National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration July 2016 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

NMFS is closing the U.S. pelagic longline fishery for bigeye tuna in the western and central Pacific Ocean because the fishery has reached the 2016 catch limit. This action is necessary to ensure compliance with NMFS regulations that implement decisions of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC).

The Science Advisory Board (SAB) was established by a Decision Memorandum dated September 25, 1997, and is the only Federal Advisory Committee with responsibility to advise the Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere on strategies for research, education, and application of science to operations and information services. SAB activities and advice provide necessary input to ensure that National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) science programs are of the highest quality and provide optimal support to resource management. Time and Date: The meeting will be held Tuesday August 2 from 9:15 a.m. CDT to 5:30 p.m. CDT and on Wednesday August 3 from 8:15 a.m. CDT to 1:30 p.m. CDT. These times and the agenda topics described below are subject to change. Please refer to the Web page https:// www.sab.noaa.gov/Meetings/meetings.html for the most up-to-date meeting times and agenda. Place: The meeting will be held at the Bryant Conference Center, 240 Paul W. Bryant Dr., Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Please check the SAB Web site https://www.sab.noaa.gov/Meetings/meetings.html for directions to the meeting location. Status: The meeting will be open to public participation with a 15- minute public comment period on August 2 from 12:30-12:45 p.m. CDT (check Web site to confirm time). The SAB expects that public statements presented at its meetings will not be repetitive of previously submitted verbal or written statements. In general, each individual or group making a verbal presentation will be limited to a total time of two (2) minutes. Individuals or groups planning to make a verbal presentation should contact the SAB Acting Executive Director by July 26, 2016 to schedule their presentation. Written comments should be received in the SAB Executive Director's Office by July 26, 2016, to provide sufficient time for SAB review. Written comments received by the SAB Executive Director after July 26, 2016, will be distributed to the SAB, but may not be reviewed prior to the meeting date. Seating at the meeting will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. Special Accommodations: These meetings are physically accessible to people with disabilities. Requests for special accommodations may be directed no later than 12:00 p.m. on July 26, 2016, to Dr. Cynthia Decker, SAB Executive Director, SSMC3, Room 11230, 1315 East-West Highway, Silver Spring, MD 20910; Email: Cynthia.Decker@noaa.gov. Matters To Be Considered: The meeting will include the following topics: (1) Report on Arctic Research Review from the Ecosystem Sciences and Management Working Group; (2) Updates from the NOAA Administrator and Chief Scientist; (3) NOAA Response to the SAB GOES-R Level 0 Data report; (4) SAB Strategy Discussion and Implications for NOAA; (5) Discussion of SAB Issue Papers; and (6) Discussion of Working Group and SAB Concepts of Operations.

NMFS publishes notification of a 1.60 percent fee for cost recovery under the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Crab Rationalization Program. This action is intended to provide holders of crab allocations with the fee percentage for the 2016/2017 crab fishing year so they can calculate the required payment for cost recovery fees that must be submitted by July 31, 2017.

The Assistant Regional Administrator for Sustainable Fisheries, Greater Atlantic Region, NMFS, has made a preliminary determination that an Exempted Fishing Permit application from the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries contains all of the required information and warrants further consideration. This Exempted Fishing Permit would allow a commercial fishing vessel to retain approximately 600 sublegal-sized male, and egg-bearing, v-notched, and sublegal-sized female lobsters during normal fishing operations in Lobster Management Area 2 for use in reproductive laboratory research being conducted by Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries. Regulations under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act and the Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Cooperative Management Act require publication of this notification to provide interested parties the opportunity to comment on applications for proposed Exempted Fishing Permits.

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.

The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council's (Council) Law Enforcement Advisory Panel and Law Enforcement Committee will meet jointly to address issues pertaining to enforcement of fisheries regulations in the South Atlantic Region.

NMFS is adjusting the commercial aggregated large coastal shark (LCS) and hammerhead shark management group retention limit for directed shark limited access permit holders in the Atlantic region from 3 LCS other than sandbar sharks per vessel per trip to 45 LCS other than sandbar sharks per vessel per trip. This action is based on consideration of the regulatory determination criteria regarding inseason adjustments. The retention limit will remain at 45 LCS other than sandbar sharks per vessel per trip in the Atlantic region through the rest of the 2016 fishing season or until NMFS announces via a notice in the Federal Register another adjustment to the retention limit or a fishery closure. This retention limit adjustment affects anyone with a directed shark limited access permit fishing for LCS in the Atlantic region.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council's (Pacific Council's) Coastal Pelagic Species Management Team (CPSMT) will meet via webinar to discuss potential management options for the northern anchovy. The meeting is open to the public.

NMFS (hereinafter, ``we'' or ``our'') received an application from the U.S. Department of the Air Force, 86 Fighter Weapons Squadron (86 FWS), requesting an Incidental Harassment Authorization (IHA) to take marine mammals, by harassment, incidental to a Long Range Strike Weapon Systems Evaluation Program (LRS WSEP) in the Barking Sands Underwater Range Extension (BSURE) area of the Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) at Kauai, Hawaii. 86 FWS's activities are military readiness activities per the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), as amended by the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2004. Pursuant to the MMPA, NMFS requests comments on its proposal to issue an IHA to 86 FWS to incidentally take, by Level A and Level B harassment, two species of marine mammals, the dwarf sperm whale (Kogia sima) and pygmy sperm whale (Kogia breviceps) during the specified activity.

