National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration December 22, 2017 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

NMFS is transferring 14.3 metric tons (mt) of Atlantic bluefin tuna (BFT) quota from the 24.3-mt General category December 2018 subquota to the January 2018 subquota period (from January 1 through March 31, 2018, or until the available subquota for this period is reached, whichever comes first). This action is based on consideration of the regulatory determination criteria regarding inseason adjustments and applies to Atlantic tunas General category (commercial) permitted vessels and Highly Migratory Species (HMS) Charter/Headboat category permitted vessels with a commercial sale endorsement when fishing commercially for BFT.

NMFS issues revised scup specifications for the 2018 fishing year and projected specifications for 2019. Additionally, this action implements a summer flounder accountability measure for 2018. These actions are necessary to comply with regulations implementing the Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Fishery Management Plan, and to ensure compliance with the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. This rule is intended to revise the 2018 scup catch limits based on updated scientific information to afford more opportunity to obtain optimum yield, update the summer flounder catch limits to account for previous overages, finalize the 2018 black sea bass specifications, and inform the public of projected scup specifications for the 2019 fishing year.