National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 2006 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The New England Fishery Management Council (Council) is scheduling a joint public meeting of its Scientific and Statistical and Social Sciences Advisory Committees in January, 2006 to consider actions affecting New England fisheries in the exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Recommendations from this group will be brought to the full Council for formal consideration and action, if appropriate.

NMFS issues this notice to announce information about the schedule for participating in a referendum to determine whether an individual fishing quota (IFQ) program for the Gulf of Mexico commercial red snapper fishery should be submitted to the Secretary of Commerce (Secretary) for review. The intended effect of the IFQ program would be to reduce overcapacity in the commercial red snapper fishery and end the current derby-type conditions that have resulted from increasingly restrictive regulation.

NMFS announces the receipt of a request for a scientific research permit (SRP) to track the survival and movement of highly migratory species (HMS) with satellite pop-up tags in the Atlantic Ocean, specifically the Charleston Bump and adjacent areas. NMFS invites comments from interested parties on this SRP request.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) revises the federal consistency regulations under the Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972 (CZMA). This final rule addresses the CZMA- related recommendations of the Report of the National Energy Policy Development Group, dated May 2001 (Energy Report) as described in NOAA's June 11, 2003, Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (68 FR 34851-34874) (proposed rule), and comments submitted to NOAA on the proposed rule. In addition, this final rule includes provisions complying with statutory amendments made in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (Pub. L. 109-58) (Energy Policy Act) that concerned matters addressed in the proposed rule. This final rule continues to provide the balance between State-Federal-private interests embodied in the CZMA, while making improvements to the federal consistency regulations by clarifying some sections and providing greater transparency and predictability to the implementation of federal consistency. This final rule fully maintains the authority and ability of coastal States to review proposed federal actions that would have a reasonably foreseeable effect on any land or water use or natural resource of a State's coastal zone, as provided for in the CZMA and NOAA's regulations, as revised in 2000.

NMFS has determined that the Atlantic bluefin tuna (BFT) General category daily retention limit for two of the previously designated restricted fishing days (RFD) should be adjusted. These General category RFDs are being waived to provide reasonable opportunity for utilization of the coastwide General category BFT quota. Therefore, NMFS waives the RFDs for December 31, 2005, and January 1, 2006, and increases the daily retention limit from zero to two large medium or giant BFT on these previously designated RFDs.

NMFS publishes this final rule to clarify that the fee regulations for the Pacific Coast groundfish fishing capacity reduction program do not apply to any shrimp landed under Washington State fishing licenses for Puget Sound shrimp. The fee regulations remain otherwise unchanged. The purpose of this final rule is to clarify that the fee rules do not apply to the Puget Sound licenses.