Snapper-Grouper Fishery of the South Atlantic Region; Golden Crab Fishery of the South Atlantic Region; Dolphin and Wahoo Fishery of the Atlantic; Acceptable Biological Catch Control Rules

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 622</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 231222-0315]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0648-BL98</RIN> <SUBJECT>Snapper-Grouper Fishery of the South Atlantic Region; Golden Crab Fishery of the South Atlantic Region; Dolphin and Wahoo Fishery of the Atlantic; Acceptable Biological Catch Control Rules</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> NMFS issues regulations to implement amendments to the Fishery Management Plans (FMPs) for the Snapper-Grouper Fishery, the Golden Crab Fishery, and the Dolphin and Wahoo Fishery, referenced here as the Acceptable Biological Catch (ABC) Control Rule Amendments. This final rule modifies the ABC control rules, allows the phase-in of subsequent ABC changes, allows some carry-over of an unharvested portion of the annual catch limit (ACL) to the following fishing year, and modifies the FMP framework procedures to implement carry-overs of ACLs when appropriate. NMFS also implements an administrative clarification to existing regulations for the Snapper-Grouper FMP framework procedure. The purpose of this final rule is to ensure catch level recommendations are based on the best scientific information available, prevent overfishing while achieving optimum yield, and increase flexibility in setting catch limits. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective February 2, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> An electronic copy of the ABC Control Rule Amendments, which includes an environmental assessment, a fishery impact statement, and a regulatory impact review, may be obtained from the NMFS Southeast Regional Office website at <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/action/comprehensive-acceptable-biological-catch-abc-control-rule-amendment-revisions-abc-control</E> . <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Nikhil Mehta, telephone: 727-824-5305, or email: <E T="03">nikhil.mehta@noaa.gov</E> . </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> The South Atlantic snapper-grouper and golden crab fisheries are managed under the Snapper-Grouper FMP and Golden Crab FMP, respectively. The dolphin and wahoo fishery of the Atlantic is managed under the Dolphin and Wahoo FMP. These 3 FMPs were prepared by the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Council) and are implemented by NMFS through regulations at 50 CFR part 622 under the authority of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act). The Council has developed, and NMFS has approved, the Comprehensive Acceptable Biological Catch Control Rule Amendment: Revisions to the Acceptable Biological Catch Control Rules and Specifications for Carry-Overs and Phase-Ins. The Council document is composed of Amendment 45 to the Snapper-Grouper FMP, Amendment 11 to the Golden Crab FMP, and Amendment 11 to the Dolphin and Wahoo FMP. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> The Magnuson-Stevens Act requires that NMFS and the regional fishery management councils prevent overfishing and achieve, on a continuing basis, the optimum yield from federally managed fish stocks. These mandates are intended to ensure that fishery resources are managed for the greatest overall benefit to the Nation, particularly with respect to providing food production and recreational opportunities and protecting marine ecosystems. The Council and NMFS manage snapper-grouper species and golden crab in Federal waters from North Carolina south to the Florida Keys. The Council and NMFS manage the dolphin and wahoo fishery in Federal waters from Maine south to the Florida Keys. The Magnuson-Stevens Act requires the Secretary to approve, disapprove, or partially approve fishery management plan amendments and issue regulations necessary to implement them (16 U.S.C. 1854(a)). On September 11, 2023, NMFS published a notice of availability for the ABC Control Rule Amendments and requested public comment (88 FR 62309). On October 2, 2023, NMFS published a proposed rule for the ABC Control Rule Amendments and requested public comment (88 FR 67721). NMFS approved the ABC Control Rule Amendments on December 8, 2023. The proposed rule and the ABC Control Rule Amendments detail the rationale for the actions contained in this final rule and is not all repeated here. This final rule (1) provides notice of approval of the ABC Control Rule Amendments and (2) makes minor changes to regulatory text to implement those amendments to the FMPs. A summary of the management measures described in the ABC Control Rule Amendments and implemented by this final rule is provided below. The Council's Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) will use the ABC control rules described in the ABC Control Rule Amendments and implemented by this final rule to