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Notice2026-17853

Agency Information Collection Activities; Proposed eCollection eComments Requested; Revision of a Previously Approved Collection; Title-SAFER SKIES State, Local, Tribal, and Territorial Counter-UAS Information Collection

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Metadata and text below are from the Federal Register, a public-domain U.S. government work. Always verify the official published version before relying on it for any legal matter.

Published
September 1, 2026

Issuing agencies

Justice Department

Abstract

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice (DOJ), will be submitting the following information collection request to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and approval in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995.

Full Text

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<title>Federal Register, Volume 91 Issue 168 (Tuesday, September 1, 2026)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 91, Number 168 (Tuesday, September 1, 2026)]
[Notices]
[Pages 56212-56214]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2026-17853]


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DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

[OMB Number 1110-0090]


Agency Information Collection Activities; Proposed eCollection 
eComments Requested; Revision of a Previously Approved Collection; 
Title--SAFER SKIES State, Local, Tribal, and Territorial Counter-UAS 
Information Collection

AGENCY: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice.

ACTION: 60-Day notice.

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SUMMARY: The Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice 
(DOJ), will be submitting the following information collection request 
to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and approval in 
accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995.

DATES: Comments are encouraged and will be accepted for 60 days until 
November 2, 2026.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: If you have additional comments 
especially on the estimated public burden or associated response time, 
suggestions, or need a copy of the proposed information collection 
instrument with instructions or additional information, please contact 
the Counter-UAS Operations Unit, Unmanned Aviation Section, Critical 
Incident Response Group, Federal Bureau of Investigation, email: 
<a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#9cffe9fdefdcfafef5b2fbf3ea"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="a0c3d5c1d3e0c6c2c98ec7cfd6">[email&#160;protected]</span></a>.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Written comments and suggestions from the 
public and affected agencies concerning the proposed collection of 
information are encouraged. Your comments should address one or more of 
the following four points:

--Evaluate whether the proposed collection of information is necessary 
for the proper performance of the functions of the Federal Bureau of 
Investigation, including whether the information will have practical 
utility;
--Evaluate the accuracy of the agency's estimate of the burden of the 
proposed collection of information, including the validity of the 
methodology and assumptions used;
--Evaluate whether and if so how the quality, utility, and clarity of 
the information to be collected can be enhanced; and
--Minimize the burden of the collection of information on those who are 
to respond, including through the use of appropriate automated, 
electronic, mechanical, or other technological collection techniques or 
other forms of information technology, e.g., permitting electronic 
submission of responses.

    Abstract: The SAFER SKIES Act, Title LXXXVI of the National Defense 
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026, as implemented by the interim 
final rule codified at 6 CFR part 124 and 28 CFR part 124, extends 
counter-UAS detection and mitigation authority to State, local, tribal, 
and territorial (SLTT) law enforcement and correctional agencies under 
6 U.S.C. 124n(a)(2). This collection covers the coordination, 
authorization, reporting, and recordkeeping submissions the rule 
requires, made through the designated Federal C-UAS coordination 
portal. The current approval was granted on an emergency basis and 
expires November 30, 2026. This revision requests a standard three-year 
approval.
    Since the emergency clearance, the FBI has revised five instruments 
in response to experience during initial implementation. The advance 
notification (C-UAS-AN), operations plan (C-UAS-OPLAN), testing, 
training, and exercise plan (C-UAS-TTE), policy attestation (C-UAS-
ATT), and post-operation report (C-UAS-POR) each collect additional 
data elements. The principal additions are structured airspace and 
temporary flight restriction information on the notification, 
operations plan, and exercise plan; a retroactive filing path for 
emergency invocations under 6 CFR and 28 CFR 124.9(g) on the 
notification; Federal Aviation Administration concurrence and frequency 
restriction information on the operations plan; agency identifying and 
policy reference information on the attestation; and expanded 
detection, mitigation, and enforcement outcome fields on the post-
operation report.
    This revision also re-estimates burden for every instrument. 
Several per-response estimates are lower than those approved under the 
emergency clearance even though the instruments collect more data. The 
revised forms replace free-text entry with structured selections, allow 
the operations plan to

[[Page 56213]]

inherit previously entered data from the advance notification so that 
operational information is entered once, and retrieve known venue 
airspace data rather than requiring manual entry. The FBI invites 
comment on these estimates.

