Fisheries of the Northeastern United States; Northeast Multispecies Fishery; Georges Bank Cod Trimester Total Allowable Catch Area Closure for the Common Pool Fishery, 35686-35687 [2017-16176]
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Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 146 / Tuesday, August 1, 2017 / Rules and Regulations
§ 648.85(a)(3)(iii)(A); a Ruhle trawl, as
specified in § 648.85(b)(6)(iv)(J)(3); a
rope separator trawl, as specified in
§ 648.84(e); or any other gear approved
consistent with the process defined in
§ 648.85(b)(6).
*
*
*
*
*
(iv) AMs if the sub-ACL for the
Atlantic sea scallop fishery is exceeded.
At the end of the scallop fishing year,
NMFS will evaluate whether Atlantic
sea scallop fishery catch exceeded the
sub-ACLs for any groundfish stocks
allocated to the scallop fishery. On
January 15, or when information is
available to make an accurate
projection, NMFS will also determine
whether total catch exceeded the overall
ACL for each stock allocated to the
scallop fishery. When evaluating
whether total catch exceeded the overall
ACL, NMFS will add the maximum
carryover available to sectors, as
specified at § 648.87(b)(1)(i)(C), to the
estimate of total catch for the pertinent
stock.
(A) Threshold for implementing the
Atlantic sea scallop fishery AMs. If
scallop fishery catch exceeds the scallop
fishery sub-ACLs for any groundfish
stocks in paragraph (a)(4) of this section
by 50 percent or more, or if scallop
fishery catch exceeds the scallop fishery
sub-ACL by any amount and total catch
exceeds the overall ACL for a given
stock, then the applicable scallop
fishery AM will take effect, as specified
in § 648.64 of the Atlantic sea scallop
regulations.
(B) 2017 and 2018 fishing year
threshold for implementing the Atlantic
sea scallop fishery AMs for GB
yellowtail flounder and Northern
windowpane flounder. For the 2017 and
2018 fishing years only, if scallop
fishery catch exceeds either GB
yellowtail flounder or northern
windowpane flounder sub-ACLs
specified in paragraph (a)(4) of this
section, and total catch exceeds the
overall ACL for that stock, then the
applicable scallop fishery AM will take
effect, as specified in § 648.64 of the
Atlantic sea scallop regulations. For the
2019 fishing year and onward, the
threshold for implementing scallop
fishery AMs for GB yellowtail flounder
and northern windowpane flounder will
return to that listed in paragraph
(a)(5)(iv)(A) of this section.
*
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§ 648.201
[Amended]
6. In § 648.201, amend paragraph
(a)(2) by removing ‘‘§ 648.85(d)’’ and
■
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17:30 Jul 31, 2017
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adding ‘‘§ 648.90(a)(4)(iii)(D)’’ in its
place.
[FR Doc. 2017–16133 Filed 7–31–17; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510–22–P
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration
50 CFR Part 648
[Docket No. 151211999–6343–02]
RIN 0648–XF586
Fisheries of the Northeastern United
States; Northeast Multispecies
Fishery; Georges Bank Cod Trimester
Total Allowable Catch Area Closure for
the Common Pool Fishery
National Marine Fisheries
Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),
Commerce.
ACTION: Temporary rule; area closure.
AGENCY:
This action closes the Georges
Bank (GB) Cod Trimester Total
Allowable Catch Area to Northeast
multispecies common pool vessels
fishing with trawl gear, sink gillnet gear,
and longline/hook gear for the
remainder of Trimester 1, through
August 31, 2017. The closure is required
by regulation because the common pool
fishery is projected to have caught 90
percent of its Trimester 1 quota for GB
cod. This closure is intended to prevent
an overage of the common pool’s quota
for this stock.
DATES: This action is effective July 28,
2017, through August 31, 2017.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Claire Fitz-Gerald, Fishery Management
Specialist, (978) 281–9255.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Federal
regulations at § 648.82(n)(2)(ii) require
the Regional Administrator to close a
common pool Trimester Total
Allowable Catch (TAC) Area for a stock
when 90 percent of the Trimester TAC
is projected to be caught. The closure
applies to all common pool vessels
fishing with gear capable of catching
that stock for the remainder of the
trimester.
