Fisheries of the Exclusive Economic Zone Off Alaska; Amendment 113 to the Fishery Management Plan for the Groundfish of the Gulf of Alaska; Central Gulf of Alaska Rockfish Program Adjustments

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 679</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 240502-0125]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0648-BM69</RIN> <SUBJECT>Fisheries of the Exclusive Economic Zone Off Alaska; Amendment 113 to the Fishery Management Plan for the Groundfish of the Gulf of Alaska; Central Gulf of Alaska Rockfish Program Adjustments</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> NMFS proposes regulations to implement amendment 113 to the Fishery Management Plan (FMP) for the Groundfish of the Gulf of Alaska (GOA). If approved, amendment 113 and this proposed rule would modify specific provisions of the Central Gulf of Alaska (CGOA) Rockfish Program (RP) to change the season start date, remove the catcher vessel (CV) cooperative holding cap, and revise the processing and harvesting caps. This action is necessary to provide increased flexibility and efficiency, and help ensure the rockfish total allowable catch (TAC) is fully harvested and landed in Kodiak while maintaining the intent of the RP. Amendment 113 is intended to promote the goals and objectives of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act), the GOA FMP, and other applicable laws. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Submit comments on or before June 10, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> A plain language summary of this proposed rule is available at <E T="03"> https://www.regulations.gov/docket/ NOAA-NMFS-2023-0149. </E> You may submit comments on this document, identified by NOAA-NMFS-2023-0149, by any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Electronic Submission:</E> Submit all electronic public comments via the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal. Visit <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and type NOAA-NMFS-2023-0149 in the Search box. Click on the “Comment” icon, complete the required fields, and enter or attach your comments. • <E T="03">Mail:</E> Submit written comments to Gretchen Harrington, Assistant Regional Administrator, Sustainable Fisheries Division, Alaska Region NMFS. Mail comments to P.O. Box 21668, Juneau, AK 99802-1668. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> 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 by NMFS. All comments received are a part of the public record and will generally be posted for public viewing on <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> without change. All personal identifying information ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> name, address, <E T="03">etc.</E> ), confidential business information, or otherwise sensitive information submitted voluntarily by the sender will be publicly accessible. NMFS will accept anonymous comments (enter “N/A” in the required fields if you wish to remain anonymous). Electronic copies of amendment 113 to the FMP, the Environmental Assessment and Regulatory Impact Review prepared for this action (the Analysis), and the Finding of No Significant Impact prepared for this action may be obtained from <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and the NMFS Alaska Region website at <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/region/alaska.</E> Written comments regarding the burden-hour estimates or other aspects of the collection-of-information requirements contained in this proposed rule may be submitted to NMFS at the above address and to <E T="03">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain.</E> Find this particular information collection by selecting “Currently under Review—Open for Public Comments” or by using the search function. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Joel Kraski, 907-586-7228, <E T="03">joel.kraski@noaa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Authority for Action</HD> NMFS manages the groundfish fishery in the exclusive economic zone in the GOA according to the FMP for Groundfish of the Gulf of Alaska prepared by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) under authority of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act). Regulations governing fishing by U.S. vessels in accordance with the FMP appear at subpart H of 50 CFR part 600 and 50 CFR part 679. A notice of availability (NOA) for amendment 113 was published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on April 4, 2024 (89 FR 23535), with comments invited through June 3, 2024. All relevant written comments received by the end of the comment period (See <E T="02">DATES</E> ), whether specifically directed to the NOA or this proposed rule, will be considered by NMFS in the approval/disapproval decision for amendment 113. Commenters do not need to submit the same comments on both the NOA and this proposed rule. Comments submitted on this proposed rule by the end of the comment period (See <E T="02">DATES</E> ) will be considered by NMFS in our decision to implement measures recommended by the Council and will be addressed in the response to comments in the final rule. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> Following is a description of the Central GOA Rockfish Program (RP) and the need for this proposed rule. <HD SOURCE="HD2">The Rockfish Program</HD> This section provides a brief overview of the RP, which is a limited access privilege program (LAPP). The Council designed the RP to meet the requirements for limited access privileges in section 303A of the Magnuson-Stevens Act. The RP was developed to enhance resource conservation and improve economic efficiency in the CGOA rockfish fisheries. A detailed description of the RP and its development is provided in the preambles to the proposed and final rules implementing the RP from 2012 through 2021 (76 FR 52147, August 19, 2011 and 76 FR 81248, December 27, 2011). Originally, the RP was developed to recognize historic participation of fishing vessels and processors. It established a set-aside for participants not eligible to participate in the Rockfish Pilot Program (RPP) and catch limits of species incidentally harvested: northern rockfish, pelagic shelf rockfish (since redefined as dusky rockfish), and Pacific ocean perch. The RP, which includes the CGOA rockfish species of Pacific ocean perch, northern rockfish, and pelagic shelf rockfish, is based on the recognition of historical participation of fishing vessels and processors in the CGOA rockfish fisheries from 1996 to 2002. The RP provides catch limits for non-rockfish species and non-target rockfish species harvested with the CGOA rockfish species, based upon historical harvest levels of these incidentally caught species; and sets aside up to 5 percent of the TAC of the CGOA rockfish fisheries for CVs that are not eligible to participate in the program. The RP apportions TAC to cooperatives formed by individuals holding a License Limitation Program (LLP) license with rockfish quota share (QS). Fishing under cooperative management resulted in a slower-paced fishery that allowed harvesters to choose when to fish and provided greater stability for processors by spreading out production over a longer period of time. The RP provides exclusive harvesting privileges for vessels using trawl gear to harvest a specific set of “rockfish primary species” and associated “rockfish secondary species” (defined at 50 CFR 679.2) incidentally harvested to the rockfish primary species in the CGOA, an area from 147° W long. to 159° W long. The rockfish primary species are northern rockfish, Pacific ocean perch, and dusky rockfish. The rockfish secondary species are Pacific cod, rougheye rockfish, shortraker rockfish, and sablefish. The RP also allocates a portion of the halibut bycatch mortality limit for the GOA trawl fisheries to RP participants. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Need for Amendment 113 and This Proposed Rule</HD> In June 2022, the Council recommended that the Secretary approve amendment 113 to the GOA FMP. Amendment 113 and this proposed rule would address changes in, and potentially resolve associated impacts to, the RP fishery since the RP was reauthorized in 2021. Cumulative changes since the start of the RP in 2012 have impacted the CGOA fisheries, resulting in difficulties harvesting and processing the CV cooperative quota (CQ), especially later in the season as processors approach the limit of their current processing cap or close for seasonal maintenance. Seasonal fishing activity is the driving force for the planning of vessels and processing staff needs. From the processors' perspective, one of the primary reasons for implementing the RP was to allow the rockfish fishery to be prosecuted prior to the start of the pink salmon fishery, which begins in July. Previous overlaps in the timing of various fisheries led to processing capacity and labor issues. Processors were unable to sustain production when overwhelmed with landings from various overlapping fisheries or were unable to expand or shrink their production-line employee pools in association with landings. The RP's early opening date allowed excess processor capacity and labor to be utilized more efficiently. Additionally, since 2021, the CGOA flatfish market prices have declined partially due to increased foreign trade tariffs levied by China, leading to a negative financial impact on Kodiak processors due to labor planning issues and lack of sustained deliveries to keep processing crews active. Given these RP processing facility issues, the Council chose to recommend measures that would provide processors increased flexibility, as described below, and allow the RP fishery to adapt to unforeseen challenges. Seven individual Kodiak ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 46k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━