Overview of This Information Collection

    1. Type of Information Collection: Revision of a currently approved 
collection.
    2. The Title of the Form/Collection: SAFER SKIES State, Local, 
Tribal, and Territorial Counter-UAS Information Collection.
    3. The agency form number, if any, and the applicable component of 
the Department sponsoring the collection: Form numbers: C-UAS-ATT; C-
UAS-OPLAN; C-UAS-AN; C-UAS-MAA; C-UAS-NOI; C-UAS-LAD; C-UAS-OAN; C-UAS-
POR; C-UAS-ERN; C-UAS-SUM; C-UAS-VSR; C-UAS-ASLN; C-UAS-ARR; C-UAS-TTE. 
A C-UAS Operator Training and Certification Record (Form C-UAS-OTC) is 
under development and will be added to this collection by a subsequent 
submission to OMB before it is deployed. The sponsoring component is 
the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice.
    4. Affected public who will be asked or required to respond, as 
well as the obligation to respond: Affected Public: State, Local, or 
Tribal Government. Respondents are State, local, tribal, and 
territorial law enforcement and correctional agencies; territorial 
agencies are reported within the State, Local, or Tribal Government 
category. The obligation to respond is required to obtain or retain a 
benefit for most instruments (the accreditation and certification 
needed to exercise counter-UAS authority under 6 U.S.C. 124n(a)(2) and 
6 CFR and 28 CFR part 124); certain reports and notifications are 
mandatory under the same authorities, and a small number of instruments 
are voluntary.
    5. An estimate of the total number of respondents and the amount of 
time estimated for an average respondent to respond: The estimated 
number of unduplicated respondents is approximately 1,850 SLTT agencies 
(approximately 1,500 detection-tier agencies and 350 mitigation-tier 
agencies).
    The time per response varies by instrument, from approximately 5 
minutes for feedback on a listed counter-UAS system to approximately 5 
hours for initial policy adoption and attestation, which includes 
developing and adopting the underlying implementation policy. A 
detection and warning operations plan is estimated at approximately 45 
minutes; a mitigation operations plan at approximately 1 hour. These 
estimates are derived from analysis of the deployed instruments rather 
than from measured completion times, and the FBI specifically invites 
comment on their accuracy.
    6. An estimate of the total annual burden (in hours) associated 
with the collection: The estimated total annual burden associated with 
this collection is 25,314 hours, across approximately 24,355 annual 
responses, as shown in the table below.
    7. An estimate of the total annual cost burden associated with the 
collection, if applicable: There are no capital, start-up, operation, 
or maintenance costs associated with this collection. Respondents use 
existing personnel and equipment and submit electronically through the 
Federal C-UAS coordination portal at no charge. Counter-UAS systems and 
related equipment are acquired for the underlying protective mission 
and are not acquired for purposes of this collection. The estimated 
total annual cost burden is $0.

                                               Total Burden Hours
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                                  Number of                       Total annual       Time per      Total annual
           Activity              respondents       Frequency        responses        response     burden (hours)
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C-UAS-ATT--initial (policy +              617  once                         617  5 hrs..........           3,085
 attestation).                                  (annualized).
C-UAS-ATT--annual renewal....           1,233  annually........           1,233  30 min.........             617
C-UAS-OPLAN--mitigation......             350  on occasion.....           1,350  1 hr...........           1,350
C-UAS-OPLAN--detection and              1,500  on occasion.....           9,000  45 min.........           6,750
 warning.
C-UAS-AN--mitigation                      350  per operation...           2,250  1 hr...........           2,250
 operations.
C-UAS-AN--RF-emitting                      25  per operation...             100  1 hr...........             100
 detection.
C-UAS-MAA....................             150  on occasion.....             150  30 min.........              75
C-UAS-NOI....................             200  on occasion.....             200  10 min.........              33
C-UAS-LAD....................              50  on occasion.....              50  20 min.........              17
C-UAS-OAN--activation and                 150  on occasion.....             650  10 min.........             108
 termination.
C-UAS-OAN--unintended                      50  on occasion.....             100  30 min.........              50
 consequences.
C-UAS-POR....................             350  per operation...           2,250  45 min.........           1,688
C-UAS-ERN....................             150  on occasion.....             300  30 min.........             150
C-UAS-SUM....................           1,850  semiannually....           3,700  30 min.........           1,850
C-UAS-VSR....................             100  on occasion.....             100  30 min.........              50
C-UAS-ASLN--system nomination              50  on occasion.....              50  60 min.........              50
C-UAS-ASLN--feedback on                   100  on occasion.....             100  5 min..........               8
 listed system.
C-UAS-ARR....................               5  on occasion.....               5  90 min.........               8
C-UAS-TTE....................             150  annually........             300  2 hrs..........             600
Recordkeeping/retention/audit           1,850  ongoing.........           1,850  3.5 hrs........           6,475
 (Sec.   124.14).
                              ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Unduplicated Totals......           1,850  ................          24,355  ...............          25,314
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[[Page 56214]]

    Notes to the table: The initial policy attestation line is 
annualized over the phase-in of the accreditation program, and the 
annual renewal line covers only agencies that have already attested, so 
the two lines do not overlap. Advance notification responses exceed 
mitigation operations plan responses because a single operations plan 
may support multiple notified operations under a standing operational 
window or may be incorporated by reference for a subsequent operation 
under 6 CFR and 28 CFR 124.8. The operational action notification line 
reflects only notifications made outside the advance notification 
process; emergency invocations under 6 CFR and 28 CFR 124.9(g) are 
filed on the advance notification and are not counted twice.
    If additional information is required contact: Darwin Arceo, 
Department Clearance Officer, United States Department of Justice, 
Justice Management Division, Enterprise Portfolio Management, Two 
Constitution Square, 145 N Street NE, 4W-218, Washington, DC.

     Dated: August 28, 2026.
Darwin Arceo,
Department Clearance Officer for PRA, U.S. Department of Justice.
[FR Doc. 2026-17853 Filed 8-31-26; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4410-02-P


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Indexed from Federal Register on September 1, 2026.

This is legal information, not legal advice. Laws vary by jurisdiction and change frequently. Always verify current law with official sources and consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction for advice on your specific situation.