As of July 27, 2017, the common pool
fishery is projected to have caught
approximately 90 percent of the
Trimester 1 TAC (2.9 mt) for Georges
Bank (GB) cod. Effective July 28, 2017,
the GB Cod Trimester TAC Area is
closed for the remainder of Trimester 1,
through August 31, 2017, to all common
pool vessels fishing on a Northeast
multispecies trip with trawl gear, sink
gillnet gear, and longline/hook gear. The
SUMMARY:
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GB Cod Trimester TAC Area consists of
statistical areas 521, 522, 525, and 561.
The area reopens at the beginning of
Trimester 2, on September 1, 2017.
If a vessel declared its trip through the
Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) or the
interactive voice response system, and
crossed the VMS demarcation line prior
to July 28, 2017, it may complete its trip
within the Trimester TAC Area. A
vessel that has set gillnet gear prior to
July 28, 2017, may complete its trip by
hauling such gear.
Any overage of the Trimester 1 or 2
TACs must be deducted from the
Trimester 3 TAC. If the common pool
fishery exceeds its total quota for a stock
in the 2017 fishing year, the overage
must be deducted from the common
pool’s quota for that stock for fishing
year 2018. Any uncaught portion of the
Trimester 1 and Trimester 2 TACs is
carried over into the next trimester.
However, any uncaught portion of the
common pool’s total annual quota may
not be carried over into the following
fishing year.
Weekly quota monitoring reports for
the common pool fishery are on our
Web site at: https://
www.greateratlantic.fisheries.noaa.gov/
ro/fso/MultiMonReports.htm. We will
continue to monitor common pool catch
through vessel trip reports, dealerreported landings, VMS catch reports,
and other available information and, if
necessary, we will make additional
adjustments to common pool
management measures.
Classification
This action is required by 50 CFR part
648 and is exempt from review under
Executive Order 12866.
The Assistant Administrator for
Fisheries, NOAA, finds good cause
pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 553(b)(B) and 5
U.S.C. 553(d)(3) to waive prior notice
and the opportunity for public comment
and the 30-day delayed effectiveness
period because it would be
impracticable and contrary to the public
interest.
The regulations require the Regional
Administrator to close a trimester TAC
area to the common pool fishery when
90 percent of the Trimester TAC for a
stock has been caught. Updated catch
information only recently became
available indicating that the common
pool fishery is projected to have caught
90 percent of its Trimester 1 TAC for GB
cod as of July 27, 2017. The time
necessary to provide for prior notice and
comment, and a 30-day delay in
effectiveness, would prevent the
immediate closure of the GB Cod
Trimester TAC Area. This increases the
likelihood that the common pool fishery
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Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 146 / Tuesday, August 1, 2017 / Rules and Regulations
will exceed its trimester or annual quota
of GB cod to the detriment of this stock,
which could undermine management
objectives of the Northeast Multispecies
Fishery Management Plan. Additionally,
an overage of the trimester or annual
common pool quota could cause
negative economic impacts to the
common pool fishery as a result of
overage paybacks deducted from a
future trimester or fishing year.
Authority: 16 U.S.C. 1801 et seq.
Dated: July 27, 2017.
Jennifer M. Wallace,
Acting Director, Office of Sustainable
Fisheries, National Marine Fisheries Service.
[FR Doc. 2017–16176 Filed 7–28–17; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510–22–P
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration
50 CFR Part 660
[Docket No. 160614521–7624–02]
RIN 0648–BF96
Fisheries Off West Coast States;
Coastal Pelagic Species Fisheries;
Amendment to Regulations
Implementing the Coastal Pelagic
Species Fishery Management Plan;
Change to Pacific Mackerel
Management Cycle From Annual to
Biennial
National Marine Fisheries
Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),
Commerce.
ACTION: Final rule.
AGENCY:
The Coastal Pelagic Species
(CPS) Fishery Management Plan (FMP)
states that each year the Secretary will
publish in the Federal Register the final
specifications for all stocks in the
actively managed stock category, which
includes Pacific mackerel. NMFS is
changing the management framework
for Pacific mackerel so specifications
will be set biennially instead of on an
annual basis. The purpose of this
change is to reduce the costs, while
providing frequent enough reevaluation
and adjustment in the specifications to
manage and conserve Pacific mackerel.
