Department of Commerce July 2, 2024 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

Notice is hereby given of a hybrid meeting of the U. S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS[supreg]) Advisory Committee (Committee). The meeting is open to the public and an opportunity for oral and written comments will be provided.

The Department of Commerce, in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) of 1995, invites 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. The purpose of this notice is to allow for 60 days of public comment on the proposed revision of the Spatial, Address, and Imagery Data (SAID) Program, prior to the submission of the information collection request (ICR) to OMB for approval.

NMFS is issuing regulations under the Tuna Conventions Act (TCA) of 1950, as amended, to implement Resolutions C-23-07 (Conservation Measures for the Protection and Sustainable Management of Sharks) and C-23-11 (On the Establishment of a Vessel Monitoring System) adopted by the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) at its meeting in August 2023 in Victoria, Canada. This final rule implements provisions of these Resolutions and requires U.S. longline vessels fishing for tuna or tuna-like species in the eastern Pacific Ocean (EPO) to release incidentally caught sharks by leaving them in the water and cutting the branchline so that less than 1 meter remains on each animal. The final rule also requires large vessels fishing for tuna or tuna-like species in the EPO to make manual reports every six hours in the event of a malfunctioning vessel monitoring system (VMS) unit. This action is necessary for the United States to satisfy its obligations as a member of the IATTC.

In accordance with the regulations implementing the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) as amended, notification is hereby given that NMFS has issued an incidental harassment authorization (IHA) to the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University (L-DEO) to incidentally harass marine mammals during survey activities associated with a marine geophysical survey at the Reykjanes Ridge in the North Atlantic Ocean.