Department of Commerce April 5, 2024 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

NMFS is prohibiting directed fishing for pollock in Statistical Area 610 in the Gulf of Alaska (GOA). This action is necessary to prevent exceeding the A season allowance of the 2024 total allowable catch (TAC) of pollock for Statistical Area 610 in the GOA.

NMFS announces the receipt of two applications for exempted fishing permits (EFPs) from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC). If granted, the EFPs would authorize limited recreational harvest of red snapper outside of any Federal recreational season in South Atlantic Federal waters and exempt that harvest from the red snapper recreational bag and possession limits, recreational annual catch limits (ACLs), and accountability measures (AMs). FWC's projects are intended to test alternative recreational management strategies that could be used by the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Council) to reduce the numbers of discards of red snapper and other federally managed snapper-grouper species, create additional opportunities to participate in sustainable recreational harvest, and improve angler satisfaction.

NMFS announces the receipt of an application for an exempted fishing permit (EFP) from LGL Ecological Research Associates Inc. If granted, the EFP would allow the retention, up to 24 hours, and lethal harvest of a limited number of red drum, king mackerel, and Spanish mackerel harvested by approved participants in the Louisiana commercial menhaden purse seine fishery in Federal waters during the 2024 menhaden season. The project would seek to quantify bycatch and test post- release mortality of these species in the fishery to assess impacts the fishery may have on Federally-managed species in the Gulf of Mexico (Gulf).

This final rule allocates Northeast multispecies annual catch entitlements to approved groundfish sectors and permit banks for fishing year 2024 based on 2024 annual catch limits set in Framework Adjustment 65 to the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan or default specifications. This action is intended to allow limited access permit holders to continue to operate sectors, as authorized under the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan.

The U.S. Department of Commerce (Commerce) preliminarily determines that countervailable subsidies were provided to producers and/or exporters of certain new pneumatic off-the-road tires (OTR tires) from India, during the period of review (POR) January 1, 2022, through December 31, 2022. Interested parties are invited to comment on these preliminary results.

NMFS establishes the annual harvest guideline for the commercial lobster fishery in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI) for calendar year 2024 at zero lobsters.

We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS; collectively, the "Services"), finalize revisions to portions of our regulations that implement section 4 of the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended. The revisions to the regulations clarify, interpret, and implement portions of the Act concerning the procedures and criteria used for listing, reclassifying, and delisting species on the Lists of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants (Lists) and designating critical habitat.