DATES: Effective August 31, 2017.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Joshua Lindsay, West Coast Region,
NMFS, (562) 980–4034,
Joshua.Lindsay@noaa.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: NMFS
manages the Pacific mackerel fishery in
the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ)
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SUMMARY:
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17:30 Jul 31, 2017
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off the Pacific coast (California, Oregon,
and Washington) in accordance with the
CPS FMP. The CPS FMP states that each
year the Secretary will publish in the
Federal Register the specifications for
all stocks in the actively managed stock
category, which includes Pacific
mackerel. In 2013, the Pacific Fishery
Management Council (Council)
recommended that the harvest
specification process for Pacific
mackerel move from a 1-year
management cycle to a 2-year
management cycle beginning in 2015.
The Council recommended this revision
to the management cycle under the CPS
FMP’s framework mechanism, which
allows such changes by rulemaking
without formally amending the fishery
management plan itself. NMFS
published separate annual
specifications for Pacific mackerel for
the 2015–16 and the 2016–17 fishing
seasons to keep pace with the schedule
of the fishery, and is now changing the
annual notice requirement under the
framework mechanism of the CPS FMP.
From now on, NMFS will implement 2
years of harvest specifications with one
rulemaking, beginning with the 2017
fishing season.
The CPS FMP and its implementing
regulations require NMFS to set annual
catch levels for the Pacific mackerel
fishery based on the annual
specification framework and control
rules in the CPS FMP. These control
rules include the harvest guideline
control rule, which in conjunction with
the overfishing limit (OFL), acceptable
biological catch (ABC) and annual catch
limit (ACL) rules in the CPS FMP are
used to manage harvest levels for Pacific
mackerel, in accordance with the
Magnuson-Stevens Fishery
Conservation and Management Act, 16
U.S.C. 1801 et seq. Annual estimates of
biomass are an explicit part of these
various harvest control rules, therefore,
annual stock assessments are currently
conducted for Pacific mackerel to
provide annual estimates of biomass.
Then, during public meetings each year,
the estimated biomass for Pacific
mackerel from these assessments is
presented to the Council’s CPS
Management Team (Team), the
Council’s CPS Advisory Subpanel
(Subpanel) and the Council’s Scientific
and Statistical Committee (SSC), and the
biomass and the status of the fishery are
reviewed and discussed. The biomass
estimate is then presented to the
Council along with recommendations
and comments from the Team, Subpanel
and SSC. Following review by the
Council and after hearing public
comment, the Council adopts a biomass
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35687
estimate and makes its catch level
recommendations to NMFS. Based on
these recommendations, NMFS
implements these catch specifications
for each fishing year and publishes the
specifications annually. Over recent
years, little new information has been
available for informing Pacific mackerel
stock assessments from one year to the
next. Therefore, stock assessment
scientists at the Southwest Fisheries
Science Center (SWFSC), along with the
SSC, concluded that conducting stock
assessments annually is not necessary to
manage Pacific mackerel sustainably;
conducting assessments every 2 years
can provide the necessary scientific
information to continue to manage the
stock sustainably. Annual landings of
Pacific mackerel have also remained at
historically low levels with landings
averaging 5,000 mt over the last 10
years, well below the annual quotas
over this time period. This highlights
that the biomass of this stock is not
being greatly impacted by fishing
pressure. Low landings since 2011 are
also one of the limitations of the recent
stock assessments because they result in
limited fishery-dependent sample
information for use in the stock
assessment. Based on this information,
and in light of the monetary and
personnel costs associated with
conducting and reviewing each stock
assessment as well as adopting
specifications each year, the Council
established a new Pacific mackerel
management and assessment schedule
under which full stock assessments
would be conducted every 4 years, and
in the second year of each cycle, the
assessment will be updated using catchonly projection estimates. Each of these
assessments would provide the biomass
estimate for the current year as well as
a projection of what the biomass will be
in the following year. Those biomass
estimates would then be used in the
harvest control rules for Pacific
mackerel, which the Council would use
to provide NMFS with
recommendations for the OFL, ABC and
ACL for the following 2 years.
This final rule changes the review and
implementation schedule for setting
Pacific mackerel harvest specifications,
allowing NMFS to implement 2 years of
catch specifications with a single notice
and comment rulemaking. Reviewing
biomass estimates and implementing
catch specifications for 2 years at a time
instead of 1 allows NMFS and the
Council to use available time and
resources in a more efficient manner,
while still preserving the conservation
and management goals of the CPS FMP,
and using the best available science.
