Magnuson-Stevens Act Provisions; Fisheries of the Northeastern United States; Northeast Multispecies Fishery; Allocation of 2024 Northeast Multispecies Annual Catch Entitlements

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 648</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 240401-0094; RTID 0648-XD513]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Magnuson-Stevens Act Provisions; Fisheries of the Northeastern United States; Northeast Multispecies Fishery; Allocation of 2024 Northeast Multispecies Annual Catch Entitlements</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> This final rule allocates Northeast multispecies annual catch entitlements to approved groundfish sectors and permit banks for fishing year 2024 based on 2024 annual catch limits set in Framework Adjustment 65 to the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan or default specifications. This action is intended to allow limited access permit holders to continue to operate sectors, as authorized under the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Northeast multispecies annual catch entitlements for sectors are effective May 1, 2024, through April 30, 2025. Default catch limits are effective May 1, 2024, through October 31, 2024, or until the final rule for Framework Adjustment (Framework) 66 is implemented, if that final rule is implemented prior to October 31, 2024. If Framework 66 is not implemented on or before October 31, 2024, sectors would be prohibited from fishing in the stock areas of stocks with expired default specifications beginning November 1, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Copies of each sector's operations plan and contracts from fishing years 2023-2024; the Sector Operations Plan, Contract, and Environmental Assessment Requirements guidance document for fishing years 2023-2024, as well as the programmatic environmental assessment for sector operations in fishing years 2015 to 2020 and a supplemental information report analyzing sector operations for fishing years 2023 and 2024; and other supporting documents are available from the NMFS Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office (GARFO). Copies of supporting documents are available from: Claire Fitz-Gerald at <E T="03">Claire.Fitz-Gerald@noaa.gov.</E> These documents are also accessible via the GARFO website. These documents and the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> documents referenced in this rule are also accessible via the internet at: <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/management-plan/northeast-multispecies-management-plan.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Claire Fitz-Gerald, Fishery Policy Analyst, (978) 281-9255. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> The Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan (FMP) defines a sector as “a group of persons holding limited access Northeast multispecies permits who have voluntarily entered into a contract and agree to certain fishing restrictions for a specified period of time, and which has been granted a [total allowable catch] TAC(s) [ <E T="03">sic</E> ] in order to achieve objectives consistent with applicable FMP goals and objectives.” (50 CFR 648.2 “Sector”) A sector must be comprised of at least three Northeast multispecies permits issued to at least three different persons, none of whom have any common ownership interest in the permits, vessels, or businesses associated with the permits issued to the other two or more persons in that sector. As long as at least three persons issued a Northeast multispecies permit meet these requirements, permit owners may have common ownership interests in other permits, vessels, or businesses associated with such permits. Sectors are self-selecting, meaning participation is voluntary, and each sector can choose its members. The Northeast multispecies sector management system includes an annual allocation of available catch for a portion of the Northeast multispecies stocks to each approved sector. These annual sector allocations are known as annual catch entitlements (ACE) and are based on the collective fishing history of the permits held by a sector's members. Sectors may receive allocations of large-mesh Northeast multispecies stocks with the exception of Atlantic halibut, windowpane flounder, Atlantic wolffish, and ocean pout, which are non-allocated species managed under separate effort controls. ACEs are portions of a stock's annual catch limit (ACL) available to commercial Northeast multispecies vessels. A sector determines how to harvest its ACE. Because sectors elect to receive an allocation under a quota-based system, the FMP grants sector vessels several universal exemptions from the FMP's effort controls. These universal exemptions apply to: Trip limits on allocated stocks; portions of the Gulf of Maine (GOM) Cod Protection Closures; Northeast multispecies days-at-sea (DAS) restrictions; the requirement to use a 6.5-inch (16.5-centimeter (cm)) mesh codend when fishing with selective gear on Georges