Notice2026-08689
Submission for Office of Management and Budget Review; 2024-2025 Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) Data Match
Primary source
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Published
May 5, 2026
Issuing agencies
Health and Human Services DepartmentChildren and Families Administration
Abstract
The Office of Community Services (OCS) is requesting a reinstatement with changes for the collection and reporting of administrative household recipient 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 5 years, to support research and analysis of LIHEAP program impacts. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approved the original collection under #: 0970-0486. ACF published a Federal Register notice on February 13, 2026 soliciting 60 days of public comment on requiring state grant recipients to provide household-level recipient data for fiscal years (FYs) 2024 and 2025 and proposed revisions aimed to reduce the reporting burden by approximately 30 percent compared to the last such data collection in 2021. ACF received one comment in response to that notice.
Full Text
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<title>Federal Register, Volume 91 Issue 86 (Tuesday, May 5, 2026)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 91, Number 86 (Tuesday, May 5, 2026)]
[Notices]
[Pages 24245-24247]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2026-08689]
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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Administration for Children and Families
[Office of Management and Budget #: 0970-0486]
Submission for Office of Management and Budget Review; 2024-2025
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 for the collection and reporting of
administrative household recipient 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 5 years, to support research and analysis
of LIHEAP program impacts. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB)
approved the original collection under #: 0970-0486. ACF published a
Federal Register notice on February 13, 2026 soliciting 60 days of
public comment on requiring state grant recipients to provide
household-level recipient data for fiscal years (FYs) 2024 and 2025 and
[[Page 24246]]
proposed revisions aimed to reduce the reporting burden by
approximately 30 percent compared to the last such data collection in
2021. ACF received one comment in response to that notice.
DATES: Comments due June 4, 2026.
ADDRESSES: The public may view and comment on this information
collection request at: <a href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewICR?ref_nbr=202604-0970-011">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewICR?ref_nbr=202604-0970-011</a>. You can also obtain copies of the
proposed collection of information by emailing
<a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#84edeae2ebe7ebe8e8e1e7f0edebeac4e5e7e2aaececf7aae3ebf2"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="b2dbdcd4ddd1dddeded7d1c6dbdddcf2d3d1d49cdadac19cd5ddc4">[email protected]</span></a>. Identify all emailed 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 U.S. 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 United States. OCS uses RECS data to
furnish Congress and HHS with important national and regional
descriptive data 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 No. 0970-
0060), completed by grant recipients, gives OCS data on household make
up. Similarly, the LIHEAP Performance Data report (OMB Control No.
0970-0449) provided OCS with an overview of crisis assistance and
expenditures. With these reports, OCS determined the eight 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 HHS, 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 Size
<bullet> Household or Client ID
<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).
ACF received one comment on the proposed data collection in
response to the initial notice for comments in the Federal Register (90
FR 6847). The commenter indicated concurrence with the proposed
information collection and emphasized a need for one-on-one assistance
with fulfilling the request. OCS concurs and confirms that one-on-one
assistance will be provided proactively to each state LIHEAP grant
recipient regarding how to transfer the requested data.
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.
[[Page 24247]]
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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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2024-2025 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 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 5 years or
so.
Authority: 42 U.S.C. 8629(a)
Mary C. Jones,
ACF/OPRE Certifying Officer.
[FR Doc. 2026-08689 Filed 5-4-26; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4184-80-P
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