Economic Research Service September 4, 2015 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council's (Council) Spiny Dogfish Monitoring Committee will hold a public meeting to develop spiny dogfish management recommendations. The Council will also host a public information meeting to gather public perspectives on spiny dogfish management.

The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council's (MAFMC's) Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Monitoring Committee will hold a public meeting.

Notice is hereby given of a virtual meeting of the U. S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS[supreg]) Advisory Committee (Committee). Dates and Times: The public meeting will be held on Tuesday September 22, 2015, from 12:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. EDT. These times and the agenda topics described below are subject to change. Refer to the Web page listed below for the most up-to-date meeting agenda.

NMFS has received an application from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (Lamont-Doherty) in collaboration with the National Science Foundation (NSF), for an Incidental Harassment Authorization (Authorization) to take marine mammals, by harassment only, incidental to conducting a marine geophysical (seismic) survey in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, mid-November through December, 2015. The proposed dates for this action would be mid-November 2015 through December 31, 2015, to account for minor deviations due to logistics and weather. Per the Marine Mammal Protection Act, we are requesting comments on our proposal to issue an Authorization to Lamont-Doherty to incidentally take, by Level B harassment, of 22 species of marine mammals during the specified activity and to incidentally take by Level A harassment, of four species of marine mammals. Although considered unlikely, any Level A harassment potentially incurred would be expected to be in the form of some smaller degree of permanent hearing loss due in part to the required monitoring measures for detecting marine mammals and required mitigation measures for power downs or shut downs of the airgun array if any animal is likely to enter the Level A exclusion zone. Neither mortality nor complete deafness of marine mammals are expected to result from this survey.