National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration March 15, 2016 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

NMFS announces the withdrawal of the Federal moratorium on fishing for American eel in the State waters of Delaware. NMFS withdraws the moratorium, as required by the Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Cooperative Management Act (Atlantic Coastal Act), based on the determination that Delaware is now in compliance with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission's (Commission) Interstate Fishery Management Plan for American Eel.

NMFS and the Northeast Regional Stock Assessment Workshop (SAW) will convene the 62nd SAW Stock Assessment Review Committee for the purpose of reviewing the stock assessments of Black Sea Bass and Witch Flounder. The Northeast Regional SAW is a formal scientific peer- review process for evaluating and presenting stock assessment results to managers for fish stocks in the offshore U.S. waters of the northwest Atlantic. Assessments are prepared by SAW working groups and reviewed by an independent panel of stock assessment experts called the Stock Assessment Review Committee, or SARC. The public is invited to attend the presentations and discussions between the review panel and the scientists who have participated in the stock assessment process.

We (NMFS) intend to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) and to conduct public scoping meetings to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by assessing potential impacts resulting from the proposed implementation of new sea turtle regulatory requirements in the shrimp fishery of the southeastern United States. These requirements are proposed to protect threatened and endangered sea turtles in the western Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico from incidental capture, and would be implemented under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).