Fisheries of the Northeastern United States; Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Cooperative Management Act Provisions; American Lobster Fishery; Removal of American Lobster Effort Control Measures

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 697</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 240520-0141]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0648-BM92</RIN> <SUBJECT>Fisheries of the Northeastern United States; Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Cooperative Management Act Provisions; American Lobster Fishery; Removal of American Lobster Effort Control Measures</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> Following the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission's (Commission) withdrawal of Lobster Conservation Management Area 2 and 3 ownership caps and Area 3 maximum trap cap reductions from its Interstate Fishery Management Plan for American Lobster (Lobster Plan), this action removes those requirements from Federal regulations and clarifies that all other measures included in the October 2, 2023, interim final rule (IFR) remain in effect. This action is intended to support the Commission's management of the lobster fishery and eliminate the potential for inconsistent State and Federal regulations that risk undermining management of the fishery and is necessary to ensure that fishery regulations for the lobster fishery in Federal waters remain compatible with the Lobster Plan and consistent with the Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Cooperative Management Act (Atlantic Coastal Act). </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> As of July 1, 2024, the revision to § 697.19(c) and (m) in amendatory instruction 6 of the IFR, 88 FR 67667, 67687-67679 (October 2, 2023), is withdrawn. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may request copies of the supplemental information report prepared for this action at: National Marine Fisheries Service, 55 Great Republic Drive, Gloucester, MA 01930-2276 or by calling (978) 281-9315. The supporting document is also accessible via the internet at: <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/about/greater-atlantic-regional-fisheries-office</E> or <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Allison Murphy, Fishery Policy Analyst, (978) 281-9122. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Statutory Authority</HD> These regulations modify Federal lobster fishery management measures in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) under the authority of section 803(b) of the Atlantic Coastal Act. This authority states that, in the absence of an approved and implemented Fishery Management Plan under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act; 16 U.S.C. 1801 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) and, after consultation with the appropriate fishery management council(s), the Secretary of Commerce may implement regulations to govern fishing in the EEZ, from 3 to 200 nautical miles offshore. The regulations must be: (1) compatible with the effective implementation of an Interstate Fishery Management Plan developed by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission; and (2) consistent with the National Standards set forth in section 301 of the Magnuson-Stevens Act. See 16 U.S.C. 5103(b)(1)(A) (establishing Secretary's authority to issue Federal regulations that are compatible with a coastal management plan and consistent with Magnuson-Stevens Act National Standards), 16 U.S.C. 1502(1) (defining “coastal management plan”). <HD SOURCE="HD2">Purpose and Need for Management</HD> The purpose of this action is to manage the American lobster fishery to maximize resource sustainability, recognizing that Federal management occurs in concert with State management and compatibility between State and Federal measures is crucial to the overall success of American lobster management and required by the Atlantic Coastal Act. NMFS indicated that the agency could make changes to the IFR measures and requested comment on that possibility in the IFR, see 88 FR at 67669; see also 87 FR 41084 (July 11, 2022) (proposed rule requesting comments on measures ultimately included in the IFR); 82 FR 52871 (November 15, 2017) (advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPR) requesting comments on change to control date for trap limits in Areas 2 and 3); 79 FR 4319 (January 27, 2014) (ANPR establishing control date and requesting comments). In light of public comments received and to achieve the purpose of the Atlantic Coastal Act, we are withdrawing the Area 2 and 3 ownership caps and Area 3 maximum trap cap reductions that we implemented in the IFR. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Management Measures</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Area 2 and 3 Measures</HD> The IFR implemented ownership caps in Areas 2 and 3 and maximum trap cap reductions in Area 3, effective May 1, 2025. These measures complemented the Commission's Addenda XXI and XXII to Amendment 3 to the Lobster Plan, both of which were approved by the Commission in 2013. The objective of these addenda was to scale the southern New England lobster fishery to the diminished size of the resource by addressing latent effort in the fishery and reducing trap limits in an attempt to control harvest to allow for potential stock rebuilding. A full description of those measures is included in the IFR and not repeated here. During the proposed rule (87 FR 41084, July 11, 2022) comment period, we received several comments stating that our management partners and industry needed additional time to understand these measures, consider them in the current context of the fishery, and provide adequate comment. We delayed implementation of the measures until May 1, 2025, while we accepted additional public comments on these measures as provided in the IFR, which indicated that we would consider any additional comments received and would, if necessary and appropriate, publish a subsequent rule to address any changes. See 88 FR at 67669. On January 23, 2024, the Commission's Lobster Board withdrew its prior recommendation for implementation of Area 2 and 3 ownership caps and Area 3 maximum trap cap reductions, determining that these measures are no longer relevant in the current context of the fishery. On February 12, 2024, the Commission confirmed the decision of the Lobster Board in a letter to NMFS, citing numerous ways in which the fishery in these Areas has changed. The Commission noted that while the Addenda that originally called for the Area 2 and 3 measures attempted to prevent consolidation, the lag time between Commission approval and NMFS implementation has allowed for consolidation to occur, removing the need for these specific measures. In addition, the Commission expressed concern that the implementation of these measures would change how permits and traps will be bought and sold. The Commission also explained the economics of the fishery in these areas and changing operational needs of harvesters to maintain their businesses, citing increased costs, loss of fishing grounds due to other ocean uses, additional management measures on the American lobster fishery to reduce the risk to North Atlantic right whales posed by the fishery, and the evolution of the fishery in these areas from a lobster fishery to a mixed-crustacean fishery targeting both lobsters and Jonah crabs. The Atlantic Coastal Act provides that the Secretary “may implement regulations” affecting fisheries also regulated by the Commission if no fishery management plan exists pursuant to the Magnuson-Stevens Act and the regulations are “compatible with the effective implementation of a coastal fishery management plan.” 16 U.S.C. 5103(b)(1)(A). Removing the Area 2 and 3 measures ensures that Federal regulations continue to complement the Commission's Lobster Plan. Further, this action will minimize confusion between State and Federal requirements. If we do not remove these Area 2 and 3 measures, there would be inconsistent State and Federal lobster regulations, potentially undermining management of the fishery. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Other Management Measures</HD> The IFR also implemented mandatory electronic harvester reporting requirements and corrections. This final rule makes no changes to those measures, which have already become effective. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments and Responses</HD> As noted above, the IFR delayed implementation of certain measures and solicited public comment on them. The comment period ended on December 1, 2023. We received comments from 10 groups: The Atlantic Offshore Lobstermen's Association (AOLA), the Animal Welfare Institute, a group of environmental organizations, 6 members of the fishing industry, and 1 member of the public. Only comments that were applicable to the proposed measures are addressed below. <E T="03">Comment 1:</E> AOLA stated that the Area 3 maximum trap reductions are inconsistent with the National Standards and are purely an economic reallocation, which is specifically prohibited; that the analysis in the environmental assessment did not rely on the best available science; and that the economic analysis was insufficient because it did not discuss impacts to crew, communities, shoreside employees, and owners. <E T="03">Response:</E> The commenter's assertions are the same arguments made in <E T="03">AOLA</E> v. <E T="03">Raimondo,</E> an active lawsuit in the Federal Court for the District of New Hampshire. When developed, the IFR measures reflected the best scientific information available and appropriate consideration of economic and social impacts and was supported by the regulated community, including AOLA. However, NOAA is withdrawing the relevant measures because of changed circumstances in the fishery as articulated by the public and the Commission and because the maintaining the measures would create incompatibili ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 30k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━