National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration December 23, 2013 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is providing notification that the agency will not identify additional fisheries to observe on the Annual Determination (AD) for 2014, pursuant to its authority under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Through an AD, NMFS identifies U.S. fisheries operating in the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, and Pacific Ocean that will be required to take observers upon NMFS' request. The purpose of observing identified fisheries is to learn more about sea turtle interactions in a given fishery, evaluate existing measures to prevent or reduce prohibited sea turtle takes, and to determine whether additional measures to implement the prohibition against sea turtle takes may be necessary. Fisheries identified in the 2010 AD (see Table 1) remain on the AD for a five year period and are therefore required to carry observers upon NMFS' request until December 31, 2014.

Each year, NMFS implements regulations that set the annual quota and management measures for the Pacific sardine fishing year. NMFS proposes to change the starting date of the annual Pacific sardine fishery from January 1 to July 1. This would change the fishing season from one based on the calendar year to one based on a July 1 through the following June 30th schedule. No other changes to the annual allocation structure are being made and the existing seasonal allocation percentages will remain as specified in the FMP; as would the current quota roll-over provisions. The purpose of this change is to better align the timing of the research and science that is used in the annual stock assessments with the annual management schedule. To enable this transition in fishing years, this action also would establish a one-time interim harvest period for the 6 months from January 1, 2014, through June 30, 2014.

NMFS has received an application from the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Study of Coastal Oceans (PISCO) at the University of California (UC) Santa Cruz for an Incidental Harassment Authorization (IHA) to take marine mammals, by harassment, incidental to rocky intertidal monitoring surveys. Pursuant to the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), NMFS is requesting comments on its proposal to issue an IHA to PISCO to incidentally take, by Level B harassment only, marine mammals during the specified activity.

The Department of Commerce, as part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork and respondent burden, invites the general public and other Federal agencies to take this opportunity to comment on proposed and/or continuing information collections, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995.