National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration June 25, 2021 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This temporary rule extends emergency measures that allow a limited one-time carryover of up to 5 percent of unharvested fishing quota from the 2020 fishing year into the 2021 fishing year. This action is necessary to allow the golden tilefish individual fishing quota shareholders that were eligible for carryover under the emergency measures, but have not yet fully harvested that carryover, an opportunity to use it. This action is intended to provide additional time for quota shareholders to fully harvest their allocations.

In accordance with the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), as amended, and implementing regulations, notification is hereby given that two Letters of Authorization (LOA) have been issued to the U.S. Navy (Navy) for the take of marine mammals incidental to maintenance construction activities at facilities in Washington.

In accordance with the regulations implementing the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) as amended, notification is hereby given that NMFS has issued an IHA to Garden State Offshore Energy, LLC (Garden State) to incidentally harass, by Level B harassment, marine mammals incidental to marine site characterization surveys offshore of Delaware and New Jersey in the area of the Commercial Lease of Submerged Lands for Renewable Energy Development on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS-A 0482) and along potential export cable routes to landfall locations in Delaware and New Jersey.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Ocean Service (NOS) has prepared a draft programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, as amended (NEPA), to analyze the potential environmental impacts associated with NOS's recurring data collection projects to characterize submerged features (e.g., habitat, bathymetry, marine debris). The ``action area'' for these projects encompasses United States (U.S.) rivers, states' offshore waters, the U.S. territorial sea, the contiguous zone, the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (U.S. EEZ), and coastal and riparian lands. As a part of the Proposed Action, NOS may use active acoustic equipment such as sub- bottom profilers, single beam and multibeam echo sounders, side-scan sonars, and Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers. The Draft PEIS analyzes NOS data collection projects for a time period of 6 years. Publication of this document begins the 60-day public comment period for the Draft PEIS.