Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for Review and Approval; Comment Request; National Marine Sanctuary Permits, 84871-84872 [2024-24702]
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Federal Register / Vol. 89, No. 206 / Thursday, October 24, 2024 / Notices
Endangered Species Act
Section 7(a)(2) of the Endangered
Species Act (ESA; 16 U.S.C. 1531 et
seq.) requires that each Federal agency
ensure that any action it authorizes,
funds, or carries out is not likely to
jeopardize the continued existence of
any endangered or threatened species or
result in the destruction or adverse
modification of designated critical
habitat. To ensure ESA compliance for
the issuance of IHAs, NMFS consults
internally whenever we propose to
authorize take for endangered or
threatened species.
No incidental take of ESA-listed
species is expected to result from this
activity. Therefore, NMFS has
determined that formal consultation
under section 7 of the ESA is not
required for this action.
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National Environmental Policy Act
To comply with the National
Environmental Policy Act of 1969
(NEPA; 42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.) and
NOAA Administrative Order (NAO)
216–6A, NMFS must evaluate our
proposed action (the issuance of an
IHA) and alternatives with respect to
potential impacts on the human
environment.
This action is consistent with
categories of activities identified in
Categorical Exclusion B4 (IHAs with no
anticipated serious injury or mortality)
of the Companion Manual for NAO 216–
6A, which do not individually or
cumulatively have the potential for
significant impacts on the quality of the
human environment and for which we
have not identified any extraordinary
circumstances that would preclude this
categorical exclusion. Accordingly,
NMFS determined that the issuance of
the initial IHA qualified to be
categorically excluded from further
NEPA review. NMFS has determined
that the application of this categorical
exclusion remains appropriate for this
renewal IHA.
Authorization
NMFS has issued a renewal IHA to
the U.S Navy for the potential
harassment of small numbers of six
marine mammal species incidental to
the Replacement of Pier 302 at Naval
Base Point Loma, San Diego, California,
that includes the previously explained
mitigation, monitoring and reporting
requirements.
Dated: October 21, 2024.
Kimberly Damon-Randall,
Director, Office of Protected Resources,
National Marine Fisheries Service.
[FR Doc. 2024–24763 Filed 10–23–24; 8:45 am]
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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; National Marine Sanctuary
Permits
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 May 14,
2024 during a 60-day comment period
and no comments were received. This
notice allows for an additional 30 days
for public comments.
Agency: National Oceanic &
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),
Commerce.
Title: National Marine Sanctuary
Permits.
OMB Control Number: 0648–0141.
Form Number(s): None.
Type of Request: Regular submission,
revision and extension of a current
information collection.
Number of Respondents: 567.
Average Hours per Response: General
permits and authorizations, 1 hour and
30 minutes; special use permits, 8
hours; archaeological research permits,
13 hours; baitfish permits, 25 minutes;
permit amendments and certifications,
30 minutes; voluntary registrations, 15
minutes; appeals, 24 hours; Tortugas
access permits, 5 minutes.
Total Annual Burden Hours: 2,307.75.
Needs and Uses: This request is for
revision and extension of a currently
approved information collection by the
Office of National Marine Sanctuaries
(ONMS). ONMS manages national
marine sanctuaries pursuant to the
purposes and policies of the National
Marine Sanctuaries Act (NMSA, 16
U.S.C. 1431 et seq.). National marine
sanctuary regulations at 15 CFR part 922
list specific activities that are prohibited
in national marine sanctuaries. These
regulations also state that otherwise
prohibited activities may be conducted
if a permit is issued by ONMS. For most
types of permits, persons desiring a
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84871
permit must submit an application (note
that requests for baitfish permits and
Tortugas Ecological Reserve North
Access permits require contacting
Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary
and do not require a completed ONMS
permit application), and anyone
obtaining a permit is generally required
to submit one or more reports on the
activity allowed under the permit. The
recordkeeping and reporting
requirements at 15 CFR part 922 form
the basis for this collection of
information.
