Draft Guidance for Assessing the Effects of Anthropogenic Sound on Marine Mammal Hearing-Acoustic Threshold Levels for Onset of Permanent and Temporary Threshold Shifts, 14095-14096 [2016-05886]
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Federal Register / Vol. 81, No. 51 / Wednesday, March 16, 2016 / Notices
percent, a zero cash deposit rate will be
required for that company); (2) for
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and non-PRC exporters not listed above
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assessment of doubled antidumping
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mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with NOTICES
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18:11 Mar 15, 2016
Jkt 238001
Appendix I—Issues and Decision
Memorandum
I. Summary
II. Background
III. Scope of the Order
IV. Discussion of the Issues
Comment 1: Withdrawal of the Regulatory
Provisions Governing Targeted Dumping
in Less-than-Fair-Value Investigations
Comment 2: Differential Pricing
Methodology
Comment 3: Calculation of Separate Rate
Margin
Comment 4: Application of Total Adverse
Facts Available (‘‘AFA’’) to Shandong
Oriental Cherry
Comment 5: Granting a Separate Rate to the
Shandong Oriental Cherry Entity
Comment 6: Rejection of Stanley’s Case
Brief
Comment 7: Surrogate Value for Stanley’s
Steel Wire Rod Input
Comment 8: Surrogate Value for Stanley’s
Plastic Granules
Comment 9: Treatment of Stanley’s Rubber
Bands
Comment 10: Use of Customer Code or
Common Customer Code in the Cohen’s
d Test To Identify the Purchaser in
Stanley’s Margin Program
Comment 11: Granting of Separate Rates to
Qingdao D&L, et al.
Comment 12: Tianjin Jinchi’s Status in
This Review
Comment 13: Yuechang’s Status in This
Review
V. Conclusion
[FR Doc. 2016–05994 Filed 3–15–16; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510–DS–P
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration
Administrative Protective Orders
VerDate Sep<11>2014
Dated: March 7, 2016.
Paul Piquado,
Assistant Secretary for Enforcement and
Compliance.
RIN 0648–XC969
Draft Guidance for Assessing the
Effects of Anthropogenic Sound on
Marine Mammal Hearing—Acoustic
Threshold Levels for Onset of
Permanent and Temporary Threshold
Shifts
National Marine Fisheries
Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),
Commerce.
ACTION: Notice; request for comments.
AGENCY:
The National Marine
Fisheries Service (NMFS), on behalf of
NMFS and the National Ocean Service
(referred collectively here as the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA)), announces the
availability of a document containing
SUMMARY:
PO 00000
Frm 00017
Fmt 4703
Sfmt 4703
14095
proposed changes to its Draft Guidance
for Assessing the Effects of
Anthropogenic Sound on Marine
Mammal Hearing. The Guidance
provides updated received levels, or
thresholds, at which individual marine
mammals under NOAA’s management
authority are predicted to experience
changes in their hearing sensitivity
(either temporary or permanent) for all
underwater anthropogenic sound
sources. NOAA has re-evaluated and
modified several parts of the Draft
Guidance and is soliciting public
comment on the proposed changes.
DATES: Comments must be received by
March 30, 2016.
ADDRESSES: The proposed changes to
the Draft Guidance are available in
electronic form via the Internet at https://
www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/acoustics/.
You may submit comments, which
should be identified with NOAA–
NMFS–2013–0177, by either of the
following methods:
Electronic Submissions: Submit all
electronic public comments via the
Federal eRulemaking Portal https://
www.regulations.gov.
Mail: Send comments to: Chief,
Marine Mammal and Sea Turtle
Conservation Division, Office of
Protected Resources, National Marine
Fisheries Service, 1315 East-West
Highway, Silver Spring, MD 20910–
3226, Attn: Acoustic Guidance.
Instructions: All comments received
are a part of the public record and will
generally be posted to https://
www.regulations.gov without change.
All Personal Identifying Information
(e.g., name, address, etc.) voluntarily
submitted by the commenter may be
publicly accessible. Do not submit
Confidential Business Information or
otherwise sensitive or protected
information.
