Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for Review and Approval; Comment Request; West Coast Groundfish Trawl Economic Data, 84307-84308 [2023-26661]

Agencies

• DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

[Federal Register Volume 88, Number 232 (Tuesday, December 5, 2023)]
[Notices]
[Pages 84307-84308]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2023-26661]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration


Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission to the 
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for Review and Approval; Comment 
Request; West Coast Groundfish Trawl Economic Data

    The Department of Commerce will submit the following information 
collection request to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for 
review and clearance in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 
1995, on or after the date of publication of this notice. We invite the 
general public and other Federal agencies to comment on proposed, and 
continuing information collections, which helps us assess the impact of 
our information collection requirements and minimize the public's 
reporting burden. Public comments were previously requested via the 
Federal Register on March 23, 2023 during a 60-day comment period. This 
notice allows for an additional 30 days for public comments.
    Agency: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 
Commerce.
    Title: West Coast Groundfish Trawl Economic Data.
    OMB Control Number: 0648-0618.
    Form Number(s): None.
    Type of Request: Regular (extension of a currently approved 
information collection).
    Number of Respondents: 361.
    Average Hours per Response: 8 hours for catcher processors, catcher 
vessels, and motherships, 1 hour for quota share permit owners, and 20 
hours for first receivers and shore-based processors.
    Total Annual Burden Hours: 2,236.
    Needs and Uses: This request is for revision and renewal of a 
currently approved information collection. This information collection 
is needed in order to meet the monitoring requirements of the Magnuson-
Stevens Act (MSA). In particular, the Northwest Fisheries Science 
Center (NWFSC) needs economic data on all harvesters, quota share 
permit owners, first receivers, shore-based processors, catcher 
processors, and motherships participating in the West Coast groundfish 
trawl fishery. Data will be collected from all catcher vessels 
registered to a limited entry trawl endorsed permit, quota share permit 
owners, catcher processors registered to catcher processor permits, 
motherships registered to mothership permits, first receivers, and 
shore based processors that received round or head-and-gutted IFQ 
groundfish or whiting from a first receiver to provide the necessary 
information for analyzing the effects of the West Coast Groundfish 
Trawl Catch Share Program.
    Changes are being proposed to three forms: the quota share owner 
form, the first receiver and shore-based processor form, and the 
catcher vessel form. Two changes are proposed for the quota share owner 
form. First, the question ``Is this permit owned solely by a non-
profit?'' will be removed from the survey as it was determined that 
sufficient information is available from other sources to make this 
question redundant. The second proposed change is to replace the 
survey's third question with a series of shorter questions guiding the 
participant to provide the correct information. This change will 
clarify which information should be reported for each type of 
respondent and will reduce the need for lengthy instructions section 
describing how the participant should answer. The series of questions 
are:
    A. ``Which types of quota transactions were associated with QSXXXX 
in 20XX? Check all that apply'' This question helps the participant 
determine whether any earnings need to be reported on the survey. If 
appropriate categories are checked, they will be asked question B.
    B. ``How much did this quota share account earn from leasing quota 
in year 20XX?'' Participants will answer this question with a dollar 
amount. To ensure there is no duplicate reporting, participants will be 
asked question C:
    C. ``Did you record any earnings from 20XX quota leasing on an EDC 
form?'' If participants answer ``No,'' they will be prompted to affirm 
that their response to question B was correct and submit the survey. If 
they answer ``Yes,'' they will be asked to respond to question D.
    D. ``How much in quota lease earnings did you record on your EDC 
form(s)? Participants will answer with a numerical value and proceed to 
question E.
    E. ``Please confirm your total quota lease earnings in 20XX was 
`Response to question B + `Response to question D.' After confirming, 
participants will then submit the survey.
    We anticipate no additional burden with this change because the new 
structure of the survey will generate fewer incorrect responses and 
survey administrators will no longer need to contact participants 
outside of the survey to confirm that they did not provide duplicate 
responses across survey forms.
    First receiver and shore-based processor form changes are more 
extensive. The purpose of the changes is fivefold: remove requests for 
information that are not used in development of a Pacific Fishery 
Management Council Fishery Management Plan, consolidate questions where 
additional detail is no longer required, clarify handling of 
intercompany transfers and inventory, collect more accurate information 
about hourly wages, obtain information about services provided by first 
receivers to vessels.
    First, we propose a complete removal of Question 18: ``Provide the 
following information about the landing origin of groundfish received 
at this facility.'' Throughout the eleven years of the program, these 
data have not been used in the Council process and we do not anticipate 
using this information in the future.
    Second, we propose consolidating the fishery-level detail requests 
from Question 19: ``Fish Received. In the table below provide the 
weight and cost of fish received.'' For groundfish species, the 
existing form requests weight not paid for, weight paid for, and cost 
of fish by species group for three fisheries (LE Trawl, LE Fixed Gear, 
and Other) as well as Non-vessel sources. In the revised form, the 
table will be consolidated to only request Vessel sources and Non-
vessel sources. This will be a net reduction of 72 data entry cells on 
the form (12 species groups x removal of 2 fisheries x 3 fields). We 
will no longer request this information because fishery-detail 
information can be obtained from other sources.
    Third, we propose revising how intercompany transfers and inventory 
are reported on the form. Similar to the