This information is required by
ONMS to protect and manage sanctuary
resources. The permit application
collects information about the proposed
activities, the methods proposed to be
used, the potential effects to sanctuary
resources, and information on the
regulatory review criteria at 15 CFR part
922. ONMS uses this information to
evaluate whether the proposed activities
are consistent with the goals and
objectives of the sanctuary and the
purposes and policies of the NMSA.
Changes to this information collection
include revisions to the permit
application and instructions to collect
information about small businesses to
better assess the types of entities
engaged in permitting activities. The
estimated number of permits issued per
year also changed from 424 to 567 to
reflect the additional estimated permit
numbers if the various proposed
national marine sanctuary designations
are finalized. In particular, this is based
on adding an estimated fifteen
additional permits and about 59
certifications for the recently designated
Chumash Heritage National Marine
Sanctuary (89 FR 83554, Oct. 16, 2024),
an estimated five additional permits for
the proposed designation of the
National Marine Sanctuary for the
Pacific Remote Islands (88 FR 23624;
April 18, 2023), an estimated five
additional permits for the recently
designated Lake Ontario National
Marine Sanctuary (89 FR 48272, June 6,
2024), an estimated five additional
permits for proposed Lake Erie
Quadrangle National Marine Sanctuary
(88 FR 32198, May 19, 2023), an
estimated nine permits for the proposed
sanctuary in the Hudson Canyon area
(87 FR 38387, June 8, 2022), and
increasing the numbers of amendments
and Tortugas access permits to reflect
more recent average permit numbers.
The number of baitfish permits was
diminished by 35 permits and Florida
Keys National Marine Sanctuary has
proposed phasing out the bait fishing
permits over the next three years (87 FR
42800, July 18, 2022). Other revisions
made to the application and applicant
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Federal Register / Vol. 89, No. 206 / Thursday, October 24, 2024 / Notices
instructions were to improve the quality
of information initially collected and to
make the permit process more efficient.
Affected Public: Individuals; Business
or other for-profit organizations; Not-forprofit institutions; State, Local, or Tribal
government; Federal Government.
Frequency: On occasion.
Respondent’s Obligation: Required to
Obtain or Retain Benefits.
Legal Authority: National Marine
Sanctuaries Act, 16 U.S.C. 1431 et seq.
This information collection request
may be viewed at https://
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 https://
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 0648–0141.
Sheleen Dumas,
Departmental PRA Clearance Officer, Office
of the Under Secretary for Economic Affairs,
Commerce Department.
[FR Doc. 2024–24702 Filed 10–23–24; 8:45 am]
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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration
[RTID 0648–XD212]
2024 Updated Guidance for Assessing
the Effects of Anthropogenic Sound on
Marine Mammal Hearing—Underwater
and In-Air Criteria for Onset of
Auditory Injury and Temporary
Threshold Shifts (Version 3.0)
National Marine Fisheries
Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),
Commerce.
ACTION: Notice.
AGENCY:
The National Marine
Fisheries Service (NMFS) announces the
availability of our final 2024 Update to:
Technical Guidance for Assessing the
Effects of Anthropogenic Sound on
Marine Mammal Hearing (Version 3.0):
Underwater and In-Air Criteria for
Onset of Auditory Injury and Temporary
Threshold Shifts (2024 Updated
Technical Guidance). The 2024 Updated
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SUMMARY:
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Technical Guidance provides updated
information, or acoustic criteria, to
predict when individual marine
mammals, both in-air and underwater,
will experience changes in their hearing
sensitivity (auditory injury or temporary
threshold shift) from exposure to
anthropogenic sound sources. The 2024
Updated Technical Guidance replaces
NMFS’s current 2018 Revisions to:
Technical Guidance for Assessing the
Effects of Anthropogenic Sound on
Marine Mammal Hearing (Version 2.0):
Underwater Thresholds for Onset of
Permanent and Temporary Threshold
Shifts (2018 Revised Technical
Guidance).