NMFS will accept anonymous
comments (enter N/A in the required
fields if you wish to remain
anonymous). You may submit
attachments to electronic comments in
Microsoft Word, Excel, WordPerfect, or
Adobe PDF file formats only.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Amy Scholik-Schlomer, Office of
Protected Resources, 301–427–8449,
Amy.Scholik@noaa.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: NOAA has
developed Draft Guidance for assessing
the effects of anthropogenic sound on
the hearing of marine mammal species
under NOAA’s jurisdiction (i.e., whales,
dolphins, porpoises, seals and sea
lions). Specifically, the Guidance,
which is technical in nature, identifies
the received levels, or thresholds, at
which individual marine mammals are
E:\FR\FM\16MRN1.SGM
16MRN1
mstockstill on DSK4VPTVN1PROD with NOTICES
14096
Federal Register / Vol. 81, No. 51 / Wednesday, March 16, 2016 / Notices
predicted to experience changes in their
hearing sensitivity (either temporary or
permanent) for all underwater
anthropogenic sound sources. This
Guidance is intended to be used by
NOAA analysts and managers and other
relevant user groups and stakeholders,
including other federal agencies, when
seeking to determine whether and how
their activities are expected to result in
particular types of impacts to marine
mammals via acoustic exposure. The
document outlines NOAA’s updated
acoustic threshold levels, describes in
detail how the thresholds were
developed, and explains how we intend
to update them in the future.
NOAA first published a Federal
Register Notice on December 27, 2013,
announcing the availability of the Draft
Guidance and a 30-day public comment
period (78 FR 78822), which was
extended another 45 days based upon
public request (79 FR 4672; January 29,
2014). While NOAA was in the process
of evaluating and addressing public
comments, the U.S. Navy updated its
methodology for the development of
marine mammal auditory weighting
functions and acoustic threshold levels.
NOAA evaluated the proposed
methodology and determined that it
reflected the best available science. As
a result, NOAA incorporated the Navy’s
methodology into our Draft Guidance
and conducted another 45-day public
comment period (80 FR 45642; July 31,
2015). Please refer to these Federal
Register Notices for additional
background about the 2013 and 2015
Draft Guidance.
While NOAA was working to address
public comments from the second
public comment period and finalize the
Guidance, NOAA and the Navy
(SPAWAR Systems Center Pacific)
further evaluated certain aspects of the
U.S. Navy’s methodology. As a result,
several recommendations/modifications
were suggested.
The recommendations include: An
updated methodology for predicting a
composite audiogram for LF cetaceans;
modification of the methodology used to
establish auditory threshold levels for
LF cetaceans; movement of the whitebeaked dolphin (Lagenorhynchus
albirostris) from mid-frequency (MF) to
high-frequency (HF) cetaceans; the
inclusion of a newly published harbor
porpoise (HF cetacean) audiogram
(Kastelein et al. 2015); the exclusion of
multiple data sets from the phocid
pinniped weighting function; removal of
peak sound pressure level (PK) acoustic
threshold levels for non-impulsive
sounds; and updated methodology for
deriving PK acoustic threshold levels for
VerDate Sep<11>2014
18:11 Mar 15, 2016
Jkt 238001
functional hearing groups where no data
are available.
After consideration of these
recommendations, NOAA has updated
the Draft Guidance to reflect the
suggested changes and is soliciting
public comment on those revisions,
which have been placed in a standalone document, via a focused 14-day
public comment period. As the
Guidance is finalized, NOAA will
address all substantive public comments
on the Guidance (i.e., from the first and
second public comment periods, as well
as those from this focused third public
comment period). Accordingly, there is
no need to reiterate or resubmit
comments made during the first and
second public comment period on other
sections of the Draft Guidance. NOAA
encourages the public to focus comment
on the document containing the
proposed changes to the Guidance.
The Guidance is classified as a Highly
Influential Scientific Assessment by the
Office of Management and Budget. As
such, independent peer review is
required prior to broad public
dissemination by the Federal
Government. As part of this process,
NOAA has conducted three
independent peer reviews in association
with the Guidance. Details of all peer
reviews can be found within the
Guidance and at the following Web site:
https://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/
acoustics/. Concurrent with this third
public comment period, NOAA
requested that the peer reviewers of the
Navy’s methodology review the
document containing the proposed
changes to the Draft Guidance and
indicate whether the revisions would
significantly alter any of the comments
made during their original review.
Dated: March 10, 2016.
Donna S. Wieting,
Director, Office of Protected Resources,
National Marine Fisheries Service.