NMFS announces approval of an application for a Letter of Authorization (LOA) from the states of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho for lethal removal of individually identifiable predatory California sea lions (Zalophus californianus) in the vicinity of Bonneville Dam to minimize pinniped predation on Pacific salmon and steelhead (Oncorhynchus spp.) listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in the Columbia River in Washington and Oregon. This authorization is pursuant to the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA). NMFS also announces availability of decision documents and other information relied upon in making this determination.

NMFS announces that the Mid-Atlantic Scallop Access Area will close to Limited Access General Category Individual Fishing Quota scallop vessels for the remainder of the 2016 fishing year as of the effective date below. After the effective date, no vessel issued a Limited Access General Category Individual Fishing Quota permit may fish for, possess, or land scallops from the Mid-Atlantic Scallop Access Area. Regulations require this action once it is projected that 100 percent of trips allocated to the Limited Access General Category Individual Fishing Quota scallop vessels for the Mid-Atlantic Scallop Access Area will be taken.

The Federal and state natural resource trustees for the Alabama Trustee Implementation Group for the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill (Alabama TIG) intend to prepare an EIS under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to evaluate the environmental consequences of a range of restoration projects that the Alabama TIG will propose in an RP developed pursuant to the Oil Pollution Act (OPA) to compensate the public for lost recreational use opportunities in Alabama caused by the DWH oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Restoration planning to compensate the public for lost recreational opportunities in Alabama is expected to be phased. This initial restoration planning activity will occur during the 2016 planning year. This restoration planning activity is occurring, in part, in accordance with the February 16, 2016, decision in Gulf Restoration Network v. Jewell, Case 1:15-cv-00191-CB-C (S.D. Ala.), in which the court enjoined the use of $58.5 million in DWH early restoration funds pending additional analysis under NEPA and OPA. This restoration planning activity fulfills the Federal and state natural resources trustees' responsibilities under this court order while looking more broadly at the potential to provide restoration for lost recreational use within Alabama. Accordingly, this initial recreational use restoration planning activity may develop restoration projects to compensate for the full remaining allocated amount of Alabama's recreational use injury caused by the DWH oil spill (approximately $83.5 million), or for some portion thereof. This restoration planning activity is proceeding in accordance with the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: Final Programmatic Damage Assessment and Restoration Plan (PDARP) and Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS). Information on the Restoration Type: Provide and Enhance Recreational Opportunities, as well as the OPA criteria against which project ideas are being evaluated, can be found in the PDARP/PEIS (https://www.gulfspillrestoration.noaa.gov/2016/04/trustees- settle-with-bp-for-natural-resource-injuries-to-the-gulf-of-m exico/) and in the Overview of the PDARP/PEIS (https:// www.gulfspillrestoration.noaa.gov/2016/04/trustees-settle-wit h-bp-for- natural-resource-injuries-to-the-gulf-of-mexico/). The Alabama TIG would like to hear your project ideas for addressing lost recreational use in Alabama and encourages you to submit restoration project ideas in response to this notice (see ADDRESSES for instructions). If you have submitted project ideas in the past, we will consider those projects along with additional ideas submitted at this time. The Trustees also seek public involvement in the scoping process and development of the recreational use RP/EIS. This notice explains the scoping process the Alabama TIG will use to gather input from the public. In addition to restoration project ideas, the Alabama TIG invites public comments regarding the scope, content, and any significant issues it should consider in the RP/EIS. Comments may be submitted at any time during the 30-day public scoping period via mail or the internet.

In accordance with the regulations implementing the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) as amended, notification is hereby given that we have issued an incidental harassment authorization (IHA) to The San Francisco Bay Area Water Emergency Transportation Authority (WETA) to incidentally harass marine mammals during construction activities associated with the San Francisco Ferry Terminal, South Basin Improvements project in San Francisco, CA.

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

Notice is hereby given that seven permits and one permit modification have been issued permits to take green (Chelonia mydas), hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata), Kemp's ridley (Lepidochelys kempii), leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea), loggerhead (Caretta caretta) and/or olive ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea) sea turtles for purposes of scientific research. See SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION for additional information regarding permittees.

The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Council) will hold a webinar-based meeting with its for-hire advisory panel members and the public to gather input regarding an upcoming Council Omnibus Framework action that could require electronic reporting of for-hire Vessel Trip Reports (VTRs) starting January 1, 2017 for all Council- managed fisheries that require for-hire VTR reporting.

NMFS has evaluated three Resource Management Plans (RMPs) submitted to NMFS pursuant to the limitation on take prohibitions for actions conducted under Limit 6 of the 4(d) Rule for salmon and steelhead promulgated under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The RMPs specify the propagation of three species of salmon in the Dungeness River watershed of Washington State. This document serves to notify the public that NMFS, by delegated authority from the Secretary of Commerce, has determined pursuant to Limit 6 of the ESA 4(d) Rule for salmon and steelhead that implementing and enforcing the plans will not appreciably reduce the likelihood of survival and recovery of the Puget Sound Chinook salmon and Puget Sound steelhead.