Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act Provisions; Fisheries of the Northeastern United States; Omnibus Amendment To Simplify Vessel Baselines, 28217-28218 [2015-11902]
Download as PDF
Federal Register / Vol. 80, No. 95 / Monday, May 18, 2015 / Proposed Rules
Dated: May 11, 2015.
Gina McCarthy,
Administrator.
[FR Doc. 2015–11958 Filed 5–15–15; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6560–50–P
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration
50 CFR Part 648
RIN 0648–BB40
Magnuson-Stevens Fishery
Conservation and Management Act
Provisions; Fisheries of the
Northeastern United States; Omnibus
Amendment To Simplify Vessel
Baselines
National Marine Fisheries
Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),
Commerce.
ACTION: Notice of availability of fishery
management plan amendment; request
for comments.
AGENCY:
NMFS announces that the
Mid-Atlantic and New England Fishery
Management Councils have submitted
an Omnibus Amendment to the Fishery
Management Plans of the Northeastern
United States to simplify vessel
baselines. This amendment incorporates
a draft Environmental Assessment and
preliminary Regulatory Impact Review,
for review and approval by the Secretary
of Commerce, and NMFS is requesting
comments from the public. The
Omnibus Amendment to Simplify
Vessel Baselines would eliminate the
one-time limit on vessel upgrades and
remove gross and net tonnages from
vessel baseline specifications
considered when determining a vessel’s
baseline for replacement purposes.
Implementing these measures would
reduce the administrative burden to
permit holders and NMFS, and would
have little effect on fleet capacity. This
action would also remove the
requirement for vessels to send in
negative fishing reports (i.e., ‘‘did not
fish’’ reports) during months or weeks
when fishing did not occur.
DATES: Comments must be received on
or before July 17, 2015.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments,
identified by NOAA–NMFS–2011–0213,
by any one of the following methods.
Electronic Submission: Submit all
electronic public comments via the
Federal e-Rulemaking Portal.
1. Go to www.regulations.gov/
#!docketDetail;D=NOAA-NMFS-20110213,
asabaliauskas on DSK5VPTVN1PROD with PROPOSALS
SUMMARY:
VerDate Sep<11>2014
18:36 May 15, 2015
Jkt 235001
2. Click the ‘‘Comment Now!’’ icon,
complete the required fields
3. Enter or attach your comments.
Instructions: Comments sent by any
other method, to any other address or
individual, or received after the end of
the comment period, may not be
considered by NMFS. All comments
received are a part of the public record
and will generally be posted for public
viewing on www.regulations.gov
without change. All personal identifying
information (e.g., name, address, etc.),
confidential business information, or
otherwise sensitive information
submitted voluntarily by the sender will
be publicly accessible. NMFS will
accept anonymous comments (enter
‘‘N/A’’ in the required fields if you wish
to remain anonymous).
Copies of the Omnibus Amendment to
Simplify Vessel Baselines, and of the
draft Environmental Assessment and
preliminary Regulatory Impact Review
(EA/RIR), are available from the Greater
Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office, 55
Great Republic Drive, Gloucester, MA
01930 The EA/RIR is also accessible via
the Internet at:
www.greateratlantic.fisheries.noaa.gov.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Travis Ford, Fishery Policy Analyst,
978–281–9233.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The
Magnuson-Stevens Fishery
Conservation and Management Act
(Magnuson-Stevens Act) requires that
each Regional Fishery Management
Council submit any Fishery
Management Plan (FMP) amendment it
prepares to NMFS for review and
approval, disapproval, or partial
approval. The Magnuson-Stevens Act
also requires that NMFS, upon receiving
an FMP amendment, immediately
publish notification in the Federal
Register that the amendment is
available for public review and
comment. The New England Fishery
Management Council (NEFMC) and the
Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management
Council (MAFMC) approved this
Baseline Amendment, which would
simplify vessel baseline requirements, at
their November 18, 2014, and October 8,
2014, meetings, respectively. NMFS
prepared the amendment on behalf of
the Councils and declared a transmittal
date May 12, 2015. Both Councils have
reviewed the Baseline Amendment
proposed rule regulations as drafted by
NMFS and deemed them to be necessary
and appropriate as specified in section
303(c) of the MSA. If approved by
NMFS, this amendment would simplify
the specifications considered when
determining a vessel’s baseline for
PO 00000
Frm 00013
Fmt 4702
Sfmt 4702
28217
replacement purposes developed by the
MAFMC and NEFMC.