[FR Doc. 2016–05886 Filed 3–15–16; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510–22–P
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration
RIN 0648–XE407
Magnuson-Stevens Act Provisions;
General Provisions for Domestic
Fisheries; Application for Exempted
Fishing Permits
National Marine Fisheries
Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),
Commerce.
AGENCY:
PO 00000
Frm 00018
Fmt 4703
Sfmt 4703
ACTION:
Notice; request for comments.
We have made a preliminary
determination that an Exempted Fishing
Permit application contains all of the
required information and warrants
further consideration. This EFP would
allow two commercial fishing vessels to
trawl for summer flounder using an
experimental Turtle Excluder Device to
test target species catch retention rates,
and exempt the vessels from minimum
size requirements and possession limits
found at 50 CFR part 648 in order to
sample the catch for scientific purposes.
The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery
Conservation and Management Act
requires publication of this notice to
provide the public an opportunity to
comment on the proposed Exempted
Fishing Permit.
DATES: Comments must be received on
or before March 31, 2016.
ADDRESSES: You may submit written
comments by any of the following
methods:
• Email: NMFS.GAR.EFP@noaa.gov.
Include in the subject line ‘‘Comments
on CFF Fluke Cable TED EFP.’’
• Mail: John K. Bullard, Regional
Administrator, NMFS, Greater Atlantic
Regional Office, 55 Great Republic
Drive, Gloucester, MA 01930. Mark the
outside of the envelope ‘‘Comments on
CFF Fluke Cable TED EFP.’’
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Elizabeth Scheimer, Fisheries
Management Specialist, 978–281–9236,
Elizabeth.scheimer@noaa.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The
Coonamessett Farm Foundation (CFF)
submitted a complete application for an
Exempted Fishing Permit (EFP) on
December 15, 2015, to conduct
commercial fishing activities that the
regulations would otherwise restrict.
The EFP would authorize two vessels to
temporarily retain undersized and
prohibited catch for biological sampling
during experimental Turtle Excluder
Device (TED) testing in the summer
flounder fishery.
Currently approved TEDs have been
shown to reduce summer flounder
targeted catch at a level that is of
concern to the industry, and the
objective of this research is to find TED
gear configurations that exclude sea
turtles while maintaining target catch.
The CFF would test an experimental
TED made of flexible cable instead of
aluminum or steel pipe in bottom trawl
gear directed on summer flounder. The
TED was already tested in 2015 for its
ability to exclude sea turtles, but is not
yet certified, and this research will
quantify catch retention. This TED
would be attached in a 3-inch mesh TED
SUMMARY:
E:\FR\FM\16MRN1.SGM
16MRN1
]]>Agencies
[Federal Register Volume 81, Number 51 (Wednesday, March 16, 2016)]
[Notices]
[Pages 14095-14096]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2016-05886]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
RIN 0648-XC969
Draft Guidance for Assessing the Effects of Anthropogenic Sound
on Marine Mammal Hearing--Acoustic Threshold Levels for Onset of
Permanent and Temporary Threshold Shifts
AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce.
ACTION: Notice; request for comments.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY: The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), on behalf of
NMFS and the National Ocean Service (referred collectively here as the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)), announces the
availability of a document containing proposed changes to its Draft
Guidance for Assessing the Effects of Anthropogenic Sound on Marine
Mammal Hearing. The Guidance provides updated received levels, or
thresholds, at which individual marine mammals under NOAA's management
authority are predicted to experience changes in their hearing
sensitivity (either temporary or permanent) for all underwater
anthropogenic sound sources. NOAA has re-evaluated and modified several
parts of the Draft Guidance and is soliciting public comment on the
proposed changes.
DATES: Comments must be received by March 30, 2016.
ADDRESSES: The proposed changes to the Draft Guidance are available in
electronic form via the Internet at https://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/acoustics/.
You may submit comments, which should be identified with NOAA-NMFS-
2013-0177, by either of the following methods:
Electronic Submissions: Submit all electronic public comments via
the Federal eRulemaking Portal https://www.regulations.gov.
Mail: Send comments to: Chief, Marine Mammal and Sea Turtle
Conservation Division, Office of Protected Resources, National Marine
Fisheries Service, 1315 East-West Highway, Silver Spring, MD 20910-
3226, Attn: Acoustic Guidance.
