National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration January 24, 2023 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

In accordance with the regulations implementing the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), as amended, notification is hereby given that NMFS has issued a renewal IHA to Carnival Corporation & GHD (Carnival) to harass marine mammals incidental to pile driving for the Long Beach Cruise Terminal improvement project at the Port of Long Beach, California.

The NMFS will convene a peer-review of the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) Atlantis ecosystem model, in support of ecosystem-based fishery management in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) large marine ecosystem. The purpose of the meeting is to facilitate a formal peer-review of the GOM Atlantis ecosystem model, to evaluate the model performance characteristics and to identify any appropriate EBFM applications in the southeast region that the GOM Atlantis model could be used to simulate. The external and independent peer review will be conducted by the Center for Independent Experts (CIE), which is a NOAA-supported, formal scientific peer-review process for evaluating scientific information to ensure quality and credibility. The public is invited to attend the presentations and discussions between the CIE review panel and the scientists who have participated in the development and internal, peer-review of the GOM Atlantis model.

NMFS announces the approval of Amendment 14 to the 2006 Consolidated Atlantic Highly Migratory Species (HMS) Fishery Management Plan (FMP). Amendment 14 revises the mechanism or ``framework'' used in establishing quotas and related management measures for Atlantic shark fisheries. The revised framework will modify the procedures followed in establishing the acceptable biological catch (ABC) and annual catch limits (ACLs) for Atlantic sharks and the process used to account for carryover or underharvests of quotas. It will also allow the option to phase-in ABC control rules and to adopt multi-year overfishing status determination criteria in some circumstances. Amendment 14 does not make changes to the current quotas or other management measures. Any operational changes to fishery management measures as a result of Amendment 14 would be considered in future rulemakings, as appropriate.

The SEDAR 76 assessment of the South Atlantic stock of Black Sea Bass will consist of a series of assessment webinars. See SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Notice is hereby given that Douglas Nowacek, Ph.D., Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University Marine Laboratory, 135 Duke Marine Lab Rd., Beaufort, NC 28516, has applied for an amendment to Scientific Research Permit No. 22156-02.