Background
The MAFMC developed the first
limited entry program in 1977 for the
surfclam/quahog fishery, which
included restrictions on replacement
vessels. This program required that a
replacement vessel be of ‘‘substantially
similar capacity’’ in an effort to
maintain and not increase the harvest
capacity of the fleet at that time. Over
the following two decades, the MAFMC
and NEFMC implemented additional
limited entry programs. By 1998, there
were four different sets of vessel
upgrade and replacement restrictions
among the various FMPs. The upgrade
restrictions became confusing for fishing
industry members with more than one
limited access permit, because each
permit had the potential to have
different vessel upgrade regulations
apply. In addition, some vessels added
limited access permits to their vessel
that originally qualified on another
vessel that was a different size and/or
horsepower. This results in a vessel
having multiple baselines. Thus, in
1999, the MAFMC and NEFMC, in
consultation with NMFS, developed an
amendment to Achieve Regulatory
Consistency on Permit Related
Provisions for Vessels Issued Limited
Access Federal Fishery Permits (64 FR
8263, February 19, 1999) (Consistency
Amendment) to streamline and make
consistent baseline provisions and
upgrade restrictions across FMPs.
The Consistency Amendment
standardized definitions and restrictions
for vessel baselines, upgrades, and
replacements across all limited access
fisheries. It simplified regulations for
vessel replacements, permit transfers,
and vessel upgrades, making them
consistent and less restrictive in order to
facilitate business transactions.
Although the Consistency Amendment
did standardize the vessel baseline
requirements for the fisheries of the
northeast, some burdensome
requirements remain. Under current
restrictions, a vessel baseline is defined
by vessel length overall, gross tonnage,
net tonnage, and horsepower. We
determine the baseline for a limited
access permit based on the size (length,
gross tonnage, and net tonnage) and
horsepower of the first vessel issued a
limited access permit for that fishery or,
for fisheries that adopted baseline
restrictions through the Consistency
Amendment, the permitted vessel at the
time the final rule became effective.
Current baseline regulations require
that a replacement vessel or an upgrade
made to an existing vessel with a
E:\FR\FM\18MYP1.SGM
18MYP1
28218
Federal Register / Vol. 80, No. 95 / Monday, May 18, 2015 / Proposed Rules
asabaliauskas on DSK5VPTVN1PROD with PROPOSALS
limited access permit be within 10
percent of the size and 20 percent of the
horsepower of the permit’s baseline
vessel. To respect the NEFMC and the
MAFMC’s intended baseline restrictions
of individual fisheries, for vessels with
multiple baselines, we use the most
restrictive of the baselines to judge the
approval of a replacement vessel or
upgrade, unless the permit holder
chooses to relinquish the more
restrictive permit. In addition, current
baseline regulations limit permit
holders to a one-time upgrade of the
vessel size and horsepower
specifications. For example, we limit a
vessel owner that has a 60-ft (18.3-m)
baseline length to upgrading to a vessel
of up to 66 ft (20.1 m). However, if he
moves his permit to a 62-ft (18.9-m)
vessel for any reason, it would
constitute his one-time size upgrade and
he would lose the ability to later
upgrade to a vessel of 66 ft (20.1 m). He
would only be able to move his permit
to a vessel of 62 ft (18.9 m) or less.
Because he used his one-time size
upgrade, he would not be able upgrade
the vessel’s tonnages. He would still be
able to use his horsepower upgrade to
upgrade his horsepower by 20 percent,
but only once.
The Baseline Amendment would:
1. Eliminate gross and net tonnage
from the baseline specifications
considered when determining a vessel’s
baseline for replacement purposes. Both
the Councils and NMFS consider
tonnages the most variable of vessel
baseline specifications and, therefore,
they have little effect on limiting vessel
capacity when compared to length and
horsepower restrictions. There is more
than one acceptable method of
determining tonnages, and the tonnages
of a vessel can vary significantly
depending on whether an exact
measurement or simplified calculation
is used. In addition, vessel owners can
circumvent net tonnage limits by
modifying internal bulkheads.
Eliminating tonnages would simplify
the vessel baseline verification and
replacement process. In addition, it
could reduce the cost burden on the
VerDate Sep<11>2014
18:36 May 15, 2015
Jkt 235001
industry if they only need horsepower
verification because this would
eliminate the need for a marine survey
prior to any permit transactions.