[[Page 84308]]

quota share owner survey, there are extensive instructions on handling 
these two topics, but reporting errors are extremely common. To 
facilitate accurate reporting of intercompany transfers, we will remove 
a column dedicated to transfer information from Question 19 and remove 
instructions about recording transfers in Question 20. Then, all of the 
transfer-related information will be moved to a separate question/
table. This change will make the survey instructions easier to 
understand, allow companies that do not have intercompany transfers to 
skip the question entirely, and will make it easier to detect and 
remedy mistakes. Similarly, there are extensive instructions on how to 
record inventory in Question 20 on the existing form, but no dedicated 
field for inventory. Instead, participants are currently instructed to 
add inventory to the other sales categories. We propose adding a new 
line for each species group to record the inventory volume and value. 
Similar to the changes to transfers in Question 19 and 20, the new 
structure of Question 20 clarifies how to complete the form and 
facilitates identifying and resolving errors. Finally, this change will 
provide new important information about inventory volumes across years, 
providing better information about the status of the processing sector 
to the Pacific Fishery Management Council.
    A common performance metric for fisheries programs is hourly wage 
payments to processing workers. In the current form, we request the 
total number of workers and total hours worked for the week that 
includes the 12th of each month and total annual compensation payments. 
To calculate hourly wages, we must extrapolate to the total hours 
worked for the year. Through conversations with participants, it has 
become apparent that within-month employment can have high variability 
and our extrapolations are not always accurate. We propose requesting 
the equivalent compensation value for each of the one-week windows to 
allow for a more accurate calculation of hourly wages. This additional 
field will also allow us to generate an estimate of within-month 
employment variability.
    Lastly, through conversations with first receivers and vessels, it 
is known that first receivers provide services to vessels such as bait, 
ice, loans, moorage, and storage. We plan to add a new category to 
capture whether those services are provided and whether the vessels are 
charged for those services. This information will help answer questions 
often posed by external reviewers when evaluating studies conducted 
using the data collected in these surveys.
    There are two proposed changes to the Catcher Vessel survey form. 
The first is to remove two questions. In 2018, at the request of 
participants in the trawl catch share program, two additional questions 
were added, Question 17: ``Do you track capitalized expenditures and 
expenses on fishing gear by type (e.g., midwater trawl gear, groundfish 
bottom trawl gear)?'' and Question 18: ``Provide the 2021 total 
capitalized expenditures and expenses associated with each type of 
fishing gear used in West Coast Fisheries (Washington, Oregon, and 
California).'' Since the implementation of the questions in 2018, there 
has only been one ``Yes'' out nearly 700 total responses to Question 17 
and therefore no further information about gear-specific costs have 
been collected. Therefore, there will be no information loss associated 
with removal of these two questions and there may be a small reduction 
in total burden hours.
    The second proposed change to the Catcher vessel survey form also 
applies to the Catcher Processor and Mothership forms. This change adds 
a four-part question about vessel financing. The questions are whether 
there were any loans on the vessel, how much was still owed at the end 
of the fiscal year, total amount paid to interest, and total amount 
paid to principal. The purpose of this new question is to collect the 
necessary information to comply with recent NOAA fisheries guidance on 
calculation of net returns of fishing businesses.
    Affected Public: Business or other for-profit organizations; not-
for-profit institutions.
    Frequency: Annually.
    Respondent's Obligation: Mandatory.
    Legal Authority: 50 CFR 660.114.
    This information collection request may be viewed at 
www.reginfo.gov. Follow the instructions to view the Department of 
Commerce collections currently under review by OMB.
    Written comments and recommendations for the proposed information 
collection should be submitted within 30 days of the publication of 
this notice on the following website www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain. 
Find this particular information collection by selecting ``Currently 
under 30-day Review--Open for Public Comments'' or by using the search 
function and entering either the title of the collection or the OMB 
Control Number 0648-0618.

Sheleen Dumas,
Department PRA Clearance Officer, Office of the Under Secretary for 
Economic Affairs, Commerce Department.
[FR Doc. 2023-26661 Filed 12-4-23; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-22-P