ADDRESSES: The final 2024 Updated
Technical Guidance is available in
electronic form via the internet https://
www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/
marine-mammal-protection/marinemammal-acoustic-technical-guidance.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Amy R. Scholik-Schlomer, Office of
Protected Resources, 301–427–8449,
Amy.Scholik@noaa.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: NMFS has
updated its guidance for assessing the
effects of anthropogenic sound on the
hearing of marine mammal species
under NMFS’s jurisdiction. Specifically,
the 2024 Updated Technical Guidance
identifies the received levels and
auditory weighting functions, or
‘‘acoustic criteria,’’ that describe the
received levels (decibels (dB)) and
frequencies (kilohertz (kHz)) where
individual marine mammals are
predicted to experience changes in their
hearing sensitivity (auditory injury
(AUD INJ) or temporary threshold shift
(TTS)) from exposure to anthropogenic
sound sources both in-air and
underwater. This document is intended
for use by NMFS analysts and managers
and other relevant user groups and
interested parties, including other
Federal agencies, when seeking to
determine whether and how their
activities are expected to result in
auditory impacts to marine mammals
via acoustic exposure in-air and
underwater. The 2024 Updated
Technical Guidance outlines NMFS’s
updated acoustic criteria and describes
in detail how they were developed and
how they will be updated in the future.
For information on NMFS’ 2018 Revised
and the original 2016 Technical
Guidance, refer to our 2016 Federal
Register notification (81 FR 51694,
August 4, 2016).
For the 2024 Updated Technical
Guidance, NMFS again worked with the
U.S. Navy (Navy), which recently
updated its marine mammal AUD INJ
and TTS criteria (Finneran 2024), to
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incorporate the best available science.
NMFS conducted an independent peer
review in October/November 2022.
Details of the peer review, peer reviewer
comments, and our response to these
comments are available at the following
website: https://www.noaa.gov/
information-technology/update-to20162018-technical-guidance-forassessing-effects-of-anthropogenicsound-on-marine-mammal. In May/June
of 2023, NMFS solicited input from
other relevant Federal agencies on the
2024 Updated Technical Guidance.
Federal agency comments and NMFS
responses to those comments are
available at the following website:
https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/
national/marine-mammal-protection/
marine-mammal-acoustic-technicalguidance. To complete the review
process, NMFS solicited additional
feedback from user groups and
interested parties via a 45-day public
comment period in May/June 2024.
Comments received via the public
comment period can be found at the
following website: https://
www.regulations.gov/document/NOAANMFS-2024-0026-0001.
It is important to note that the use of
the acoustic criteria within the 2024
Updated Technical Guidance should not
be considered to represent the entirety
of an impact assessment, but rather
serve as one tool to help evaluate the
effects of a proposed action.
Furthermore, the 2024 Updated
Technical Guidance does not create or
confer any rights for or on any person,
or operate to bind the public. For the
purposes of assessing auditory impacts
to marine mammals in support of
regulatory processes under NMFS’
authority, an alternative approach that
has undergone independent peer review
may be proposed (by Federal agencies or
prospective action proponents or
applicants) and used if case-specific
information/data indicate that the
alternative approach is likely to produce
a more accurate portrayal of auditory
impacts (AUD INJ or TTS) for the
project being evaluated, if NMFS
determines the approach satisfies the
requirements of the applicable statutes
and regulations.
The 2024 Updated Technical
Guidance reflects the current state of
scientific knowledge regarding the
characteristics of sound that have the
potential to impact marine mammal
hearing sensitivity. NMFS recognizes
that the implementation of marine
mammal weighting functions and the
weighted SEL24h criteria may extend
beyond the capabilities of some action
proponents. Thus, NMFS has developed
an optional, alternative tool for those
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]]>Agencies
[Federal Register Volume 89, Number 206 (Thursday, October 24, 2024)]
[Notices]
[Pages 84871-84872]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2024-24702]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
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; National Marine Sanctuary Permits
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 May 14, 2024 during a 60-day comment period and no
comments were received. This notice allows for an additional 30 days
for public comments.
