National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration July 30, 2012 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

On June 28, 2011, NMFS published a proposed rule that considered requiring, among other things, Federal Atlantic swordfish, shark, and tunas dealers (except for dealers reporting Atlantic bluefin tuna) to report commercially-harvested Atlantic sharks, swordfish, and bigeye, albacore, yellowfin, and skipjack (BAYS) tunas through one centralized electronic reporting system. This electronic reporting system will allow dealers to submit Atlantic sharks, swordfish, and BAYS tuna data on a more real-time basis and more efficiently, which will reduce duplicative data submissions from different regions. We proposed to delay the effective date of the electronic reporting requirements until 2013 in order to give sufficient time for dealers to adjust to implementation of the new system and the additional requirements. On June 29, 2012, we announced the date and location for nine upcoming workshops in the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, and Atlantic area to introduce the new reporting system to Highly Migratory Species (HMS) dealers. In this notice, we announce the date and location for an additional training workshop in the Caribbean.

NMFS proposes regulations to implement a second fishing capacity reduction program (also commonly known as ``buyback'') and an industry fee system to repay a $2.7 million loan for a single latent permit within the Longline Catcher Processor Subsector of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands (BSAI) non-pollock groundfish fishery (Reduction Fishery). The purpose of this action is to permanently reduce the greatest amount of fishing capacity at the least cost. This should result in increased harvesting productivity for the permit holders remaining in the fishery. The loan for this program will be added to the previous program loan of $35,700,000 authorized by the FY 2005 Appropriations Act (the Appropriations Act). For purposes of this regulation, the terms license and permit are used interchangeably.