E:\FR\FM\01AUR1.SGM
01AUR1
]]>Agencies
[Federal Register Volume 82, Number 146 (Tuesday, August 1, 2017)]
[Rules and Regulations]
[Pages 35686-35687]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2017-16176]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
50 CFR Part 648
[Docket No. 151211999-6343-02]
RIN 0648-XF586
Fisheries of the Northeastern United States; Northeast
Multispecies Fishery; Georges Bank Cod Trimester Total Allowable Catch
Area Closure for the Common Pool Fishery
AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce.
ACTION: Temporary rule; area closure.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY: This action closes the Georges Bank (GB) Cod Trimester Total
Allowable Catch Area to Northeast multispecies common pool vessels
fishing with trawl gear, sink gillnet gear, and longline/hook gear for
the remainder of Trimester 1, through August 31, 2017. The closure is
required by regulation because the common pool fishery is projected to
have caught 90 percent of its Trimester 1 quota for GB cod. This
closure is intended to prevent an overage of the common pool's quota
for this stock.
DATES: This action is effective July 28, 2017, through August 31, 2017.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Claire Fitz-Gerald, Fishery Management
Specialist, (978) 281-9255.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Federal regulations at Sec.
648.82(n)(2)(ii) require the Regional Administrator to close a common
pool Trimester Total Allowable Catch (TAC) Area for a stock when 90
percent of the Trimester TAC is projected to be caught. The closure
applies to all common pool vessels fishing with gear capable of
catching that stock for the remainder of the trimester.
As of July 27, 2017, the common pool fishery is projected to have
caught approximately 90 percent of the Trimester 1 TAC (2.9 mt) for
Georges Bank (GB) cod. Effective July 28, 2017, the GB Cod Trimester
TAC Area is closed for the remainder of Trimester 1, through August 31,
2017, to all common pool vessels fishing on a Northeast multispecies
trip with trawl gear, sink gillnet gear, and longline/hook gear. The GB
Cod Trimester TAC Area consists of statistical areas 521, 522, 525, and
561. The area reopens at the beginning of Trimester 2, on September 1,
2017.
If a vessel declared its trip through the Vessel Monitoring System
(VMS) or the interactive voice response system, and crossed the VMS
demarcation line prior to July 28, 2017, it may complete its trip
within the Trimester TAC Area. A vessel that has set gillnet gear prior
to July 28, 2017, may complete its trip by hauling such gear.
Any overage of the Trimester 1 or 2 TACs must be deducted from the
Trimester 3 TAC. If the common pool fishery exceeds its total quota for
a stock in the 2017 fishing year, the overage must be deducted from the
common pool's quota for that stock for fishing year 2018. Any uncaught
portion of the Trimester 1 and Trimester 2 TACs is carried over into
the next trimester. However, any uncaught portion of the common pool's
total annual quota may not be carried over into the following fishing
year.
Weekly quota monitoring reports for the common pool fishery are on
our Web site at: https://www.greateratlantic.fisheries.noaa.gov/ro/fso/MultiMonReports.htm. We will continue to monitor common pool catch
through vessel trip reports, dealer-reported landings, VMS catch
reports, and other available information and, if necessary, we will
make additional adjustments to common pool management measures.
Classification
This action is required by 50 CFR part 648 and is exempt from
review under Executive Order 12866.
The Assistant Administrator for Fisheries, NOAA, finds good cause
pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 553(b)(B) and 5 U.S.C. 553(d)(3) to waive prior
notice and the opportunity for public comment and the 30-day delayed
effectiveness period because it would be impracticable and contrary to
the public interest.
The regulations require the Regional Administrator to close a
trimester TAC area to the common pool fishery when 90 percent of the
Trimester TAC for a stock has been caught. Updated catch information
only recently became available indicating that the common pool fishery
is projected to have caught 90 percent of its Trimester 1 TAC for GB
cod as of July 27, 2017. The time necessary to provide for prior notice
and comment, and a 30-day delay in effectiveness, would prevent the
immediate closure of the GB Cod Trimester TAC Area. This increases the
likelihood that the common pool fishery
[[Page 35687]]
will exceed its trimester or annual quota of GB cod to the detriment of
this stock, which could undermine management objectives of the
Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan. Additionally, an
overage of the trimester or annual common pool quota could cause
negative economic impacts to the common pool fishery as a result of
overage paybacks deducted from a future trimester or fishing year.
Authority: 16 U.S.C. 1801 et seq.
Dated: July 27, 2017.
Jennifer M. Wallace,
Acting Director, Office of Sustainable Fisheries, National Marine
Fisheries Service.
[FR Doc. 2017-16176 Filed 7-28-17; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-22-P