2. Remove the one-time limit on
vessel upgrades. Eliminating the onetime upgrade limit would provide more
flexibility for vessel owners in the
selection of replacement vessels and
upgrades to existing vessels. Some
vessel owners have been constrained by
the one-time limit because they or a
previous owner did not maximize the
one-time upgrade with a previous vessel
replacement, due to cost or availability
or for other reasons, and have since
been unable to further upgrade the
vessel. Eliminating the one-time limit
would also simplify the baseline
verification and vessel replacement
process for vessel owners and NMFS by
eliminating the need to research and
document whether a vessel owner used
the one-time upgrade during the vessel’s
entire limited access history.
This rule proposes to remove the
requirement for vessels to send in
negative fishing reports (i.e., ‘‘did not
fish’’ reports) during months or weeks
when fishing did not occur. This was
not part of the Baseline Amendment,
but is the result of an internal review of
the trip-level reporting requirements
conducted by the joint Greater Atlantic
Regional Fisheries Office-Northeast
Fisheries Science Center Fishery
Dependent Data Committee (FDDC)
during the past year. The division of the
Office of Management and Budget
(OMB) responsible for the Paperwork
Reduction Act (PRA), in the interest of
reducing compliance costs for small
businesses, noted a potential cost
savings for fishermen if we remove the
DNF report and asked that we
investigate the possibility of removing
it. As a result of that review, the FDDC
has recommended that the negative
fishing reports are no longer necessary
because the ability to determine if a
vessel has engaged in fishing activity
and submitted required trip reports has
increased in recent years due to
improved trip-level data matching and
the expansion of other monitoring
PO 00000
Frm 00014
Fmt 4702
Sfmt 9990
systems (e.g., Vessel Monitoring
Systems). Therefore, in order to simplify
the regulations and reduce reporting
burdens for the industry, we are
proposing to eliminate the requirement
in this action under the Secretary’s
authority at section 305(d) of the
Magnuson-Stevens Act. Vessel owners
would still be required to report all
fishing trip activity on a monthly or
weekly basis, depending on the
requirements associated with their
vessel permits.
We are soliciting public comments on
the Baseline Amendment and its
incorporated documents through the
end of the comment period stated in this
notice of availability. A proposed rule
that would implement the revised
Baseline Amendment will be published
in the Federal Register for additional
public comment. NMFS will evaluate
the proposed rule under the procedures
of the Magnuson-Stevens Act. Public
comments on the proposed rule must be
received by the end of the comment
period provided in this notice of
availability of the Baseline Amendment
to be considered in the approval/
disapproval decision on the
amendment. All comments received by
July 17, 2015, whether specifically
directed to the Baseline Amendment or
the proposed rule will be considered in
the approval/disapproval decision on
the amendment. To be considered,
comments must be received by close of
business on the last day of the comment
period. Comments received after that
date will not be considered in the
decision to approve or disapprove the
revised Baseline Amendment, including
those postmarked or otherwise
transmitted by the last day of the
comment period.
Authority: 16 U.S.C. 1801 et seq.
Dated: May 12, 2015.
Emily H. Menashes,
Acting Director, Office of Sustainable
Fisheries, National Marine Fisheries Service.
[FR Doc. 2015–11902 Filed 5–15–15; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510–22–P
E:\FR\FM\18MYP1.SGM
18MYP1
Agencies
[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 95 (Monday, May 18, 2015)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 28217-28218]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2015-11902]
=======================================================================
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
50 CFR Part 648
RIN 0648-BB40
Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act
Provisions; Fisheries of the Northeastern United States; Omnibus
Amendment To Simplify Vessel Baselines
AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce.
ACTION: Notice of availability of fishery management plan amendment;
request for comments.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY: NMFS announces that the Mid-Atlantic and New England Fishery
Management Councils have submitted an Omnibus Amendment to the Fishery
Management Plans of the Northeastern United States to simplify vessel
baselines. This amendment incorporates a draft Environmental Assessment
and preliminary Regulatory Impact Review, for review and approval by
the Secretary of Commerce, and NMFS is requesting comments from the
public. The Omnibus Amendment to Simplify Vessel Baselines would
eliminate the one-time limit on vessel upgrades and remove gross and
net tonnages from vessel baseline specifications considered when
determining a vessel's baseline for replacement purposes. Implementing
these measures would reduce the administrative burden to permit holders
and NMFS, and would have little effect on fleet capacity. This action
would also remove the requirement for vessels to send in negative
fishing reports (i.e., ``did not fish'' reports) during months or weeks
when fishing did not occur.
DATES: Comments must be received on or before July 17, 2015.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments, identified by NOAA-NMFS-2011-0213,
by any one of the following methods.
Electronic Submission: Submit all electronic public comments via
the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal.