recommend future ABC levels to the Council. The ABC control rules use uncertainty and risk ranking traits to determine the acceptable risk of overfishing. The ABC control rule is the method by which the ABC for a stock is set, ideally based on an overfishing limit (OFL) from a stock assessment but at times established using more data-limited methodologies. The acceptable risk of overfishing is denoted as P-Star (P*) and is applied through stock assessment projections to develop the SSC's ABC recommendation to the Council. In October 2016, NMFS published a final rule to revise the guidelines for National Standard 1 (NS1) of the Magnuson-Stevens Act (81 FR 71858, October 18, 2016). NS1 states that fishery conservation and management measures shall prevent overfishing while achieving, on a continuing basis, the optimum yield from each fishery for the United States fishing industry. One of the objectives of the 2016 NS1 revisions was to provide additional flexibility within current statutory limits to address fishery management issues. For example, the revised NS1 guidelines allow for changes in catch limits to be phased in over time. A similar “phase-in” provision is included in the ABC Control Rule Amendments and this final rule. The revised guidelines also allow for some of the unused portion of an ACL to be carried over from a single fishing year to the next, which is also described as “carry-over” in this final rule. The ABC Control Rule Amendments incorporate carry-over and phase-in provisions by modifying the existing ABC control rules for the Snapper-Grouper, Golden Crab, and Dolphin and Wahoo FMPs by clarifying the incorporation of scientific uncertainty and management risk, modifying the approach used to determine the acceptable risk of overfishing, and prioritizing the use of stock rebuilding plans for overfished stocks. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Management Measure Contained in This Final Rule</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Modify Framework Procedures</HD> The ABC Control Rule Amendments and this final rule will modify the framework procedures in the Snapper-Grouper, Golden Crab, and Dolphin and Wahoo FMPs to allow for the future transfer, if pre-qualifying criteria are met, of an unharvested portion of a stock, total, or sector-specific ACL to the following fishing year (details are described in the <E T="03">Allow Carry-Over of Unharvested Portion of ACLs</E> section of this final rule). The revised FMP framework procedures implemented by this final rule will allow for the potential carry-over of an ACL in future management actions. Before NMFS can implement an ACL carry-over, other preceding steps by the Council, SSC, and NMFS must occur. First, a future stock assessment must be conducted to determine if a species is eligible for carry-over and specify the appropriate catch level based on the criteria contained in the applicable ABC control rule. Then, the SSC would determine and recommend an ABC to the Council and the Council would develop an FMP amendment or framework action for the species that includes the option of ACL carry-over. If the related rulemaking was implemented by NMFS, then that species would be eligible for future carry-over through a subsequent action under the abbreviated framework procedures described in this final rule. To support potential carry-over justification, a Term of Reference will be added to each future stock assessment to project the maximum amount of landings beyond the ABC that could be carried over in 1 year while not resulting in overfishing or the stock becoming overfished within the projection period. When the Council develops a subsequent fishery management action in response to a stock assessment to specify or revise an ABC and ACL for a stock or sector, the Council will determine whether carry-over will be authorized if annual conditions cause a stock ACL or sector ACL to qualify for carry-over. In doing so, the Council will consider the potential need for, and benefits of, carry-over for a stock that could become eligible according to criteria specified in the ABC control rule. The Council will also consider the duration of time when the specified ABC and ACL are effective. An FMP amendment or framework action that specifies carry-over for a stock or sector will include analysis of the relevant biological, economic, and social information necessary to meet the criteria and guidance of the ABC control rule. Following the conclusion of each fishing year, Council staff will notify the Council if any stocks and sectors for which carry-over is approved qualify based on the previous year's landings, including preliminary landings estimates from the previous year if those landings data are not yet finalized. If a stock or sector qualifies for carry-over according to specifications of the ABC recommended by the SSC and annual landings meet criteria speci ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 39k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━