National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration April 9, 2020 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Assistant Regional Administrator for Sustainable Fisheries, Greater Atlantic Region, NMFS, has made a preliminary determination that an exempted fishing permit application submitted by the Gulf of Maine Research Institute contains all of the required information and warrants further consideration. The exempted fishing permit would allow the use of electronic monitoring and dockside monitoring to support testing a maximized retention model in the groundfish fishery. Vessels would be exempt from minimum fish sizes and groundfish sector at-sea monitoring requirements. Additionally, vessels would be authorized to access portions of Closed Area II during certain times of year, and use trawl gear below the minimum mesh size. Regulations under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act require publication of this notification to provide interested parties the opportunity to comment on applications for proposed exempted fishing permits.