[Federal Register Volume 76, Number 181 (Monday, September 19, 2011)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 57944-57945]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2011-24013]
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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
50 CFR Part 648
[Docket No. 110816505-1506-01]
RIN 0648-BB39
Fisheries of the Northeastern United States; Northeast
Multispecies Fisheries, Small-Mesh Multispecies Secretarial Amendment
AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce.
ACTION: Advance notice of proposed rulemaking; request for comments;
notice of public meetings.
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SUMMARY: NMFS is requesting public comments on its initiation of a
Secretarial Amendment to implement annual catch limits (ACLs) and
measures to ensure accountability (AMs) in the small-mesh multispecies
fishery. NMFS is initiating the Secretarial Amendment because the New
England Fishery Management Council (Council) is not able to develop and
submit Amendment 19 to establish ACLs and AMs for the small-mesh
multispecies fishery as required by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery
Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act), until well past
the statutory deadline of 2011. As required by the Magnuson-Stevens
Act, NMFS is announcing four public meetings to allow interested
parties the opportunity to provide input on the action.
DATES: Written comments regarding the issues in this advance notice of
proposed rulemaking (ANPR) must be received by 5 p.m. local time, on
October 19, 2011. Meetings to obtain additional comments on the items
discussed in this ANPR will be held on:
Monday, October 3, 2011 from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011 from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011 from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011 from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.
ADDRESSES: The meetings will be held in:
East Setauket, NY.
Toms River, NJ.
Gloucester, MA.
Narragansett, RI.
For specific locations, see SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION. You may also
submit comments on this document, identified by NOAA-NMFS-2011-0206, by
any of the following methods:
Electronic Submission: Submit all electronic public
comments via the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal http://www.regulations.gov. To submit comments via the e-Rulemaking Portal,
first click the ``Submit a Comment'' icon, then enter NOAA-NMFS-2011-
0206 in the keyword search. Locate the document you wish to comment on
from the resulting list and click on the ``Submit a Comment'' icon on
the right of that line.
Mail: Submit written comments to Patricia A. Kurkul,
Regional Administrator, NMFS, Northeast Regional Office, 55 Great
Republic Drive, Gloucester, MA 01930. Mark the outside of the envelope,
``Comments on Whiting Secretarial.''
Fax: 978-281-9135; Attn: Moira Kelly.
Instructions: Comments must be submitted by one of the above
methods to ensure that the comments are received, documented, and
considered by NMFS. Comments sent by any other method, to any other
address or individual, or received after the end of the comment period,
may not be considered. All comments received are a part of the public
record and will generally be posted for public viewing on http://www.regulations.gov without change. All personal identifying
information (e.g., name, address, etc.) submitted voluntarily by the
sender will be publicly accessible. Do not submit confidential business
information, or otherwise sensitive or protected information. NMFS will
accept anonymous comments (enter ``N/A'' in the required fields if you
wish to remain anonymous). Attachments to electronic comments will be
accepted in Microsoft Word or Excel, WordPerfect, or Adobe PDF file
formats only.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Moira Kelly, Fishery Policy Analyst,
(978) 281-9218, [email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Under the Magnuson-Stevens Act at Sec.
304(c)(1)(A), the Secretary of Commerce may develop an amendment for a
council-managed fishery, if the responsible council ``fails to develop
and submit to the Secretary, after a reasonable period of time, a [* *
*] necessary amendment * * *'' The Magnuson-Stevens Act requires all
[[Page 57945]]
managed fisheries to have ACLs and AMs by 2011. The Council is
developing, but has not yet completed, Amendment 19 to the Northeast
Multispecies Fishery Management Plan, which would establish ACLs and
AMs for the small-mesh multispecies fishery, and does not anticipate
Amendment 19 to be submitted to NMFS until May 2012, which means it
will not be effective until October 2012. The small-mesh multispecies
fishery consists of silver hake, red hake, and offshore hake, often
collectively known as ``whiting.'' There are two stocks each of silver
and red hake (northern and southern) and one stock of offshore hake.
The Council has not completed Amendment 19 for a number of reasons,
including postponing work on the amendment until after the November
2010 stock assessment review for the three small-mesh species. However,
the Council is expected to set the acceptable biological catch (ABC)
limits based on recommendations from its Scientific and Statistical
Committee (SSC), at its September 2011 meeting. The SSC has recommended
separate ABCs by stock or stock group: Northern red hake, southern red
hake, northern silver hake, and a combined southern ``whiting'' ABC for
the southern stock of silver hake and offshore hake. The Whiting
Advisory Panel (AP) and the Oversight Committee will be recommending
management alternatives at the Council's September meeting as well.