1. Go to www.regulations.gov/#!docketDetail;D=NOAA-NMFS-2011-0213,
2. Click the ``Comment Now!'' icon, complete the required fields
3. Enter or attach your comments.
Instructions: Comments sent by any other method, to any other
address or individual, or received after the end of the comment period,
may not be considered by NMFS. All comments received are a part of the
public record and will generally be posted for public viewing on
www.regulations.gov without change. All personal identifying
information (e.g., name, address, etc.), confidential business
information, or otherwise sensitive information submitted voluntarily
by the sender will be publicly accessible. NMFS will accept anonymous
comments (enter ``N/A'' in the required fields if you wish to remain
anonymous).
Copies of the Omnibus Amendment to Simplify Vessel Baselines, and
of the draft Environmental Assessment and preliminary Regulatory Impact
Review (EA/RIR), are available from the Greater Atlantic Regional
Fisheries Office, 55 Great Republic Drive, Gloucester, MA 01930 The EA/
RIR is also accessible via the Internet at:
www.greateratlantic.fisheries.noaa.gov.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Travis Ford, Fishery Policy Analyst,
978-281-9233.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation
and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act) requires that each Regional
Fishery Management Council submit any Fishery Management Plan (FMP)
amendment it prepares to NMFS for review and approval, disapproval, or
partial approval. The Magnuson-Stevens Act also requires that NMFS,
upon receiving an FMP amendment, immediately publish notification in
the Federal Register that the amendment is available for public review
and comment. The New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) and the
Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (MAFMC) approved this Baseline
Amendment, which would simplify vessel baseline requirements, at their
November 18, 2014, and October 8, 2014, meetings, respectively. NMFS
prepared the amendment on behalf of the Councils and declared a
transmittal date May 12, 2015. Both Councils have reviewed the Baseline
Amendment proposed rule regulations as drafted by NMFS and deemed them
to be necessary and appropriate as specified in section 303(c) of the
MSA. If approved by NMFS, this amendment would simplify the
specifications considered when determining a vessel's baseline for
replacement purposes developed by the MAFMC and NEFMC.
Background
The MAFMC developed the first limited entry program in 1977 for the
surfclam/quahog fishery, which included restrictions on replacement
vessels. This program required that a replacement vessel be of
``substantially similar capacity'' in an effort to maintain and not
increase the harvest capacity of the fleet at that time. Over the
following two decades, the MAFMC and NEFMC implemented additional
limited entry programs. By 1998, there were four different sets of
vessel upgrade and replacement restrictions among the various FMPs. The
upgrade restrictions became confusing for fishing industry members with
more than one limited access permit, because each permit had the
potential to have different vessel upgrade regulations apply. In
addition, some vessels added limited access permits to their vessel
that originally qualified on another vessel that was a different size
and/or horsepower. This results in a vessel having multiple baselines.
Thus, in 1999, the MAFMC and NEFMC, in consultation with NMFS,
developed an amendment to Achieve Regulatory Consistency on Permit
Related Provisions for Vessels Issued Limited Access Federal Fishery
Permits (64 FR 8263, February 19, 1999) (Consistency Amendment) to
streamline and make consistent baseline provisions and upgrade
restrictions across FMPs.
The Consistency Amendment standardized definitions and restrictions
for vessel baselines, upgrades, and replacements across all limited
access fisheries. It simplified regulations for vessel replacements,
permit transfers, and vessel upgrades, making them consistent and less
restrictive in order to facilitate business transactions. Although the
Consistency Amendment did standardize the vessel baseline requirements
for the fisheries of the northeast, some burdensome requirements
remain. Under current restrictions, a vessel baseline is defined by
vessel length overall, gross tonnage, net tonnage, and horsepower. We
determine the baseline for a limited access permit based on the size
(length, gross tonnage, and net tonnage) and horsepower of the first
vessel issued a limited access permit for that fishery or, for
fisheries that adopted baseline restrictions through the Consistency
Amendment, the permitted vessel at the time the final rule became
effective.
Current baseline regulations require that a replacement vessel or
an upgrade made to an existing vessel with a
[[Page 28218]]
limited access permit be within 10 percent of the size and 20 percent
of the horsepower of the permit's baseline vessel. To respect the NEFMC
and the MAFMC's intended baseline restrictions of individual fisheries,
for vessels with multiple baselines, we use the most restrictive of the
baselines to judge the approval of a replacement vessel or upgrade,
unless the permit holder chooses to relinquish the more restrictive
permit. In addition, current baseline regulations limit permit holders
to a one-time upgrade of the vessel size and horsepower specifications.
