by Meghan Maury
Form of the Week: Housing Choice Voucher Program and Tribal HUD-VASH. These forms are used by public housing agencies to apply for funding to assist very low-income families to lease or purchase housing. They collect data on participant eligibility, unit acceptability, lease and housing assistance payments, and budget and payment documentation. HUD is making changes to nearly all the forms in this package, some of which implement changes to the law (such as integrating a utility flat fee option or allowing a waiver of owner responsibility for tenant-caused housing quality deficiencies), while others are changing the forms to align with Administration priorities like revised perspectives on who is covered by civil rights protections or whether certain classes of people (e.g., non-citizens) can qualify for housing programs.
Comments due April 14.
Every time the government makes a change to a survey or a form — or introduces a new survey or form — you have the right to weigh in on that decision. The Take Action! newsletter highlights surveys or forms the government is changing, renewing, or introducing. Click the links to tell the government what you think about the changes they are making.
Note: The Take Action tab of dataindex.us provides information about even more surveys, forms, evaluations, and records notices than are listed in your weekly newsletter.
Census
Local Update of Census Addresses (LUCA) Operation. Census's LUCA operation is designed to enable tribal, state, and general-purpose local governments to review and comment on the Census Address List for their respective jurisdictions prior to the decennial census. This notice describes the design of the 2030 LUCA operation, which will be conducted between May 2027 and Sept. 2029. Modifications from the 2020 LUCA operation include an address matching service, web-based tools that eliminate the need for the download of software, and a secure portal to facilitate communication and registration.
Comments due April 20.
Climate, Environment, and Energy
Annual Manufacturing Energy Consumption Survey. EIA has fielded the Manufacturing Energy Consumption Survey since 1988, but because of the rapidly evolving energy-intensive economic landscape, EIA is proposing to initiate a narrower but more frequent data collection. The new survey narrows information collected from 250 to 60 items but is fielded yearly. Information collected will be used to produce aggregate statistics on the energy consumption of the manufacturing sector, including energy purchases, expenditures, transfers in and shipments out, onsite generation and both fuel and nonfuel use of five widely used energy sources.
Comments due April 10.National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife Watching. The FHWAR is a comprehensive survey of anglers, hunters, and wildlife watchers that provides up-to-date information on the uses and demands for wildlife-related recreation resources and a basis for developing and evaluating programs and projects to meet existing and future needs. DOI is making a number of changes to the survey, primarily adding in content including questions that were removed in the 2022 iteration.
Comments due April 13.2024 Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) Data Match. Data collected through this program are used to study and report on the impact of LIHEAP on income eligible and recipient households. For the upcoming iteration of this program, ACF proposes to eliminate eight data fields compared to the prior data request, including 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.
Comments due April 14.
Health
Rural Health Network Development Planning Program Performance Improvement and Measurement System. The Network Planning Program supports 1 year of planning and brings together key parts of a rural health care delivery system, particularly those entities that may not have collaborated in the past, to establish and/or improve local capacity to strengthen rural community health interventions and enhance care coordination. HRSA uses the data collected on this form to support program compliance, inform rural needs, guide the delivery of technical assistance, and shape federal program decisions. HRSA is making several changes to this reporting form, including removing questions on infrastructure, collaboration, and sustainability.
Comments due April 10.
Science and Technology
Drive-Mode Design Best Practices. This study will examine how different drive mode implementations, which limit phone functionality and simplify the human-machine interface, affect driver attention and performance compared to standard interfaces.
Comments due April 13.Distraction: Modern Voice Command Interfaces. This study is part of an effort to understand the effects of currently or near-to-deployed (modern) voice command interfaces (VCIs) in vehicles. The research compares multiple tasks across prominent VCI systems to identify both positive and negative effects on cognitive workload and distraction.
Comments due April 13.
Education
2027-2028 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). The FAFSA collects the data necessary to determine a student's eligibility to receive Title IV, HEA program assistance. The listing indicates that changes are being made to the form but does not clarify what those changes will be. Notably, ED is reporting a burden decrease of over 4 million hours, indicating that changes to the form may be significant.
Comments due April 14.
Military
Application for DEERS Enrollment/ID Card Issuance. These forms are used to determine an individual's eligibility for benefits and privileges, to provide a proper identification card reflecting those benefits and privileges, and to maintain a centralized database of the eligible population. The listing doesn't describe any changes to the forms at this time, but in August 2025 DOD revised these forms to remove fields and revise questions related to gender — without providing an opportunity for public comment.
Comments due April 21.