NMFS intends to use the Council's ABC and a subset of the Advisory
Panel and Committee's recommendations in the Secretarial Amendment.
After the public hearings are completed, NMFS will make a decision
regarding the management measures to include in the Secretarial
Amendment and will publish a proposed rule and a notice of availability
for the amendment. After the 60-day proposed rule/notice of
availability comment period, NMFS will publish a final rule. The final
rule will remain in effect until the Council's Amendment 19, if
approved, is implemented.
Public Comments
To help determine the scope of issues to be addressed and to
identify significant issues related to this action, NMFS is soliciting
written comments on this ANPR and will hold public meetings in four
locations. All of the public meetings will take place from 4 p.m. to 7
p.m., at the locations listed below. The public is encouraged to submit
comments related to the specific ideas mentioned in this ANPR. All
written comments received by the due date will be considered in
drafting the proposed rule.
Monday, October 3, 2011, from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., at the New
York Department of Environmental Conservation Marine Resources
Headquarters, 205 Belle Mead Road, Suite 1, East Setauket, NY.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011, from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., at the
Ocean County Administration Building, Room 119, 101 Hooper Avenue, Toms
River, NJ.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011, from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., at the
Northeast Regional Office, 55 Great Republic Drive, Gloucester, MA.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011, from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., at
Narragansett Town Hall, 25 Fifth Avenue, Narragansett, RI.
Issues Under Consideration
Based on information from prior Whiting Advisory Panel and
Oversight Committee meetings, NMFS is considering several options for
the Secretarial Amendment. NMFS will seek public comment on the scope
of this ANPR and requests public input on the following options. For
each option, NMFS will propose setting an ACL for the same four stocks
or stock groups as the SSC's recommendations. Annual catch targets
(ACTs) would be used to account for management uncertainty, and would
be set at a proportion of the ACL (75 percent, for example). Discards
would be deducted from the ACT to establish the total allowable
landings (TAL). The differences among the options would be the
allocation of the TALs.
1. ACLs, ACTs, TALs by stock: This option would establish ACLs,
ACTs, and TALs for each of the four stocks or stock grouping for which
the Council's SSC set an ABC. The Whiting AP recently recommended this
approach for the southern TALs (southern red hake and the southern
combined whiting TAL), but not for the northern TALs (northern red hake
and northern silver hake).
2. Northern TALs subdivided by area according to historic landings
proportion: The Whiting AP suggested this approach at a recent meeting.
The ACLs, ACTs, and TALs would be set as in Option 1, but the northern
area TALs would be further subdivided into three TALs: Cultivator Shoal
Exemption Area TAL, Other Exemption Areas TAL, and an incidental TAL.
The ``Other Exemption Areas'' would consist of the Gulf of Maine Grate
Raised Footrope Trawl Area, Small Mesh Areas I and II, and the Raised
Footrope Trawl Areas near Cape Cod. The allocation would be made by
historic landing proportion so that each area is given the opportunity
to land proportionally the same amount of the overall catch limit as it
has in recent years. The AP recommended using fishing years 2004-2010
to determine the appropriate proportions.
3. TALs subdivided equally by exemption area: The ACLs, ACTs, and
TALs would be set as in Option 2, but the northern area TALs would be
further subdivided by equally across the three areas.
4. AMs: NMFS is considering a combination of ``proactive'' and
``reactive'' accountability measures. The proactive AMs would be the
use of ACTs and in-season closure authority when a TAL is projected to
be reached. The reactive AM would be ACL and TAL specific pound-for-
pound pay back of any overage above the catch limit or target.
5. NMFS is suggesting that no other management measures be
introduced or modified through the Secretarial Amendment, in order to
keep the measures as simple as possible while meeting the action's
objectives.
Special Accommodations
The public meeting will be accessible to people with physical
disabilities. Request for sign language interpretation or other
auxiliary aids should be directed to Debra Lambert (301-713-2341), at
least 7 days prior to the meeting.
Authority: 16 U.S.C. 1801 et seq.
Dated: September 13, 2011.
Samuel D. Rauch, III,
Deputy Assistant Administrator for Regulatory Programs, National Marine
Fisheries Service.
[FR Doc. 2011-24013 Filed 9-16-11; 8:45 am]
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