Bank (GB); and the minimum codend mesh size restrictions for trawl gear when fishing in compliance with the provisions of the Redfish Exemption Program. The FMP allows the Council to add universal exemptions using the framework adjustment procedure. Sectors may request additional exemptions annually as part of their sector operations plans to increase flexibility and fishing opportunities. The FMP prohibits sectors from requesting exemptions from permitting restrictions, gear restrictions designed to minimize habitat impacts, and most reporting requirements. In addition to the sectors, there are several state-operated permit banks that each receive an allocation based on the fishing history of permits they hold. The final rule implementing Amendment 17 to the FMP (77 FR 16942; March 23, 2012) allowed a state-operated permit bank to receive an allocation without needing to comply with sector administrative and procedural requirements. Instead, permit banks are required to submit a list of permits to NMFS, as specified in the permit bank's Memorandum of Agreement between NMFS and the state, to determine the ACE allocated to the permit bank. These allocations may be leased to fishermen enrolled in sectors. State-operated permit banks are no longer approved through the sector approval process, but current state-operated permit banks contribute to the total allocation under the sector system. NMFS previously approved 15 sectors to operate in fishing years 2023 and 2024, and also approved 18 requested exemptions for sectors (88 FR 26502; May 1, 2023). Copies of the operations plans and contracts from fishing years 2023-2024, the Sector Operations Plan, Contract, and the Environmental Assessment Requirements guidance document for fishing years 2023-2024, the programmatic environmental assessment (PEA), and other supporting documents are available at: <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/species/northeast-multispecies</E> and from NMFS (see <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> ). NMFS previously prepared a supplemental information report analyzing sector operations for fishing years 2023 and 2024, which determined that the potential impacts to the fishery from the measures described above fall within the scope of the PEA developed in support of sector operations for fishing years 2015 through 2020. This report is available at <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/new-england-mid-atlantic/commercial-fishing/fishing-year-2023-sectors</E> and from NMFS (see <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> ). This final rule allocates 2024 ACE to the approved sectors and permit banks based on preliminary fishing year 2024 rosters and the fishing year 2024 catch limits set in Framework 65 (88 FR 56527; August 18, 2023) to the FMP or default specifications. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Operations Plan Submissions and Changes</HD> Annually, NMFS solicits operations plan submissions for consideration and approval. Prior to the 2023 fishing year, NMFS received 15 sector operations plans, all of which were approved for fishing years 2023 and 2024 (88 FR 26502; May 1, 2023). These approved sectors are not required to resubmit operations plans for 2024. NMFS did not receive any new operations plans for approval for fishing year 2024. In addition, sectors may request changes to approved operations plans as needed to implement changes to their operations. NMFS did not receive any submissions for substantive changes to approved operations plans for fishing year 2024. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Catch Limits for Fishing Year 2024</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Previously Established Catch Limits</HD> Last year, Framework 65 (88 FR 56527; August 18, 2023) set catch limits for 16 groundfish stocks: GB haddock, GOM haddock, Southern New England/Mid-Atlantic (SNE/MA) yellowtail flounder, Cape Cod (CC)/GOM yellowtail flounder, American plaice, witch flounder, GB winter flounder, GOM winter flounder, SNE/MA winter flounder, pollock, ocean pout, Atlantic halibut, and Atlantic wolffish for fishing years 2023-2025; GB cod and GB yellowtail flounder for fishing years 2023-2024; and white hake for fishing year 2023. Framework 66 will set catch limits for 8 groundfish stocks: Acadian redfish, northern windowpane flounder, and southern windowpane flounder for fishing years 2024-2026; and GB cod, GB haddock, GOM haddock, GB yellowtail flounder, and white hake for fishing years 2024-2025. However, Framework 66 may not be in place by May 1, 2024, the start of the fishing year. To prevent disruption to the groundfish fishery while Framework 66 is finalized, this final rule announces default catch limits that will be in effect for Acadian redfish, northern windowpane flounder, southern windowpane flounder, and white hake until October 31, 2024, or until Framework 66 is finalized and goes into effec ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 30k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━