed collection of
information; (c) the quality, utility, and clarity of the information
to be collected; and (d) ways to minimize the burden of the collection
of information on respondents, including through the use of automated
collection techniques or other forms of information technology.
Consideration will be given to comments and suggestions submitted
within 60 days of this publication.
Authority: 42 U.S.C. 8629(a).
Mary C. Jones,
ACF/OPRE Certifying Officer.
[FR Doc. 2026-02928 Filed 2-12-26; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4184-80-P
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</html>Indexed from Federal Register on February 13, 2026.
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