Instructions: All comments received are a part of the public record
and will generally be posted to https://www.regulations.gov without
change. All Personal Identifying Information (e.g., name, address,
etc.) voluntarily submitted by the commenter may be publicly
accessible. Do not submit Confidential Business Information or
otherwise sensitive or protected information.
NMFS will accept anonymous comments (enter N/A in the required
fields if you wish to remain anonymous). You may submit attachments to
electronic comments in Microsoft Word, Excel, WordPerfect, or Adobe PDF
file formats only.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Amy Scholik-Schlomer, Office of
Protected Resources, 301-427-8449, Amy.Scholik@noaa.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: NOAA has developed Draft Guidance for
assessing the effects of anthropogenic sound on the hearing of marine
mammal species under NOAA's jurisdiction (i.e., whales, dolphins,
porpoises, seals and sea lions). Specifically, the Guidance, which is
technical in nature, identifies the received levels, or thresholds, at
which individual marine mammals are
[[Page 14096]]
predicted to experience changes in their hearing sensitivity (either
temporary or permanent) for all underwater anthropogenic sound sources.
This Guidance is intended to be used by NOAA analysts and managers and
other relevant user groups and stakeholders, including other federal
agencies, when seeking to determine whether and how their activities
are expected to result in particular types of impacts to marine mammals
via acoustic exposure. The document outlines NOAA's updated acoustic
threshold levels, describes in detail how the thresholds were
developed, and explains how we intend to update them in the future.
NOAA first published a Federal Register Notice on December 27,
2013, announcing the availability of the Draft Guidance and a 30-day
public comment period (78 FR 78822), which was extended another 45 days
based upon public request (79 FR 4672; January 29, 2014). While NOAA
was in the process of evaluating and addressing public comments, the
U.S. Navy updated its methodology for the development of marine mammal
auditory weighting functions and acoustic threshold levels. NOAA
evaluated the proposed methodology and determined that it reflected the
best available science. As a result, NOAA incorporated the Navy's
methodology into our Draft Guidance and conducted another 45-day public
comment period (80 FR 45642; July 31, 2015). Please refer to these
Federal Register Notices for additional background about the 2013 and
2015 Draft Guidance.
While NOAA was working to address public comments from the second
public comment period and finalize the Guidance, NOAA and the Navy
(SPAWAR Systems Center Pacific) further evaluated certain aspects of
the U.S. Navy's methodology. As a result, several recommendations/
modifications were suggested.
The recommendations include: An updated methodology for predicting
a composite audiogram for LF cetaceans; modification of the methodology
used to establish auditory threshold levels for LF cetaceans; movement
of the white-beaked dolphin (Lagenorhynchus albirostris) from mid-
frequency (MF) to high-frequency (HF) cetaceans; the inclusion of a
newly published harbor porpoise (HF cetacean) audiogram (Kastelein et
al. 2015); the exclusion of multiple data sets from the phocid pinniped
weighting function; removal of peak sound pressure level (PK) acoustic
threshold levels for non-impulsive sounds; and updated methodology for
deriving PK acoustic threshold levels for functional hearing groups
where no data are available.
After consideration of these recommendations, NOAA has updated the
Draft Guidance to reflect the suggested changes and is soliciting
public comment on those revisions, which have been placed in a stand-
alone document, via a focused 14-day public comment period. As the
Guidance is finalized, NOAA will address all substantive public
comments on the Guidance (i.e., from the first and second public
comment periods, as well as those from this focused third public
comment period). Accordingly, there is no need to reiterate or resubmit
comments made during the first and second public comment period on
other sections of the Draft Guidance. NOAA encourages the public to
focus comment on the document containing the proposed changes to the
Guidance.
The Guidance is classified as a Highly Influential Scientific
Assessment by the Office of Management and Budget. As such, independent
peer review is required prior to broad public dissemination by the
Federal Government. As part of this process, NOAA has conducted three
independent peer reviews in association with the Guidance. Details of
all peer reviews can be found within the Guidance and at the following
Web site: https://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/acoustics/ acoustics/. Concurrent with this
third public comment period, NOAA requested that the peer reviewers of
the Navy's methodology review the document containing the proposed
changes to the Draft Guidance and indicate whether the revisions would
significantly alter any of the comments made during their original
review.
Dated: March 10, 2016.
Donna S. Wieting,
Director, Office of Protected Resources, National Marine Fisheries
Service.
[FR Doc. 2016-05886 Filed 3-15-16; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-22-P