Agency: National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),
Commerce.
Title: National Marine Sanctuary Permits.
OMB Control Number: 0648-0141.
Form Number(s): None.
Type of Request: Regular submission, revision and extension of a
current information collection.
Number of Respondents: 567.
Average Hours per Response: General permits and authorizations, 1
hour and 30 minutes; special use permits, 8 hours; archaeological
research permits, 13 hours; baitfish permits, 25 minutes; permit
amendments and certifications, 30 minutes; voluntary registrations, 15
minutes; appeals, 24 hours; Tortugas access permits, 5 minutes.
Total Annual Burden Hours: 2,307.75.
Needs and Uses: This request is for revision and extension of a
currently approved information collection by the Office of National
Marine Sanctuaries (ONMS). ONMS manages national marine sanctuaries
pursuant to the purposes and policies of the National Marine
Sanctuaries Act (NMSA, 16 U.S.C. 1431 et seq.). National marine
sanctuary regulations at 15 CFR part 922 list specific activities that
are prohibited in national marine sanctuaries. These regulations also
state that otherwise prohibited activities may be conducted if a permit
is issued by ONMS. For most types of permits, persons desiring a permit
must submit an application (note that requests for baitfish permits and
Tortugas Ecological Reserve North Access permits require contacting
Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary and do not require a completed
ONMS permit application), and anyone obtaining a permit is generally
required to submit one or more reports on the activity allowed under
the permit. The recordkeeping and reporting requirements at 15 CFR part
922 form the basis for this collection of information.
This information is required by ONMS to protect and manage
sanctuary resources. The permit application collects information about
the proposed activities, the methods proposed to be used, the potential
effects to sanctuary resources, and information on the regulatory
review criteria at 15 CFR part 922. ONMS uses this information to
evaluate whether the proposed activities are consistent with the goals
and objectives of the sanctuary and the purposes and policies of the
NMSA.
Changes to this information collection include revisions to the
permit application and instructions to collect information about small
businesses to better assess the types of entities engaged in permitting
activities. The estimated number of permits issued per year also
changed from 424 to 567 to reflect the additional estimated permit
numbers if the various proposed national marine sanctuary designations
are finalized. In particular, this is based on adding an estimated
fifteen additional permits and about 59 certifications for the recently
designated Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary (89 FR 83554,
Oct. 16, 2024), an estimated five additional permits for the proposed
designation of the National Marine Sanctuary for the Pacific Remote
Islands (88 FR 23624; April 18, 2023), an estimated five additional
permits for the recently designated Lake Ontario National Marine
Sanctuary (89 FR 48272, June 6, 2024), an estimated five additional
permits for proposed Lake Erie Quadrangle National Marine Sanctuary (88
FR 32198, May 19, 2023), an estimated nine permits for the proposed
sanctuary in the Hudson Canyon area (87 FR 38387, June 8, 2022), and
increasing the numbers of amendments and Tortugas access permits to
reflect more recent average permit numbers. The number of baitfish
permits was diminished by 35 permits and Florida Keys National Marine
Sanctuary has proposed phasing out the bait fishing permits over the
next three years (87 FR 42800, July 18, 2022). Other revisions made to
the application and applicant
[[Page 84872]]
instructions were to improve the quality of information initially
collected and to make the permit process more efficient.
Affected Public: Individuals; Business or other for-profit
organizations; Not-for-profit institutions; State, Local, or Tribal
government; Federal Government.
Frequency: On occasion.
Respondent's Obligation: Required to Obtain or Retain Benefits.
Legal Authority: National Marine Sanctuaries Act, 16 U.S.C. 1431 et
seq.
This information collection request may be viewed at https://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 https://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 0648-0141.
Sheleen Dumas,
Departmental PRA Clearance Officer, Office of the Under Secretary for
Economic Affairs, Commerce Department.
[FR Doc. 2024-24702 Filed 10-23-24; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-NK-P