For example, we limit a vessel owner that has a 60-ft (18.3-m) baseline
length to upgrading to a vessel of up to 66 ft (20.1 m). However, if he
moves his permit to a 62-ft (18.9-m) vessel for any reason, it would
constitute his one-time size upgrade and he would lose the ability to
later upgrade to a vessel of 66 ft (20.1 m). He would only be able to
move his permit to a vessel of 62 ft (18.9 m) or less. Because he used
his one-time size upgrade, he would not be able upgrade the vessel's
tonnages. He would still be able to use his horsepower upgrade to
upgrade his horsepower by 20 percent, but only once.
The Baseline Amendment would:
1. Eliminate gross and net tonnage from the baseline specifications
considered when determining a vessel's baseline for replacement
purposes. Both the Councils and NMFS consider tonnages the most
variable of vessel baseline specifications and, therefore, they have
little effect on limiting vessel capacity when compared to length and
horsepower restrictions. There is more than one acceptable method of
determining tonnages, and the tonnages of a vessel can vary
significantly depending on whether an exact measurement or simplified
calculation is used. In addition, vessel owners can circumvent net
tonnage limits by modifying internal bulkheads. Eliminating tonnages
would simplify the vessel baseline verification and replacement
process. In addition, it could reduce the cost burden on the industry
if they only need horsepower verification because this would eliminate
the need for a marine survey prior to any permit transactions.
2. Remove the one-time limit on vessel upgrades. Eliminating the
one-time upgrade limit would provide more flexibility for vessel owners
in the selection of replacement vessels and upgrades to existing
vessels. Some vessel owners have been constrained by the one-time limit
because they or a previous owner did not maximize the one-time upgrade
with a previous vessel replacement, due to cost or availability or for
other reasons, and have since been unable to further upgrade the
vessel. Eliminating the one-time limit would also simplify the baseline
verification and vessel replacement process for vessel owners and NMFS
by eliminating the need to research and document whether a vessel owner
used the one-time upgrade during the vessel's entire limited access
history.
This rule proposes to remove the requirement for vessels to send in
negative fishing reports (i.e., ``did not fish'' reports) during months
or weeks when fishing did not occur. This was not part of the Baseline
Amendment, but is the result of an internal review of the trip-level
reporting requirements conducted by the joint Greater Atlantic Regional
Fisheries Office-Northeast Fisheries Science Center Fishery Dependent
Data Committee (FDDC) during the past year. The division of the Office
of Management and Budget (OMB) responsible for the Paperwork Reduction
Act (PRA), in the interest of reducing compliance costs for small
businesses, noted a potential cost savings for fishermen if we remove
the DNF report and asked that we investigate the possibility of
removing it. As a result of that review, the FDDC has recommended that
the negative fishing reports are no longer necessary because the
ability to determine if a vessel has engaged in fishing activity and
submitted required trip reports has increased in recent years due to
improved trip-level data matching and the expansion of other monitoring
systems (e.g., Vessel Monitoring Systems). Therefore, in order to
simplify the regulations and reduce reporting burdens for the industry,
we are proposing to eliminate the requirement in this action under the
Secretary's authority at section 305(d) of the Magnuson-Stevens Act.
Vessel owners would still be required to report all fishing trip
activity on a monthly or weekly basis, depending on the requirements
associated with their vessel permits.
We are soliciting public comments on the Baseline Amendment and its
incorporated documents through the end of the comment period stated in
this notice of availability. A proposed rule that would implement the
revised Baseline Amendment will be published in the Federal Register
for additional public comment. NMFS will evaluate the proposed rule
under the procedures of the Magnuson-Stevens Act. Public comments on
the proposed rule must be received by the end of the comment period
provided in this notice of availability of the Baseline Amendment to be
considered in the approval/disapproval decision on the amendment. All
comments received by July 17, 2015, whether specifically directed to
the Baseline Amendment or the proposed rule will be considered in the
approval/disapproval decision on the amendment. To be considered,
comments must be received by close of business on the last day of the
comment period. Comments received after that date will not be
considered in the decision to approve or disapprove the revised
Baseline Amendment, including those postmarked or otherwise transmitted
by the last day of the comment period.
Authority: 16 U.S.C. 1801 et seq.
Dated: May 12, 2015.
Emily H. Menashes,
Acting Director, Office of Sustainable Fisheries, National Marine
Fisheries Service.
[FR Doc. 2015-11902 Filed 5-15-15; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-22-P